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 of misunderstandings and prejudices which, coming from the depths of 19th Century political formulae, now surround the considerations of South African problems. Much can, of course, be done by direct attack; for the major facets of South African development in all the spheres of technical and sociological achievement have not yet been commandingly presented. [2]
The affinity for South Africa exemplified in the above extract by John Grierson is perhaps not surprising. Though his and the apartheid government’s political philosophies were very different, Grierson was impressed by the level of development he observed in the country, especially in comparison to other African states. He shared with Afrikaners a sense of historical national loss at the hands of the English. In the Afrikaner Dutch Reformed Church he found familiar Calvinist doctrines and democratic church governance taught by the Church of Scotland. Highly critical of British expatriates, Grierson referred to them as “pampered Whites”. These “lost and conceited children” of the Empire embodied, he concluded, “a sort of decadent evaluation of the imperial idea in which privilege is accepted without any appropriate sense of leadership and guidance”. Afrikaners, he saw, had wrested the nettle of political leadership from their English-speaking compatriots. Where Afrikaner means “of Africa”, Grierson wrote that English speakers’ “only basic bond with Africa is in the escape it seems to offer from British taxation and the cutting down of their class privileges”. Most crucially, Grierson realised that liberalism had little or no role to play in South Africa. This realisation notwithstanding, as we shall argue, Grierson’s proposal on the establishment of a national film board for South Africa was nevertheless predicated upon liberal ideals – as well as his enthusiasm for film as a means of conveying public information as a requirement for democracy. [3]
Grierson had arrived in South Africa in the wake of another influential Scotsman, Lord John Reith. Reith’s proposals had formed the basis in 1936 of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, modelled on the British Broadcasting Corporation. Both men stressed the idea of public service media; both mistakenly assumed a linguistically, ideologically and culturally homogeneous South African society; and both fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the South African political economy. [4] As a result, their respective media proposals neglected the black majority. However, Grierson was careful to note that a state film service, in contrast to radio as also an entertaining medium, should be restricted to public observation and information. Cooperation with the trade, cinemas, was his suggestion. [5]
Like Canada, apartheid South Africa (1948-1990) was divided by language – English and Afrikaans, spoken by the white descendants of the original Dutch, British and European colonisers. A further factor was that of race, especially after the 1948 National Party (NP) electoral victory. [6] The NP understood “culture” to be race, language and location-specific. This deterministic interpretation of “culture” was the prime mechanism used by the NP to legitimize apartheid amongst both whites and people of colour. Film was argued by Afrikaner cultural organisations and the apartheid-supporting Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) to offer an important channel for the shaping of social and racial relations under the apartheid project[7] . The historical connections between the state and private capital, cultural production and ideology, thus should have provided Grierson the terrain for an analysis of cultural protectionism in South Africa, both in terms of international influence and inter-cultural struggles within the country itself. The deliberations of this discursive field were available in two reports, both issued well before Grierson’s (1954) recommendations to the South African government on the establishment of a national film board.
Initial deliberations
The Cilliers Film Committee, which reported to the government in 1943, aimed to stimulate the growth of a purely South African, but more specifically white Afrikaans cinema, by forcing exhibitors to screen Afrikaans-language shorts at every performance. [8] English-speaking critics reacted vociferously. The Union Review described Committee Chairman Professor A.C. Cilliers as “a lifelong nationalist” educated in Germany, whose aim was to succour Afrikaner nationalist cultural enterprises. [9]
The ideological discourse adopted by the Cilliers Committee was derived from the growing momentum of Afrikaner Nationalism. This discourse found resonance in statements like “rich national life”, “spread of national Culture”, “spiritual content”, “making our society bilingual”, “cultural protection” and so on. These repetitively articulated affirmations found exposure in a new site of cultural struggle, the state machinery. Such rhetoric had previously been restricted to non-official Afrikaner cultural groups, amateur Afrikaans-language filmmaking organisations and other associations. All of these were pledged to taking over the English-dominated economy and transforming it into a volkskapitalisme (an [Afrikaner] people’s capitalism).
Although no practical consequences flowed from the Cilliers Report, it did have the effect of legitimising Afrikaner cultural affirmations through the use of cinema prior to the NP victory at the polls in 1948. The Committee, for example, argued that in view of South Africa’s “peculiar racial and economic circumstances, any case for the protection of the South African film industry should be based more on cultural than on directly economic grounds,” and that “the economic life of a nation is closely linked up with its cultural life.”
Realising that “culture” had a reciprocal effect in a market economy, the Committee concluded: “Judged by modern standards, the higher the standard of culture, the greater the demand for the various products of agriculture and industry.” Individuals, said the Committee, formed the “foundation” of culture, while the emergence and maintenance of “a high standard of culture” is conditional upon “the supplementation and augmentation of individual effort by the organised and organising power of the whole – … the state.” The state, in turn, is responsible for “cultural functions” which are “beyond the powers of private initiative, whether individual or collective.” In other words, the state should manage the social organisation of discourse through the shielding of both the material and spiritual elements of “culture.” Part of this protection from alien discourses concerned the oft-repeated Afrikaner criticism of cinema as “an escape from reality into a dream world of make-believe and fantasy,” an escape that became “the cultural El Dorado of the masses.” This cinematic displacement of reality, according to the Cilliers committee report:
Unless carefully watched and correctly guided … can indeed play havoc with the moral, mental, and cultural make-up of a nation. Its demoralizing and denationalizing potentialities are incalculable.
Grierson was not unsympathetic to this kind of argument, but with one crucial caveat. He certainly envisaged a “vivid machinery”, a strong central direction of the state, in administering coordination and creation. However, he was clear that these functions should not constitute control. Public debate was the prime condition for democracy. [10] The Cilliers Committee argued that cinema should be used as a “healing and formative influence” to a better understanding between the various sections of the South African political and racial milieu, notably the cultural and language barriers that divided English and Afrikaans speakers. Blacks were not considered at all. While aware that private industry would resist state attempts at intervention, the Committee however hoped that capitalist common sense would persuade the film industry – totally owned by English South African capital – “to agree in the national interest.” The issue concerned the increased production of films in Afrikaans and since “the essence of good showmanship is to give the audience what they want,” it was felt that the industry would not resist the call. (At this time, 100% of cinema programmes, apart from local newsreels, were in English).
