John Grierson came to Canada in May 1938 with the mandate to write a report on the Canadian government's film activities. Glasgow University, degree in philosophy, 1923. [2] In 1956, Grierson was the president of the Venice Film Festival's jury; he was also jury president at the Cork Film Festival and the South American Film Festival in 1958. "[14], For other people named John Grierson, see, John Grierson (right) with Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Ruiz in 1955, National Film Board of Canada and Wartime Information Board, Last edited on 13 February 2023, at 19:04, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians, Learn how and when to remove this template message, UP-STREAM: A Story of the Scottish Salmon Fisheries, Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs, Connected worlds: history in transnational perspective, Volume 2004, "The Young Grierson in America, 1924-1927", 1975 Review of Moana, by Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh: Honorary Graduates", The John Grierson Archive at The University of Stirling, John Grierson in South Africa: Afrikaaner nationalism and the National Film Board, Online essay about Grierson and Flaherty from the University of Glasgow, National Library of Scotland: SCOTTISH SCREEN ARCHIVE, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Grierson&oldid=1139168428. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Robert Flaherty himself also worked briefly for the unit. If you have a great idea youd like to share with our readers, send it to editor@videomaker.com. More than any one other person, John Grierson was responsible for the documentary film as it has developed in the English-speaking countries. Grierson returned to England in 1927, intrigued with the idea of applying Flaherty's technique to the common people of Scotland. The Coming of the Dial The Oracle He died on 19 February 1972 in Bath, Somerset, England, UK. (Berkeley), Fall 1972. John Grierson was born in Deanston (near Stirling), Scotland, on April 26, 1898. And we did."). [8] When Canada entered World War II in 1939, the NFB focused on the production of propaganda films, many of which Grierson directed. Since these matters may have involved differing (pr); The National Film Board had become one of the largest film studios and was respected around the world for what it had achieved; it had especially had influence in Czechoslovakia and China. political positions (and in any case did not relate directly to the To see him as a little old man with thick glasses introducing some of his films for his 1968 retrospective film I Remember, I Remember (clip 1) (premiered at the . Pratley, Gerald, "Only Grierson," in Evans, Gary, , and [2][10], Grierson was appointed as a foreign adviser to the Commission on Freedom of the Press in December 1943, which had been set up by the University of Chicago. . Alberto Cavalcanti, 1935). [2] They filmed at Southall Studios in West London but later moved to Beaconsfield Studios. [2] He went to the Crystal Palace in London to train with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Ellis, Jack C., "The Young Grierson in America," in "Future for British Film," in 1970 Michigan Publishing are currently supervised by The Grierson Trust. In 1934, Grierson sailed on the Isabella Greig out of Granton to film Granton Trawler on Viking Bank which is between Shetland and the Norwegian coast. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Awards: A large part of its innovation lies in the fierce boldness in bringing the camera to rugged locations such as a small boat in the middle of a gale while leaving relatively less of the action staged. [2] His mother, a suffragette and ardent Labour Party activist, often took the chair at Tom Johnston's election meetings. (exec pr); [9] Grierson resigned from his position in January 1941. John Grierson CBE (26 April 1898 - 19 February 1972) was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. Films and Filming are shown to people in the other parts, and if a government service is Ordinary life could now be heard as well as seen. EMB dissolved and its Film unit transferred to GPO, 1933; resigned from Grierson was educated at the University of Glasgow and the University of Chicago. Asked 56 days ago|10/21/2022 4:15:12 AM. (Evanston), Spring 1973. ", In the US Grierson had met pioneering documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty. Signing up enhances your TCE experience with the ability to save items to your personal reading list, and access the interactive map. He took stock of the situation at lightning speed and submitted his findings just a month later. He himself spent a lifetime seeing to it that movies were made and used in ways no man before him had imagined.. Humphrey Jennings. involve them emotionally with the workings of their government. 9, no. that some of Grierson's notions regarding the social and political uses of film were influenced by reading Lenin's writing about film as education and propaganda.). Pett and Pott 60, July 1991. Eisenstein's editing techniques and film theories, particularly the use of montage, would have a significant influence on Grierson's own work. (London), October 1980. From a talented collective of socially conscious filmmakers, artists, composers and writers Grierson built and nurtured the British documentary movement from deep within the bureaucracy of government film units. 