The Content of British Documentary Movement

Greer joined the newly established Imperial Market Committee of the British government on 1928 and was responsible for leading the film department of the Committee. Its task is to publicize the government's food supply policy through movies. Attending the film department were Arthur Elton, basire Reed and Stuart Legg. 1933, the Imperial Market Committee was dissolved, and the British General Post Office took over the film department, renamed the film department of the General Post Office, and continued to shoot documentaries to coordinate the relationship between the government and the people. New members include Paulo Rocha, Edgar Asdale, Alberto Cavalcanti, john tyler and Harry Walter. Greer 1937 resigned. Two years later, the film department of the General Post Office was taken over by the British intelligence department and renamed Crown Film Department. Dissolved in 195 1. During Gleason's tenure, documentary producers under his leadership formed the famous Gleason School. The British film movement in film history refers to the creative activities of this school in the 1930s and 1940s.

The British documentary movement was deeply influenced by Soviet films in creative thinking, especially Wiltoff's "movie eye" theory. But at the same time, they also widely absorbed Walter Rutman's "symphony" montage, various tendencies of the French avant-garde and the experience of joris ivens in the Netherlands and Flaherty in the United States. Therefore, on the one hand, they attach great importance to the social significance of movies and advocate that documentaries should be a creative treatment of real life scenes and a direct means of publicity; On the other hand, great attention is paid to artistic treatment when reproducing real life scenes. Some representative works of British documentary school, such as Song of Ceylon by Rhett (1934), Housing Problem by Anstey and Elton (1935), Night Mail by Rhett and Walter (1936), Coal Miner by Cavalcanti (. However, this kind of technical processing has clear boundaries, and it is absolutely not allowed to add or tamper with image content.

Gleason left England shortly after leaving his post. The creative activities of the British documentary school have not been affected by this. After the outbreak of World War II, the documentary school devoted itself to serving the war propaganda, and there were two main tendencies in its creation: one was the "chronicle genre" represented by Paulo Rocha, that is, the ready-made documentary materials were linked through commentaries, giving them a strong sense of rhythm to reflect some educational themes, such as their "Rich World" (1943) and "Wealth of the World" (. Another tendency is to take Humphrey Jennings as the representative, emphasizing the human touch and sense of humor in the film, and using real people (such as pedestrians on the street) is almost the same as using professional actors. His works include Leisure Time (1939), London Fire (1943) and Diary for Timothy (1945).

195 1 The dissolution of the Crown Film Department declared the end of the British documentary movement.