The Cilliers Committee recommended the establishment of a national film board to produce documentaries aimed:
at presenting essential industries, ways of living and environment of normal people in such a way that the appeal is no less dramatic than that of the fiction film, in which life is often reconstructed in an exaggerated way.
This could well have been Grierson speaking! The board was thus intended to provide an ideological portrayal of life in terms of the reciprocal relationship between “national culture” and the economy, since white documentary filmmakers were seen as “trustees of the native and other non-European races,” who needed “to make the public aware of the world it lives in, to show up the romance and dramatic quality of reality, and thus make the real experience of one the imaginary experience of all”.[11] This statement preceded Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology, [12] and its almost identical phrasing reveals a chilling acumen in the ideological use of media for sectional propagandistic purposes.
Against the background of the Voortrekker Centenary Celebrations held just five years earlier, in 1938, the Cilliers Report was explosive. This was a period when a neo-fascist interpretation of South African history by a number of films in the 1930s had been made directly or indirectly with state involvement. It also coincided with the internment of many leading Afrikaner nationalist Nazi sympathizers during the World War II: some of these were aspiring filmmakers, and some were politicians with whom Grierson may have discussed his ideas in 1949.
Objecting to the proposed government dictatorship of the film industry, the Union Review stated:
There are two languages in this country for official purposes, but that white bilingualism is, therefore, correctly enforceable in the public service, the schools (government schools, that is), Parliament and the courts … it is not enforceable in private life – i.e. in the home, the club, the office and the cinema “But,” say the mugwumps, “it will enable the English-speaking section to improve their knowledge of Afrikaans.” What is cinema – a place of entertainment or a night school? Professor Cilliers puts it more elegantly – having had a lot of practice in political persuasiveness – thus: “The theatre-going public will have the additional pleasure of seeing the various aspects of our rich national life portrayed on the screen through the medium of one or both of our two national languages.” But many of us do not want to see our “rich national life” portrayed in our leisure-time and at our expense. We want to see Rita Hayworth. Anyway, this is a dangerous argument. If accepted, we should be shown District Six and Johannesburg’s “Shanty Town” and the ruined reserves and the Indian slums of Durban. [13]
Realising that the Cilliers recommendations created more problems than answers, the government sought to ameliorate the problem by appointing yet another committee. The Smith Committee responded in December 1944[14] . Its proposals differed markedly, suggesting a consolidation of the various government film units into a national film board concerned with the “production, distribution and exhibition of educational, instructional, informative and publicity films which were not normally intended for exhibition in commercial cinemas.” Films of a commercial character were to remain the province of the industry. The composition of the board was to be far wider than that suggested by Cilliers.
The recommendations of this second Committee were clearly of a less sectional nature than the Cilliers Report and served the needs of the national economy rather than merely the Afrikaner cultural constituency. The British-supporting United Party government, however, failed to enact Smith’s recommendations.
The Grierson Report
In May 1949, less than a year after the NP had won Parliament from the United Party, the new Cabinet accepted a proposal to invite John Grierson to South Africa. His brief was to conduct an enquiry into the scope and adequacy of the State’s film services and to make some recommendations in this respect. Grierson was at that time Controller of Films of the British Central Office of Information and had been previously instrumental in setting up and running for a time the successful National Film Board of Canada (he left when his term of office expired there in 1945). He visited the Union in October 1949. A National Film Advisory Committee was appointed to frame the terms of reference for Grierson’s enquiry and to comment on his final report. He was to report to Dr Otto du Plessis, State Information Officer.
Grierson was directed in a fairly general way “to examine the scope and part the Informational and Educational, Scientific and Research Film is playing in South Africa” in informing South Africans and their well disposed allies about the country; he was also to make recommendations about how state departments and “all commercial film interests concerned in the production and distribution of such films” could be drawn into a common scheme to promote the national interest most effectively. [15] In the process, Grierson met at the suggestion of the Advisory Committee senior newspaper editors, both English and Afrikaans, film industry executives, officials of parastatal companies and private companies, independent producers, captains of industry such as Harry Oppenheimer, members of the Natal Indian Congress, and both black and white academics. [16]
One press commentator applauded the State Information Officer’s invitation to Grierson, especially in the light that not all saw “eye to eye” with du Plessis. [17] Grierson’s theoretical position, as will become clear, however, was close to the hearts of the Afrikaners who supported his appointment. His objectives were to open up “the screen on the real world” where “documentary would photograph the living scene and the living story.” [18] Afrikaans-speaking filmmakers and cultural theorists had finetuned their techniques through a technicist reading of Sergei Eisenstein’s theories of film, which they mistakenly assumed were similar to those of Grierson. KARFO, [19] in particular, saw a duty in using cinema to aid the urban socialisation of hundreds of thousands of displaced Afrikaners who had migrated to the cities between 1903-1940. This migration had been caused by the British army’s destruction of the Boer agricultural economies in the Transvaal during the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902). The defeated, who became known as “poor whites”, now found themselves labouring for the enemy – British imperialism – in unskilled mining jobs under the supervision of skilled blacks. This experience became a defining moment in the Afrikaner struggle to recover their independence. Apartheid (separateness) was the mechanism developed by which Afrikaners almost half a century later successfully turned the tables on their class, cultural and language subordination. Like all defining discourses, apartheid operated through the legitimisation of common sense categories. The DRC, also colloquially known as the “National Party at prayer”, understood this. The KARFO report to Grierson, for example, stated:
The… cinema should adhere to the conditions of real life. If the “variety of situations” which it depicts digresses from reality to any extent it will become clear that it may be more confusing than helpful to whoever may look upon the cinema as a source of information through which he can come to a better understanding of his own environment. The types of problems and situations dramatized must be more or less the same type of problem and situation for which modes of conduct and behaviour are sought… otherwise we can only expect the cinema to add to the confusion and bewilderment which we face in life today. [20]
Both Grierson and KARFO claimed that cinema, as it was popularly shown, substituted fantasy for reality. However, neither was aware that the realities they wished to depict were constituted by very specific ideological discourses. Grierson’s idea of realism was to provide the individual with information which s/he could use to more effectively participate in democratic social processes.This view implies choice, but choice is relative to what the state will allow. Thus, both KARFO and Grierson wanted to use film which, by definition, was already ideologically laden. KARFO’s more literal interpretation, although appearing to offer choice, does not in fact do so. For it, realism was a simple correspondence between prescription – a sort of “what ought to be”, an attempt at socialising the newly urbanized Afrikaner into a Christian urban society – and the image which, if adhering to Afrikaner Nationalism, was understood in a concrete and literal sense. Working under the auspices of the Dutch Reformed Church, KARFO attempted to guide cultural responses to urbanisation and suggested ways of coping with the culturally alienating circumstances of city life. In other words, KARFO was not concerned with choice but with articulating a strategy of adaptation and of providing support to those members of the (white, Afikaner) volk who were in danger of succumbing to the ravages of cultural imperialism, alien ideological discourses and heathen social practices. The counter-ideological response was to be guided in terms of traditional group values and Afrikaner nationalism: christianity, family, cultural integrity and language. In this way KARFO mediated the interests of Afrikaner-dominated capital as it sought to prepare the recently God-fearing pastoral society for its more difficult role in the city, the new site for the struggle against a now English South African-controlled economy.