30, no. (Cavalcanti) (pr); Post Haste (pr); , Boston, 1986. Eskimo Village [2], Grierson was appointed to the position of executive producer of Group 3 at the end of 1950; it was a film production enterprise that received loans of government money through the National Film Finance Corporation. (pr), The Face of Scotland On page 14 of The Call of the Wild, what's meant by the phrase "The _____ is defined as to lose or give up hope that things will 15. political figure and dedicated civil servant for most of his life. Time Gentlemen Please In Hollywood to study film, he befriended the American filmmaker Robert Flaherty, whose haunting film Nanook of the North celebrated the daily survival of an Inuit hunter. (pr); These filmmakers were mostly young, middle-class, educated males with liberal political views. was the first to use the word privateto pay for his kind of filmmaking, rather than depend on If you dramatize things, if you presented them in dramatic form, brought them alive as distinct from giving information you might find a way of illuminating the modern world, says Grierson. [2] He returned to the UK in December 1971 and was meant to travel back to India; however, his trip was delayed by the Indo-Pakistani War. Drifters He then solicited financial support from business and industry and enlisted the participation of artists interested in realistic filmmaking. [2] He spent a few months in 1971, travelling around India instilling the importance of having small production units throughout the country. (Watt) (pr); Our team will be reviewing your submission and get back to you with any further questions. On October 14, 1939, he accepted the posi-tion of first Film Commissioner of Canada, which he held until his resignation six years later. Click here to contact a sales representative and request a media kit. Film Unit was ideological as well as technical and aesthetic. Politics of Wartime Propaganda [2] Grierson delivered his report on government film propaganda and the weaknesses he had found in Canadian film production; his suggestion was to create a national coordinating body for the production of films. Paul Rotha, one of Grierson's principal history, culture, arts, and natural history of the state and region. another for thousands of films, and he played a decisive creative role in Ellis, Jack C., "Changing of the Guard: From the Grierson Spectator 193339," in John Grierson was born in Deanston (near Stirling), Scotland, on April 26, 1898. purposes and developed an extraordinary loyalty to him and to his goals. The training at the EMB Film Unit and subsequently the General Post Office Whether Trade Tattoo Sight and Sound "John Grierson," in [2] This Wonderful World was shown weekly, other topics for episodes included Leonardo da Vinci, ballet, King Penguins and Norman McLaren's Boogie Doodle. The founding principles of the movement were based on Grierson's views of documentary film. South Africa, all of which established national film boards. He was also the subject of a 1973 NFB documentary, Best Documentary on Science or the Natural World, The Frontier Post Award for Most Entertaining Documentary, Credits from: British Film Institute Catalog (Film Index International), This page was last edited on 13 February 2023, at 19:04. (Watt and Wright) (pr, co-sc); [2] The Private Life of Gannets went on to pick up an Academy Award in 1937.[2]. = 2 5/20 Learn how and when to remove this template message, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Documentary_Film_Movement&oldid=934857783. His final feature, Louisiana Story (1948), is beautifully photographed, but its message about the harmlessness of oil-drilling has been somewhat undermined by, among other disasters, the recent BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Grierson respected Flaherty immensely for his contributions to documentary form and his attempts to use the camera to bring alive the lives of everyday people and everyday events. (London), Summer 1948. = 2 1/4. = 15 ? Goetz, W., "The Canadian Wartime Documentary," in It was in this way that the British documentary movement was given shape In the US, he encountered a marked tendency toward political reaction, anti-democratic sentiments, and political apathy. [2], On 26 February 1942, Grierson attended the Academy Awards and received the award on behalf of the National Film Board for Churchill's Island. The five-foot something Scotsman with an orators voice single-handedly birthed the documentary form when cinema itself was still in its infancy. From 1936, the movement began to disperse and divisions emerged. "The Symphonic Film I," in (London), April/June 1952. [2] An abridged version of the report ran to 66 pages, which was prepared by August in London. During this time, Grierson was also involved in scrutinizing the film industries of other countries. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Grierson, Turner Classic Movies - Biography of John Grierson, University of Glasgow - Biography of John Grierson, Undiscovered Scotland - Biography of John Grierson, The Canadian Encyclopedia - Biography of John Grierson, John Grierson - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Career: The Smoke Menace Travelled to United States to study press, cinema, and other mass media, documentary filmmakers exposed to it came to share Grierson's broad social [2] Grierson entered the University of Glasgow in 1916;[4] however, he was unhappy that his efforts to help in World War I were only through his work at the munitions. [citation needed]. Housing Problems (1935) achieves landmark status for being the first film to look at appalling social conditions through the personal experience of people directly affected.Continuing to showcase the social power Grierson saw in documentary film, Housing Problems explores the issues personally faced by those living in industrial slums. According to popular myth, in the course of this writing stint, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in writing about Robert J. Flaherty's film Moana (1926): "Of course Moana, being a visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his family, has documentary value."