The British tradition

• Film production boards
• Free Cinema
• War, propaganda and politics

See BFI Screenonline for more information.

The term 'documentary' is often associated with the Scottish film-maker John Grierson, who used it when reviewing Robert Flaherty's film Moana- A Romance of the Golden Age (1926) for the New York Sun. Grierson was a leading figure in Britain's fine documentary tradition which nurtured talented and energetic film-makers such as Humphrey Jennings, Basil Wright , Paul Rotha, Len Lye, Alberto Cavalcanti, Arthur Elton and Edgar Anstey whose Housing Problems is featured in this collection.

Film production boards

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Grierson joined the British Empire Marketing Board (EMB) and set up its film unit in 1928. He made Drifters (1929) the story of North Sea herring fisheries. Drifters contains many of the pioneering traits that would later be adopted by others - employing montage in an expressive manner, focusing on social interaction, using real people and extensive use of outdoor locations. Grierson, aligning himself to the theories put forward by Dziga Vertov, advocated that raw materials were better guides than fictional films to interpreting the modern world.

However, the British documentary movement and its later offshoots owe much to the organisations, often government-sponsored, which formed film units to promote or publicise particular issues, such as the British Empire (in the case of EMB), or as internal training films such as the output of British Transport Films. During a period from the 1930s to 1950s works emerged that showed imaginative film-makers often injecting ordinary subjects with unexpected vibrancy.

Examples of corporate film units

The EMB became the General Post Office Unit in 1933. Night Mail (1936) directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, made by the GPO film unit, demonstrated the verve of the time. It took the nightly journey of the Postal Special from London to Glasgow, and making it compelling with music composed by Benjamin Britten and a text provided by poet WH Auden.

The GPO unit in turn mutated into the Crown Film Unit during World War II. During the war, the unit produced a series of feature-length dramatised documentaries such as Fires Were Started (1941), directed by Humphrey Jennings, which looked at the work of the National Fire Service during the Blitz in London.

The film used real firemen and real fire-fighting scenes and by constructing a story, created a powerful evocation of a time and place in history. The Central Office of Information superseded the Crown Film Unit after the war.

• Of the corporate film units, perhaps the Shell Film Unit, formed not long after the GPO, is the most celebrated in terms of its artistry and imaginative film-making. Post-war nationalisation led to the formation of some other notable film units such as British Transport Films and the National Coal Board Film Unit.

An excellent example of the inventive, quirky and charismatic style of film-making by corporate organisations is provided in this pack by Holiday (1957) directed by John Taylor. This was made by British Transport Films to advertise the benefits of train travel. Rather than concentrating on a train journey, it shows, via an upbeat soundtrack, creative editing and colourful sequences, people enjoying themselves at Blackpool.

The tradition survives today, with many organisations choosing to commission independent production companies to get their messages across. Most of today's communication work is produced on video or via the internet, and the International Visual Communication Association (IVCA) is the professional body which represents the UK corporate visual communication community.

Free Cinema

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In the mid-1950s a short-lived but exceptionally influential documentary movement occurred in Britain called Free Cinema. Essentially, Free Cinema was the title given to a series of six programmes of short documentaries which were shown at the National Film Theatre in London between February 1956 and March 1959. Led by film-maker and film critic Lindsay Anderson, the movement wanted to film ordinary people at work and at play. The films were produced in semi-amateur conditions (all but three on 16mm film). The films strived for immediacy, spontaneity, and authenticity - an attempt to bring the film-maker and the audience closer to the subject. Directorial intervention was kept to a minimum with films shot on location and often featuring ordinary, working class people.

This all served to create evocative and highly personalised glimpses of life in Britain in the 1950s, such as Karel Reisz's We Are the Lambeth Boys (1959) and Lindsay Anderson's O Dreamland (1953) and Every Day Except Christmas (1957) . In this pack Tomorrow's Saturday (1962) by Michael Grigsby shows a typical weekend of workers in Blackburn and was filmed true to the values of Free Cinema, though it was not part of the programmes at the times.

The Free Cinema movement, which attained its 'free' label because the films were made outside the framework of the film industry, ironically sparked the British New Wave of the 1960s (the so-called 'kitchen sink' dramas), which were made with the backing of the film industry. These films included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) by Karel Reisz and This Sporting Life (1963) by Lindsay Anderson.

The documentary realist approach has also influenced British feature-film directors such as Bill Douglas, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.

War, propaganda and politics

See BFI Screenonline for more information.

Propaganda films

Film can be an ideal instrument of propaganda. The audience believes in the integrity of the images presented, which often appear as irrefutable evidence of the truth.

During World War I, Britain embarked upon a major programme of propaganda film production. Short films such as The Wonderful Organization of the Royal Army Medical Corps (1916) were followed by longer films such as The Battle of the Somme (1916) which featured some staged scenes.

However, perhaps the most infamous propaganda film was made by German film-maker Leni Riefenstahl who was commissioned by Adolph Hitler to film the annual Nazi Party rally of 1934. The resulting film, Triumph of the Will (1935), remains a landmark both in documentary technique and in the use of film as a powerful propaganda tool.

In America, Frank Capra's Why We Fight series (film 2005, but also TV series) was used to show different aspects of World War II in an effort to persuade the US public that the USA should enter the war.

Newsreels

Newsreels in Britain had become a part of cinema before World War II but assumed greater significance during the war years. On one level they relayed visual information to audiences; on another level they were censored by the government, which raised issues of trust between the audience and the authorities. The problems came when newsreels depicted bad news or shocking images, such as those of the concentration camps shown in 1945. Questions were asked about what was appropriate to show in public cinemas.

Nevertheless, the post-war years saw newsreels continue with the familiar tones of their commentators Lionel Gamlin (British Movietone News), EVH Emmett (Gaumont-British News) or Bob Danvers-Walker (for Pathe News, often accompanied with stirring music in the backgrounds. The newsreel companies also issued cinemagazines that covered more light-hearted or ephemeral topics. In Britain, This Modern Age (1946-50) produced by the Rank Organisation, was seen as the British answer to the innovative pictorial journalism style that had been established by the American The March of Time.

The newsreels (which usually ran to ten minutes or more) continued to plough a safe furrow celebrating the traditional aspects of British life such as royalty, sport and personalities, while handling politics with caution.

The advent of television meant the slow end of the newsreel (some continued to be produced up to the late 1970s). However, their importance has grown with time, as both academic and commercial companies have plundered archives as a major source of historical film for television documentaries.

World War II in Real Shorts

In this pack are two different treatments of World War II: I Expect Joan Feels the Same (2003) directed by Sophie Williams, features two elderly war widows candidly discussing the war while their conversations are intercut with photographs of their husbands who were killed during the war and other images from their past. The range of emotions - love, laughter and grief - demonstrates the raw energy that such films can provide.

A different emotion and treatment is portrayed in Silence (1998) directed by Orly Yardin and Sylvie Bringas. Tana Ross, a victim of the Holocaust, tells her story of survival for the first time. She speaks about her past and the reasons for her 50-year silence in first-person narration over animated visuals and specially composed music. The impact on the audience is that we empathise as her traumas finally find some form of release.