That KARFO took its twin theoretical cues from a Briton, Grierson, and a communist, Eisenstein – both from enemy nations – is explained by selective reading which highlighted what would be useful to its own struggle. It never occurred to KARFO that Grierson’s propositions were very different from Eisenstein’s dialectic. The difference lies in Grierson’s remark that “Cinema has a sensational capacity for enhancing movement which tradition has formed or time worn smooth.” [21] Eisenstein, in contrast, never “enhanced”; he displaced and manipulated in the name of realism. Eisenstein’s “nature”, corresponded to Grierson’s “real world.” Technical resources, particularly editing, fundamental to Eisenstein’s theories of montage, removed film from the “real” world, reordering it through cutting. Grierson, amongst other realists, criticised Eisenstein for this. However, the Marxist base of Eisenstein’s approach demanded a displacement of the “real” world, itself a construction of bourgeois ideology. It was, of course, the bourgeois class to which Afrikaners and these Afrikaans-speaking filmmakers were aspiring. This included ownership and control of not only the land, economy and the country’s wealth, but also of the cultural heritage of the Afrikaner people. A further implication – though not clearly articulated at the time – was the need to control non-whites (blacks, coloureds, Asians) who would have to be brutally subordinated to meet these objectives. It seems that this was the essence of KARFO’s realism.
Grierson seems to have been remarkably easily persuaded into accepting the Nationalist discourse on apartheid at face value. He remarked in an unpublished essay that “Malan, Donges and Strydom are worth hearing, even when their solutions are desperate, and to have a full sense of their case one has to appreciate, too, a background of hurt in relation to both political and economic developments of the past. Theirs has been a battle of the have-nots”.[22] Proposing a national film board structure designed to counter international criticism of South Africa’s racial policies, Grierson argued:
Its problems, seen in closeup, may seem frustrating, are the best earnest of dramas (sic) in the making and a destiny to be revealed. Its vistas, both technological and human, are not only nation-wide but also Africa-wide and, in many respects, world-wide. South Africa, moreover, has the eyes of the world upon it. It has, therefore, everything to gain by giving them reality to look upon.
Grierson asserted that South Africa’s high political profile needed to be complemented by more than “one of the poorest places in the distribution channels of the world.” The strategy that he suggested was:
(a) a conviction in high quarters that the film can and ought to be developed as an instrument of national policy;
(b) an objective appreciation – free from mere film interest and film enthusiasm – of the relationship of the film to the larger and deeper processes of public information;
(c) a plan of action which will, (i) serve departments in an orderly and long-term fashion; (ii) serve to inculcate patriotism, unity and drive in the Nation as a whole; (iii) present South Africa abroad in the most powerful and penetrating way and on all valuable levels of interest, and provide a direct service to the officers of External Affairs, (iv) bring into the service of the union and co-ordinate in common interest, all possible forces, other than governmental, which can contribute to the articulate presentation of the national image; not least the forces in the film industry; of the churches, and of the public relations departments of industry and commerce, with, of course, all due regard for the preservation of their free and independent initiation and development, (v) mobilize and encourage creative, technical and administrative talents to these ends. [23]
Grierson’s plan exhibits no sense of the ideology or economic process which “the articulate presentation of the national image” would seek to obscure. A potential result of these recommendations was that film would help to mystify the emergent apartheid base of the South African “Nation” in which “patriotism”, “unity” and “drive” would need to be inculcated. Grierson’s “Instrument” misunderstood the nature of South African capitalism, and its codification via apartheid into racial capitalism. The reason for this was that Grierson never considered the state as part of the class system. He referred rather to the state as “the machinery by which the best interests of the people are secured.” [24] Grierson saw politics and economics as dependent upon the policies of the party in power, rather than as a structural process condoned by the hegemonic socio-economic bloc. He therefore makes the false distinction between the state and the government. Full weight is not given to the consideration that the party in power is, in fact, part of the mechanism of the state. The strategy offered by Grierson works on the benign assumption that the state is non-partisan in the constitution and execution of its policies. In this he reflects the commonly held liberal view of the state as an essentially neutral institution outside the class structure. Although Grierson admitted that liberalism had little role to play in South Africa, he neglected to eliminate this assumption from his own arguments with regard to the “instrument” he had designed for South Africa. [25]
However, the strategy proposed by Grierson could not have served Afrikaner Nationalists better, notwithstanding his realisation that the potential power of black labour would ultimately have the “whip hand”[26] It is difficult to see how Grierson was able to separate the “real world” from state propaganda. The latter, or in Grierson’s words, the “seeping powers as (sic) the media possesses” were apparently to be tempered by a “progressively knowledgeable review on Ministerial level and subject to parliamentary discussion.” This naive faith in the Westminster system is at the core of Grierson’s uncritical acceptance of the NP’s position. [27] The starting point for Grierson stemmed from Walter Lippman’s pessimism about democracy and his disbelief that the ordinary voter could make informed judgements or political choices because of a lack of relevant information or time for consideration. In contrast, Grierson aimed to shock the average citizen out of blissful ignorance. [28] Unlike KARFO which offered a strategy of cultural adaptation for only one sector of the South African population, Grierson ultimately wanted to involve all the citizens, including – eventually – blacks, in the democratic process. He lauded the fast progress of Africans in South Africa, and the higher expenditure on black education than any other country in Africa, while also lamenting the “tragic pictures” of shanty towns and the “emptyness” of the “tribal code”. Grierson accepted the Colonial Service’s “splendid and liberal and realistic concern for the future of Africa”, as he did the white custodianship of a people not yet ready for full citizenship. Industrialisation, argued Grierson, would in time bring blacks to political maturity, a fact accepted, he revealed, by “a not unimportant Nationalist”.
