Category Archive for: ‘Issue 7 – First Release’

“Grierson” is a name to conjure with – no need, for any reader with pretensions to knowing anything about film, to even add a first name. The outlines of his life-story are equally well-known: born in Scotland in 1898, visited USA 1924-27 where his interest in the educational potential of film was aroused, returned to England to become Films Officer …

Uploaded 1 July 1999 Documentary film has always been a contested space: arguments persist about whether it is possible to define “documentary”, and whether any attempt at definition should be couched in aesthetic/epistemological terms (what documentary is) or in functional/social terms (what documentary does). [1] The epistemological definition is based largely on the relation of the film’s images and soundtrack to …

Uploaded 1 July 1999 Introduction For me as a television researcher, to address the question of what kind of influence John Grierson has had in the short history of Danish documentary is an easy, as well as an awkward, task. If we take a look at some of the documentary films made in Denmark in the 1940s, the sense of …

Uploaded 12 November 1999 The adjudicator at the Third Glasgow Amateur Film Festival held in January 1936 was to be the renowned John Grierson. From 1929, when his film Drifters was screened at the British premiere of Battleship Potemkin, Grierson had been a vociferous and vigorous advocate of the new mass-medium of film. He also had risen to head the General Post …

Uploaded 1 July 1999 It was a wonderful time to be alive and involved in what is still often seen as the apogee of British Documentary making. But the past is another country, and things were certainly done differently then. To appreciate that period it is useful to treat it under three aspects. These are the attitude and purpose of …

Uploaded 1 July 1999 Introduction Within the public relations community the use of, and relationship between, the terms “propaganda” and “public relations” has changed over time. Throughout this article the terms “propaganda” and “public relations” are used interchangeably as they were in the particular historical context or as in the original sources: although this might seem confusing, it is more …

Uploaded 1 July 1999 Open any Japanese book on documentary, and the “theory” of Paul Rotha will be singled out as one of the most influential bodies of thought in the history of Japanese cinema. While there were translations of all the major Western film theorists, from Münsterberg to Eisenstein, it is safe to say that none of their writing …

Unfortunately, this colors his discussion of Rotha as well. Kubota had originally intended to structure his entire book around The Documentary film, a measure of Rotha’s prestige and influence over the very conception of nonfiction filmmaking. In the end, he wisely saved the discussion of Rotha for the final chapter. After his careful discussion of the avant-garde, Kubota warns readers that …

[1] Uploaded 1 July 1999 I do not propose to separate the foreign problem from the national one. I have been told by some that South Africa’s greatest immediate concern is the misunderstanding of it on the part of other nations. I appreciate this point but no one in his senses will expect, by simple formula, to liquidate the host …

Uploaded 1 July 1999 | Modified 14 July 1999 In many of the international histories and accounts of documentary film John Grierson is afforded a substantial role. Numerous books on documentary film attribute to Grierson the first use of the term “documentary ” in relation to film[1]  while others are compelled to begin with Grierson. Kevin Macdonald and Mark Cousins …