[7]. Enter John Grierson. (exec pr); some of the most important of them. the interrelatedness of the modern world, and of our dependency on each He was at the same time general manager of Canada's Wartime Information Board and thus had extraordinary control over how Canadians perceived the war. Although Flaherty and Grierson remained life-long friends and sometime collaborators, the Scot didnt always think his American colleague was putting film to its best uses. Founded in 1950, the University of Texas Press publishes over 90 books per year and 11 journals in a wide range of fields. Scottish. Lambert, Gavin, "Who Wants True?," in (exec pr); Line to Tschierva Hut people, mostly middle class and well educated (many were from Cambridge "One Hundred Percent Cinema," in Grierson returned to England in 1927 with a highly charged social conscience and started to make the kinds of films he wanted to make. Night Mail. Also according to his wishes, his urn was placed in the sea off the Old Head in Kinsale, and his brother Anthony, who had died in August 1971, had his ashes placed at the same time. Perhaps the most significant works produced during this time were Housing Problems (dir. Documentary," in (pr); In Grierson's view, the focus of film should be on the everyday drama of ordinary people. Film Festival, 1968. The Film Board's [1] Early life [ edit] (exec pr), Man of Africa Grierson made his first film, Drifters (1929), out of his one-bedroom apartment using the kitchen table as an editing bench and the bathroom as a projection booth.He directed, shot and edited the silent short about Britains North Sea herring industry. (exec pr); Stephen Tallents, London, 1927; produced and directed GPO to form Film Centre with Arthur Elton, Stuart Legg, and J.P.R. [2] In 1962, he was a member of the jury for the Vancouver Film Festival, during his visit to Canada he also received the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Medal for his contribution to the visual arts. This is reflected in his first documentary, Drifters., In a talk show interview decades later, Grierson told the host, Let it be noted that it took this long to get a working man on the screen other than as a comic figure.. He became a tireless organizer and recruiter for the EMB, enlisting a stable of energetic young filmmakers into the film unit between 1930 and 1933. He wished to use film to educate citizens in an understanding of democratic society. Sight and Sound Journal of the University Film Association Nevertheless, Grierson did not believe [2] The Benares was torpedoed four days after its sailing, and sank within thirty-one minutes in a Force 10 Gale. John Grierson (1898-1972) is probably Scotland's most important filmmaker. , January 1946. 0 Answers/Comments. The 25-minute short experiments with sound design, and dynamic editing to produce an energetic audio-visual style that matches the energy of the dedicated postal workers aboard the Nightmail train. Cinema The New Generation Drifters demonstrated new possibilities for the use of film by heralding the cinematic power of unstaged actuality. (Berkeley), Fall 1954. [2], The first programme of This Wonderful World was aired on 11 October 1957 in Scotland; it was on The Culbin Sands which focused on how the Forestry Commission had replanted six thousand acres of woodland along the mouth of Findhorn. [2] The footage from his voyage was handed over to Edgar Anstey, who pulled footage of when the camera had fallen over on the deck of the boat to create a storm scene. influenced many documentary filmmakers, not only in Britain and Canada but [1], Grierson was born in the old schoolhouse in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland, to schoolmaster Robert Morrison Grierson from Boddam, near Peterhead, and Jane Anthony, a teacher from Ayrshire. Later he was an executive producer in Britain for television and motion pictures and acted as an adviser to makers of informational films. [2] The results for the bursary examination were not posted until October 1915; Grierson applied to work at the munitions at Alexandria; the munitions building had been the original home of the Argyll Motor Company which had earlier in the twentieth century built the first complete motor car in Scotland. Ham Wright directed the film showing the German sailors that had been captured; playing football, enjoying meals and looking healthy. "The BBC and All That," in nation and of the world) the information and attitudes that he thought It was Flahertys 1926 docufiction film Moana about Samoan culture that prompted Grierson to coin the term. [2] Grierson was appointed the first Commissioner of the National Film Board in October 1939. The film, which follows the heroic work of North Sea herring fishermen, was a radical departure from anything being made by the British film industry or Hollywood. Film Quarterly [2] Grierson spent much of his time corresponding with the directors at Group 3, as well as commenting on scripts and story ideas. More than 100 films made Key films - Song of Ceylon 1934 Coal Face 1935 . This Wonderful World Winston, Brian, (Montreal), September/October 1978. In film series such as Canada Carries On and The World in Action, he reached an audience of millions in Canadian and American cinemas. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. It tells the story of Britain's North Sea herring fishery. (Wright) (pr), The Londoners Expert answered|Jerrald@22|Points 14385| Log in for more information. On a Rockefeller scholarship to the University of Chicago, Grierson began his lifelong study of the influence of media on public opinion. For Grierson, Flahertys re-enacted films about disappearing ways of life were too idyllic and too far removed from the pressing realities of the modern world where Grierson preferred to train his documentary lens. It also has a special obligation to the people of Texas to publish authoritative books on the ). Education & Study Guides. It was during this time that Grierson developed a conviction that motion pictures could play a central role in promoting this process. "Prospect for Documentary," in (pr, co-ed), The Country Comes to Town ] They filmed at Southall Studios in West London but later moved to Beaconsfield Studios (... Something Scotsman with an orators voice single-handedly birthed the documentary film meals and healthy. 14385| Log in for more information Winston, Brian, ( Montreal ), the University of Press... Informational films Grierson resigned from his position in January 1941 form when cinema was! Labour Party activist, often took the chair at Tom Johnston 's meetings. 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