Grierson was always more concerned with social issues than with aesthetic questions. A reading of his South African report would clear up Williams’ indecision [29] as to Grierson’s perception of the relationship between “social purposes” and “aesthetic questions”. Of the South African context, Grierson argued that “Effective distribution results are the proper measure of justified production; and no double talk – aesthetic or other – should be allowed to confuse the issue.” At another level, however, Grierson shows unsubstantiated confidence in imaginative talent and the encouragement of experimentation. It seems that the latter was expected to act as checks and balances in helping South African filmmakers under the auspices of the board to destroy, as in the case of Canada, a culture “rotted with spiritual colonialism; measuring itself at every turn against the examples of Europe and the United States.” The angry and heated political and racial arguments which were rife in South Africa with English and Afrikaner pitted as antagonists, again deceived Grierson into believing that an intrinsic social value of benefit to all in South Africa would emerge from these conflicts:
The deflated and deflational atmosphere of many countries today is not only lacking in the spirit of “audace”; and it is the presence of this quality in South African political discussion which is so striking and refreshing to the observer. South Africa can lose nothing and can only gain if it comes to invest the wider field of national expression. If South Africa has a message, this is probably it.
The remainder of Grierson’s report is devoted to “Shaping a South African film instrument”. This was aimed at stimulating an informed public participation in the process of democracy. Although Grierson proposed the establishment of a board fully accountable to Parliament – he even went as far as suggesting that the chairman and vice-chairman of the Board should be cabinet ministers – his recommendations were geared to maintaining the maximum flexibility and operational independence for the board. He was as emphatic in his South African report about the value of film as a public service as he had been in Canada – which was wholly in keeping with his philosophy as a documentary film-maker. In particular he stressed the necessity for setting aside a portion of the budget for experimental films, which he considered an essential part of the process of democratic debate. His dual experience as a sometime documentary film-maker and administrator had clearly alerted him to the dangers of allowing the institution to become clogged by bureaucratic structures, excessive technical equipment and, as a result of these, an ever expanding staff.
The administrative recommendations need not be discussed here. Of relevance, however, are two immediate consequences of Grierson’s visit. The first was that Grierson was highly sceptical of “self-appointed experts” and “medium enthusiasts,” whether amateur or professional. Grierson noted that this attitude may “hurt the enthusiasts” but argued that “no forces have hurt and frustrated the national use of films as much as those who have brought it into discredit by irresponsibility in the use of public funds” and furthermore, these individuals “are apt to get in the way of the purpose of the Information Service.” [30] He insisted that film makers:
…were primarily civil servants; routineers with periodical raises and a pension to come; efficient enough no doubt but within the limits of theme and story determined by men who were not film makers, not artists and would, to do them justice, make no claim to creative power over events. [31]
Grierson’s visit had originally been strongly motivated by KARFO which had hoped thereby to secure state assistance for its filmmaking activities. Ironically, it seems that the medium enthusiasts to which Grierson was referring were KARFO members themselves. Admitting KARFO’s “especial position”, Grierson notes its access to large numbers of halls, its will to use them for cultural and social purposes, is access to capital and so on. He therefore suggested that KARFO facilitate distribution of the proposed board’s films. He suggested that KARFO’s distribution infrastructure be government subsidized, rather than its production facilities. [32]
KARFO was not part of the public service. It was not a component of the commercial film industry. Perhaps Grierson viewed KARFO as “ordinary citizens” making “amateur judgements”. Perhaps these kinds of judgements Grierson considered to be more correctly the province of the State. [33] KARFO’s close relationship with the NP, the NP-administered state, and the DRC, however, would have led it to believe that it had purchase on state funding. Grierson, however, was adamant that all funds be administered by the proposed board and that care be taken not to compete with the trade, for the hallmark of his programme was that documentary film encoded the ideas of intellectuals which coincided with the interests of some state and large-scale private organisations, a convergence which sprang from the common belief in the need for some form of rationalised mass society. [34] KARFO responded by dismantling its production unit.
Nothing came of Grierson’s 1954 proposals. Afrikaner capital and the apartheid government had little need for a propagandistic cinema during the 1950s. The NP was able to enforce its hegemony through the state and other agencies, including radio and the press, not to mention the host of other economic, repressive and political agencies now at its command.
After Grierson
A National Film Board (NFB) was established, then, in 1964, but its structure differed in crucial ways from Grierson’s original proposals. As constituted, the NFB subverted Grierson’s democratic assumptions and, until its dissolution in 1979, functioned primarily as a production and distribution facility for NP propaganda. In 1955, the Minister of Finance, Eric Louw, appointed another commission of enquiry to report on the production and distribution of films for state departments; its Chairman was Dr F. J. de Villiers and its report appeared in 1956.
The terms of the De Villiers Commission were much more tightly formulated to concentrate very specifically on the films produced and distributed independently by the various state departments. The fact that the De Villiers Commission’s recommendations, and not Grierson’s, were finally accepted after a long delay by the government as the basis for the NFB is interesting in view of the later controversies surrounding the activities of the Board. For instance, the idea that one of the NFB’s aims was “the promotion of the development of the cinematograph film industry” (as stated in the draft bill and the act), which was to prove so contentious, appeared only in the De Villiers report, along with recommendations that the NFB be given a censorship role as well as the administration of film subsidies. [35]
A brief comparison of some of the recommendations will help to identify some of the problem areas. De Villiers specified two major problems facing the state’s film services: the one internal (or national), the other external (or international). The first was that state departments were increasingly setting up their own production facilities. This was seen as bringing about unnecessary replication as well as being a waste of energy and public funds. Alternatively, departments were approaching the State Information Office to make films on their behalf, even though it did not have a formally constituted production unit. [36] The second problem was that South Africa’s racial policies were increasingly drawing adverse criticism internationally and the relatively new medium of television, while increasing the demand for material from South Africa, was also being used to present South African affairs in an unfavourable light . [37]
With regard to state departments setting up their own facilities, both Grierson and De Villiers had made proposals on how to co-ordinate the state’s film activities. But with regard to racial policy, Grierson was more concerned that film should provide a forum for debate in what he insisted (however naively) was the national interest. De Villiers was however rather more interested in the production of films which would justify the government’s race policies, both at home and abroad. Commenting on the growth of production companies in South Africa making films for television distribution abroad, De Villiers writes as follows:
They are usually interested only in the financial aspect of the operation and therefore strive to give their audiences abroad what they would like to see and believe, with the result that South Africa is in great danger of being misrepresented in all sorts of ways. A striking example of this is the crude and harsh representation in a television film meant for screening in America of the removal of Natives from Sophiatown. Millions of people abroad have seen this film and the damage done can never be repaired. [38]
De Villiers’s assumption that it was the “representation” and not the “removal” which caused the damage suggests that he took for granted and operated within the terms of Afrikaner Nationalist hegemony. He was clearly concerned that misrepresentations (as he perceived such films to be) would be used against the interests of South Africa. Grierson, on the other hand, saw film as part of a more detached, self-conscious and “democratic” debate on political principles. We do not want to give the impression that Grierson and De Villiers were simply and diametrically opposed in their attitudes; it was more a matter of different points of departure.
Where Grierson had argued that national interest would best be served by a “National Film Board” (to a large extent modelled on the Canadian Film Board), De Villiers. in contrast, proposed the establishment of a “South African Film Corporation” (the model for this SAFC being the SABC – the South African Broadcasting Corporation). Two key related problems here were finance and distribution. Both Reports recognized that without effective distribution channels the existence of a film board or corporation would not be viable or indeed justified. But their proposals differed radically on this point. Grierson had proposed that Parliament appropriate an amount of money annually to the Board – he is rather vague on this – thus making wide-ranging non-commercial distribution of the state’s films possible. To some extent this was in keeping with practice in the Union at the time whereby provision was made annually in the budget of the Department of Education, Arts and Science for the making of films by its Film Service, which were then supplied free of charge to the other state departments. De Villiers, on the other hand, felt that while the corporation should be subsidised for the first five years, it should ultimately cover its running costs by being paid by the other state departments for its services; each department would budget for its film requirements separately and negotiate productions (with independent producers, if necessary) via the SAFC. [39] On the face of it this seems the more sensible arrangement and was the one eventually instituted (without the subsidy). But it was also this arrangement that led directly to a great deal of controversy, suspicion from the film industry and finally to the collapse of the NFB in 1979.
Both Reports also agreed that collaboration with the film industry was important in principle, though Grierson was more tentative and cautious than De Villiers in this respect. De Villiers was not only concerned about loss of revenue for the state because so many films had to be imported, he also argued that “the right kind of films” emanating from a strong South African industry would project a more favourable image of the country’s complex “racial problem”. One remembers that he also recommended that the Film Corporation advise the state on questions of censorship. [40] But they were in agreement that the trade would provide important additional distribution channels in exchange for the allocation to it of some of the Board’s technical services (Grierson suggested 70%, De Villiers a “reasonable amount”). In fact, the formulation of the De Villiers report in this regard was incorporated almost verbatim into the National Film Board act, which reads: “The objects for which the board is established are – (a) the co-ordination of the activities of the State relating to cinematograph films and photographs; … ” the promotion of the development of the cinematograph film industry and of photography in the Republic”.[41] These two aims appeared entirely worthy ones but proved, in fact, to be irreconcilable and led to some of the most acrimonious debates on the NFB.
It is worth noting here that in 1957, in response to an urgent plea for financial relief from film director Jamie Uys, the Secretary of Education, Arts and Science, Mr J. J. Op’t Hof, pointed out that the memorandum on the De Villiers report stated that “the lion’s share of the state’s film needs will be produced by the (film) industry”. The idea was that in this way “the film industry in the Union would be able to find its feet”. The Secretary of Finance, however, rejected the proposal as the state was in serious financial difficulties at the time. [42]
In view of the NFB’s later history, it is necessary to draw attention to two areas of disagreement in the respective reports. The one concerns Grierson’s insistence that the film board should not be attached to the portfolio of the Ministry of Education but to that of the Minister of the Interior. It is worth quoting Grierson fully on this:
In particular, it is the strong view of those closer to the development of Public Information that the logical portfolio in a modern state is not the Ministry of Education, because of its lack of functional contact with the larger processes of technological, economic and public development outside the sphere of formal education. With this view I concur. It may even be that the scholastic or schoolman’s point of view is an obstacle to the larger development of the mass media in the highly complex and informal world in which they are bound to operate. The key to the matter is that the film in the service of the Nation is something more than an instrument of instruction and something more than an instrument of culture and art. It is not just a mirror held up to nature; it is a hammer helping to shape the future. We are dealing, to be plain, with a process which reaches out beyond the schools and the academies to the whole life of the nation and neither the pedagogic nor the aesthetic aspect of its work represents the more effective reaches of its influence. [43]
Grierson is possibly thinking here of his distinction between “propaganda with a political meaning” and “propaganda as social information”, a distinction he first made in Paul Rotha’s book, Documentary Film (1936), where he attempts to distinguish between propaganda as a public service and as a political and ideological tool as well as expressing his belief that documentary film is an exploratory and formative medium. It appears, however, that for De Villiers “political meaning” and “social information” were virtually synonymous, although he was aware of the dangers of “mere propaganda films”. He seems to imply that “education” comes down to grasping and promoting the “official version” of the condition of one’s culture. [44] The rather sketchy documentary evidence suggests that the Head of the Film Service of the Department of Education, Arts and Science, Dr S.L.van Wyk (who had also been drawn into the preliminary discussions on the proposed Film Corporation), attempted at least a rudimentary distinction between “education” and “culture”, but seemed to think of them as somehow in conflict. In a letter to Mr Op’t Hof in March 1958 he was adamant that the Film Service should not be incorporated into the proposed Film Corporation as this would “endanger its educational character”. In Canada, Dr van Wyk pointed out, “so-called educational films tended to deal with general cultural matters”. His solution to the problem was the appointment of someone with an educational training and background, rather than a film specialist, as Director of the proposed Corporation and intimated that he himself would be available for such a post. [45] The previous year he had sent Mr Op’t Hof a list of 16mm films with Afrikaans soundtracks, specifically in connection with the proposed National Film Board. He felt this would help “to emphasise the work being done for the Afrikaans language and culture”[46] .
Grierson had suggested that the Board should be under the Minister of the Interior. The De Villiers report does not specify a portfolio: it merely states that film production cannot be left in the hands of private enterprise as this will expose the country to the risks of serious misrepresentation both locally and abroad and that the Cabinet should appoint a Minister to act as a link between Parliament and the SAFC. [47] A memorandum on the Grierson report, however, puts a strong case for making the NFB the responsibility of the Minister of Education, Arts and Science, [48] which is what in fact was done in 1963, though the Minister had mentioned in Parliament the previous year, when the matter of the relationship between the state archives and Film Board was raised, that the Minister of Information could be the Minister responsible. [49] This would have done little to allay the fears of the Opposition, which remained extremely suspicious of the NFB’s political credentials both before and after its establishment. [50]
An apparently fairly minor and incidental disagreement in the two reports was to flare into a major controversy in the 1970s; the expansion of the NFB’s microfilm operation was to affect its structure and operations dramatically, some would even say disastrously. Grierson proposed that the scope of the board’s work should not include microfilm as such services could be best dealt with by the State Information Department and State Archives; the De Villiers report merely specifies that the SAFC should confine its microfilm operations to state departments. [51] If microfilming did not seem a major issue in the 1950s, neither did television; but in this instance both Grierson and De Villiers took it absolutely for granted (as did the NFB for that matter) that the eventual introduction of television services to South Africa would provide a tremendous impetus for the state’s film services. In ways which may not become clear for many years yet, and contrary to all expectations, the Board did not become a major supplier of productions to SABC-TV when it started broadcasting in January 1976. Here was yet another factor which made the continued survival of the NFB virtually impossible.
Conspicuously absent from both reports is any comment on an archival function for the board or corporation. The issue of the archives (or film institute, as it was also called) was consistently debated in the press and in Parliament at the same time as the establishment of the Film Board, yet it is necessary, in fact, to keep them separate. The archive and the Board had entirely different functions; it may be that the institution of the one was originally in no way dependent on or consequent upon the other. In opening an exhibition of historical South African film material, “Film in South Africa” in Cape Town at the end of May 1963, the Deputy Minister of Education, Arts and Science, Mr Marais Viljoen, said that “as soon as the proposed film board was created he would consider the formation of a film archives”.[52] Yet the Cape Times reported on the same occasion that the proposed National Film Board would not only co-ordinate the state’s film activities but would also be responsible for the establishment and maintenance of film archives. [53] A report in Die Transvaler the previous year on the same exhibition in Pretoria also implied that draft legislation provided for the film board to be responsible for a film archive, although the bill was discussed and passed in Parliament only in June 1963. [54] The organiser of the exhibition, Mr Pieter Germishuys, a well-known collector of historical film material, was on the staff of Die Transvaler, which probably accounts for the extensive publicity that the paper gave to the establishment of the NFB as well as its emphasis on the archives. [55]
It was the debates on the draft bill before Parliament at the beginning of June 1963 that revealed most starkly the intentions, suspicions, ambiguities, animosities and political manipulation surrounding the issue of the NFB. The draft legislation was introduced by the Deputy Minister of Education, Arts and Science, Mr Marais Viljoen, and was based almost entirely on the De Villiers report submitted eight years before (large portions of his speech are simply summaries of the report), with the exclusion of De Villiers’s clause on censorship and subsidy but with the addition of a clause empowering the NFB to undertake “the acquisition, preserving, storing, adapting and making available of cinematograph films of archival value”.[56] The Minister made the point that it would be the NFB’s task to co-ordinate the purchase, production, exhibition and distribution of state department films “of an informative nature”,[57] all of which would contribute to the development of the film industry in the Republic by passing on some of the Board’s work to the trade rather than offering the film industry direct financial assistance. [58] At no stage of the NFB’s sixteen-year existence, however, did the film industry feel satisfied or even entirely comfortable with the Board. In fact, the Board was hardly in a position to allocate much work to outside agencies itself as it was not financed by a parliamentary appropriation (as proposed by Grierson) or an initial five-year subsidy (as proposed by De Villiers) but by interest-bearing loans from the state. Apart from these sources, its income was “dependent on moneys received for services rendered, contracts entered into or action taken by the board, or on money from other sources”.[59] This made the NFB the only statutory body which received no government subsidy; the Film Institute (i.e. archives), however, did receive a grant from 1969 onwards.
Legitimation
The National Film Board Act of 1963 promulgated the NFB. The Board’s administrative structure differed in two important ways from the original Grierson proposals. The first was that he suggested that the Minister of the Interior be the chairman, not the Minister of Education. The Department of the Interior, however, was not suitable for the task as the government saw it. It served mainly an administrative function; its job was to regulate and register people, their race classifications, Group Areas, movements, births, deaths – a sort of human bookkeeping function. The Board was consequently placed under the Department of National Education with its racist policy of Christian National Education, put into practice soon after the NP’s assumption of power in 1948. Grierson should have been aware of the purposes and nature of the direction that education was taking in South Africa at the time of his consultation. From the state’s point of view, this Department offered an ideal home for the Board as it realised that the educational institution is the foremost apparatus through which ideological discourse can be disseminated. This agency was not interested in the underlying democratic assumption which permeated Grierson’s thesis but in socialising individuals into accepting as natural and desirable an apartheid-based social practice. (Indeed future prime-minister Hendrik Verwoerd’s landmark statement that “There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour”[60] was made in the same year that Grierson submitted his final report to the government.)
The second important recommendation not put into practice was the Experimental Production Fund which was to have constituted between 10% and 15% of the total for national and international productions. In respect of experimentation, Grierson argued that:
In the case of other countries, no expenditure has been more effective. It has stirred initiative over the whole undertaking and greatly increased the general morale to have a small adventurous operation in its midst. In the case of a young country, this special measure of latitude encourages the discovery of new talent in a medium which is not yet highly developed from a professional point of view.
But despite constant representations to the government, the state remained unyielding, for experimentation – or films of “limited appeal” – tends to articulate counter-ideological discourses.
Apart from coordinating state activities in filmmaking, the NFB was entrusted with the “acquisition, production, exhibition, distribution” of films and photographs “intended for dissemination, in the Republic or elsewhere, of information regarding Southern Africa, its peoples, their way of life, culture, traditions, economic conditions and problems”. It was also to give “information regarding the problems of and social evils present in the Republic and the services available and developments taking place in the Republic”. Clearly framed within the doubletalk of apartheid discourse, the NFB’s function was to legitimize the government’s racial policies. In the absence of broadcast television, the NFB had to assume a direct responsibility for cultural production as far as short and documentary films were concerned. The Board was eventually to enter production on a large scale, competing with the private sector – or the “trade” as Grierson called it – earning the wrath of commercial producers. Whereas until 1966 about 60% of the private documentary market consisted of government commissioned films, by 1972 the proportion had dropped to 30%. The introduction of television in 1976, however, heralded the dissolution of the Board in 1978, for many of its propaganda tasks could now be carried out much more effectively by the national broadcast television services.
Conclusion
Finally, Grierson had little impact on South Africa. He himself briefly remarked on the lack of discussion over aesthetics. The absence of university film courses until the early 1970s contributed to this neglect. When Grierson was discussed, usually by the odd cinephile, and usually in the context of European film theory, his visit to South Africa was never mentioned. Only one film we know of draws on Grierson’s influence. This was People of the Great Sandface (1985), playing with the earlier film, Coalface. The director of Sandface, John Myburgh, had gleaned something of Grierson and Flaherty from his studies as communication student. He had not seen any films by either director. These anecdotes reveal something about the isolation of South Africa from international influences during the apartheid years.
Footnotes:
[1] This article has been adapted from two earlier articles: Keyan Tomaselli, “Grierson in South Africa: culture, state and nationalist ideology in the South African film industry: 1940-1981”, Cinema Canada, 122 (1985): 24-27; Edwin Hees, “The National Film Board of South Africa: a short history”, Annale University of Stellenbosch no.1 (1991): 1-18. Additional information found by Tomaselli in the Grierson Film Archives, Stirling University, Scotland, during January 1999, has been added. Tomaselli acknowleges the Natal University Research Fund for the opportunity of visiting the Archives in January 1999 when a shorter version of this paper was presented at the Breaking the Boundaries Conference at Stirling University.
[2] John Grierson, Report (2nd draft, undated – 1954?), National Archive Repository. Source UOD, ref no. E279A. Pretoria, South Africa (listed as “Final report”). An incomplete version is also available in John Grierson Archives, Item 9 (G5:6:35). Although a 3rd draft was written, its whereabouts are unknown.
[3] John Grierson, “In the heart of Africa”, unpublished, undated notes, Grierson Archives (G:4:19:21).
[4] The role of Reith in South Africa is more fully discussed in R. E. Tomaselli & G. Hayman, Broadcasting in South Africa (London: James Currey, 1989).
[5] Grierson report, “Arguments”.
[6] The National Party came to power in 1948, when it replaced the pro-British United Party government. The NP introduced apartheid, and continued in power until 1994.
[7] For further information see K.G.Tomaselli, “Ideology and cultural production in South African cinema”, Ph.D Thesis, University of Witwatersrand, 1984.
[8] Cilliers Film Committee, unpublished (and unlisted) report, Union of South Africa, July 1943.
[9] “Let’s go to the cinema… and see a Government film (in Afrikaans)”, Union Review (August 1944): 38.
[10] John Grierson, “The artist in public service”, in I. Lockerbie (ed.), Eyes of Documentary (Stirling: John Grierson Archives, 1990), 12, 38.
[11] Cilliers Committee, 84.
[12] Louis Althusser, V. I. Lenin: Philosophy and Other Essays (London: New Left Books, 1971).
[13] August 1944, p. 34.
[14] Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee appointed to consider the reports of the Committee on State Publicity and the Film Committee and other relevant matters (Union of South Africa: Government Printer,14 December 1944), 3pp.
[15] “Memorandum to the Minister of the Interior from the National Film Advisory Committee”, attached to Grierson Report.
[16] Eg., Film: Film Services, United Artists, 20th Century Fox, KARFO, Nationale Rolprent, SA Broadcasting Corp., Board of Film Censors, Gallo; Editors: J. Cope, The Forum; Mr Wilcox, Vaderland; J.J. Kruger, Die Transvaler, Phil Weber, Die Burger; M Broughton, Natal Daily News, M Ellis, Natal Mercury; Companies: Irvin & Johnson, Imperial Chemical Industries, Shell, Iscor, De Beers, KWV, Chambers of Commerce;Anti-apartheid politicians and academics: I.C. Meer, Natal Indian Congress; Prof Z.K. Matthews; and Leo Marquard. Some visits to “native territories” were included. Information gleaned from Grierson’s itinerary, 1 November to 10 December, 1949. Some of this document is illegible, and it appears that meetings with A.C. Cilliers, who wrote a submission on film in 1943, were cancelled or substituted by someone else. (Grierson Archives, G5:6:43.)
[17] Natal Daily News, Grierson Archives (G5:N10), not dated.
[18] C. Williams (ed.), Realism and the Cinema (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), 27.
[19] The Kerlike Afrikaanse Rolprent en Fotografiese Organisasie (KARFO – Afrikaans Churches Film and Photographic Organisation) came into being in 1947 and from the outset was under the guidance of Heinz du Preez, who was later to become director of the National Film Board.
[20] H. Du Preez, “KARFO report to John Grierson”, Mimeo (undated +/- 1954). This lengthy document was submitted to Grierson and dealt with the cultural, spiritual and social experiences, values and objectives of the majority of Afrikaners represented by KARFO.
[21] Williams, 17.
[22] “In the heart of Africa”. D. F. Malan and J. G. Strydom were National Party Prime Ministers and T. E. Donges was a Cabinet Minister.
[23] Grierson report.
[24] A. Lovell & J. Hillier, Studies in Documentary (London: Secker and Warburg, 1972), 19.
[25] “In the heart of Africa”.
[26] “In the heart of Africa”.
[27] Only a few representatives of colour sat in the South African Parliament in the late 1940s: it was not long before the NP denied election to parliament for these black and coloured parliamentarians.
[28] “In the heart of Africa”.
[29] Williams, 17-18.
[30] Grierson report.
[31] Grierson in Lockerbie, 39-40.
[32] Grierson report.
[33] Lockerbie, 14.
[34] Lovell and Hillier, 31.
[35] The De Villiers report (1956), Union of South Africa, unpublished, pp. 24-25, National Film, Video and Sound Archives, Pretoria, South Africa.
[36] De Villiers, 10.
[37] De Villiers, 4.
[38] De Villiers, 7-8 (translation). Further evidence of De Villiers’s preoccupation with the state’s point of view appears on p.4 (Point 14), pp.5-6 (Point 19), p.8 (Points 28,29), p.16 (Point 55), p.19 (Point 61g). Notwithstanding his concern with the promotion of official policy, he does show an awareness of public resistance to blatantly propagandist films (see, for instance, Report, 5).
[39] De Villiers, 20-22.
[40] De Villiers, 4, 16; on censorship see 19.
[41] National Film Board Act, No. 73 of 1963, Section 9.
[42] Letter from Op’t Hof to the Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of the Civil Service Commission, 2 April 1957, State Archives, File UOD 1411 E53/122 “Voorgestelde SA Nasionale Filmraad” / “Proposed SA National Film Board” 1956-1961. The response from the Secretary of Finance is in the same file.
[43] Grierson Report, “Argument”, 16-17.
[44] De Villiers, 5, 8.
[45] Letter, 21 March 1958, State Archives, File UOD 1411 E53/122, “Voorgestelde Nasionale Filmraad”, 1956-1961.
[46] Letter, 10 April 1957, State Archives, File UOD 1411 E53/122, “Voorgestelde Nasionale Filmraad”, 1956-1961.
[47] De Villiers, 23-4.
[48] Anonymous memorandum attached to Grierson report.
[49] Hansard, 8 May 1962, col. 5186.
[50] For example, the General Manager appointed in 1966, Mr Jan Botha (a nephew of Senator Jan de Klerk), had a solid background in commerce and education, eventually becoming Registrar of the Pretoria College of Advanced Technical Education; some of his other qualifications (Rapportryers, chief reservist in Police Reserves, deacon in DRC, leader in “volkspele” [national dances] circles) make clear the “culture specific” nature of his appointment, given that Mr Botha had no experience of the film world. (Source: obituary, Hoofstad, 22 October 1973).
[51] Grierson report, “Proposals”, 8; De Villiers, 20.
[52] Cape Argus, 28 May 1963, p. 10; see also Cape Argus, 27 May 1963, p. 15.
[53] Cape Times, 28 May 1963.
[54] Die Transvaler, 30 October 1962; see also Die Transvaler, 29 May 1963.
[55] The Editor at the time was G. D. Scholtz who wrote a great deal on the history of the Afrikaner after joining Dr Hendrik Verwoerd at the newly established Die Transvaler in 1937. Scholtz was described by historian F.A. van Jaarsveld as “the historian of and for the Afrikaner”. At the time of these debates he was working on his (Afrikaans) book, The Threat of Liberalism. (Details from Ken Smith, The Changing Past: Trends in South African Historical Writing, Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers, 1988, 80-83).
[56] National Film Board Bill (as adopted at Report stage), Clause 9(e).
[57] Hansard, 3 June 1963, col. 7062.
[58] The Vaderland had reported on 22 January 1963 that legislation on the NFB would also make provision for a “film bank” to be administered by the Industrial Development Corporation as a source of finance (“at very reasonable interest rates”) to promote the development of the industry. Possibly the Minister wished to clarify this point. The paper also noted that the NFB was to fall under the Department of Economic Affairs; it may be worth recalling here that it was the Minister of Finance, Eric Louw, who appointed the De Villiers Commission in 1955.
[59] Hansard, 3 June 1963, col. 7065.
[60] Union of South Africa, Senate Debates, second session, 7-11 June 1954, cols. 2595-2622.