Rescued by Rover (1905)
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Richard M McCormack, ‘From Caligari to Dietrich: Sexual, Social and Cinematic Discourses in Weimar Film’, Signs, Vol. 18 No. 3, University of Chicago, Spring 1993. Neil Brand, rather harshly, likens Mabel and Victor’s turn to parents at a school dance. (Neil Brand on ‘Composing for Piccadilly’, DVD extra, BFI Video Publishing.) Ian Christie comments that few British films offer “anything approaching this virtuoso tracking shot” (DVD Notes on Piccadilly) Peter J Hutchings, ‘Modernity: A Film by Alfred Hitchcock’, www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/6/modernity.html, accessed 15 April 2007. Hitchcock's The Ring (1925) is a re-make of Dupont's Varietie of two years earlier. Further Reading Amy Sargeant, British Cinema: A Critical History, London, BFI, 2005. Gina Marchetti, Romance and the ’Yellow Peril’: Race, Sex and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction, Berkley, University of California Press, 1993. Lynda Townsend Drifters (1929) [Production Company: Empire Marketing Board. Director and editor: John Grierson. Cinematographer: Basil Emmott. Music: Mike Nolan.] Drifters, widely credited as the founding film of the British Documentary Film movement, draws cinematic attention to hitherto overlooked aspects of British society while drawing on creative film techniques to distinguish it from the more functional and recognisable newsreel form. It takes the form of a ‘day-in-the-life’ of the North Sea herring fleets, following the fishermen as they go in search of the creature that has become their livelihood. With this film, John Grierson established a new approach to cinema, combining a deliberately creative treatment of reality with a strong ethical belief in the role film should play in building a democratic and unified society. This was the style that came to characterise the emerging British school of documentary film production, and which marked a new phase for film-making in the UK. According to Ian Aitken, Grierson in fact envisaged this approach as a new genre comprising ‘films of thirty to forty minutes which through creative editing of actuality footage would enable stories to be “orchestrated into cinematic sequences of enormous vitality”.’ (in Murphy 2001: 61) Indeed, as Aitken also points out, ‘its combination of naturalistic images and formative editing has influenced traditions of documentary film-making in Britain ever since.’ (2001: 60) Drifters was the first and indeed only film directed by Grierson himself and as such the only film that can truly be said to be indicative of his personal vision, although he went on to nurture the work of a range of other documentary film-makers. His approach was much influenced by the work of Irish American Robert Flaherty, especially his silent film Nanook of the North (about an Inuit community in Canada, made in 1921 for a fur trading company) and Man of Aran (Flaherty’s impression of Ireland, made in 1934), with whom he would later collaborate. (1) It was originally planned that Drifters would be the first in a series of publicity films for the Empire Marketing Board, promoting trade links between Britain and the countries of the Empire. However, it quickly became a far more ambitious project and was well received critically, far exceeding its official brief. Amongst the multitude of accolades bestowed upon it at the time of its release, Drifters was hailed by Paul Rotha, a writer who later became another of the great British documentary film-makers, as one of the very few examples of authentic British film-making at that time. Rotha praised it in particular for seeking a new creative form, for revealing what he called ‘a sense of cinema’ and for not imitating the American or German models of expression that were popular and critically acclaimed at the time. (2) An hour in length, Drifters follows the daily rituals of a group of herring fishermen, starting with their early morning preparations and ending with the eventual sale of their catch at market. Various approaches are taken to represent these potentially unexciting activities which combine to make for a visually appealing, hypnotically compelling film that brings together concrete information with abstract contemplation. Filmed mainly on location, at sea in all weathers, Drifters constructs a straightforward linear narrative that allows the audience to get really close to the fishermen in order to observe their largely unseen activities. Only the most basic information is provided via intertitles; the images are largely left to speak for themselves. A certain amount of drama is suggested by the news of an incoming storm that will make the job of hauling in the heavy nets even more challenging. However, it is also implied by the resigned acceptance on the faces of the fishermen, shown in unflinching close-up, that bad weather is an everyday hazard. Nothing remarkable happens. The fish are eventually hauled in and the boat sets off back to the dock. The pleasure and excitement of the film lies less in the ‘narrative’ and more in the images themselves, in the sublime quality of many of the shots, and the careful juxtaposition of them, which together reinforce the potential of the ‘documentary’ as a creative form. For example, the opening images reveal an idyllic rural landscape, while others linger on the flock of seagulls that follow the boat in the hope of food. Sometimes those birds are followed in flight; at other moments they are shown grabbing at dead fish on the sea. The patterns they create, caught in the light against sky or water, offer a different kind of visual pleasure that reveals the director’s commitment to experimentation with form. Close-ups of the herring as they are gathered in the nets are lit so as to show every glinting detail of their scales, and the underwater attack on them by the dogfish while the fishermen sleep is constructed as the real moment of heightened dramatic tension. One critic remarked upon the importance of such shots that place the herring themselves at the centre of the drama, suggesting that ‘this prosaic and even slightly comic fish has provided the excuse for camera-work at once satisfying to the eye and emotions.’ (Peter Fleming 1929 cited in Sargeant 2005: 133-4) Meanwhile, other approaches are included that do not involve the shooting of ‘actuality footage’, the most striking example being the insertion of scenes shot in studio to capture below deck activities of the fishermen and tending to the fire. Drifters is ultimately shaped and defined by its skilful editing. As Nield points out, ‘particular attention has been paid to the pacing of the piece, its rhythms matching the gentle rocking of the waves, an effect enhanced by the superb, but never over-emphatic, use of superimpositions plus Mike Nolan’s delicate piano score.’ (2005: 1) The sense of repetition and rhythm is especially noticeable in the shots of the machinery that enables the boats to move swiftly out to sea. The steam rising from chimneys and steel engines pounding away below deck add a sense of modernity to the otherwise timelessness of the work of the herring fishermen. Moreover, the influence of the montage experiments of the Soviets is clear as Drifters makes effective use of quick editing and suggestive juxtapositions. (3) By emphasising the fundamental qualities of mankind, by reifying the value of hard physical labour, and by emphasising the herioc figure of the working man, the film’s individual characters become ‘representatives of a nation rather than of a specific class or other restricted social group.’ (Higson 1995: 199) Nevertheless, this is achieved through a focus on one specific fishing crew, with which the audience is invited to become familiar and with whom we are asked to empathise. None of the crew is named, but ‘types’ are clearly marked out: the bearded captain is shown lying awake at night, clearly anxious about the catch; the young lad is sympathetically observed as he learns to cook and carry out other basic but essential tasks; and in one really memorable shot, the engine stoker deftly lights his pipe from the coal fire that keeps the boat in operation. Somehow, the ordinary is made to appear extraordinary in that it sheds light on those things that are important to this tight-knit group of men, brought together by their sense of purpose. Moreover, Drifters succeeds in placing the work of the crew within the context of the fishing industry more generally. This is especially evident in the final section back at quayside, in which each frame bustles with life as auctioneers call buyers together as the fleet arrive with their catch, and the townspeople gather to contribute to the business of preparing the fish. The gently rolling rhythm (evocative of the movement of the boat) and mesmerising, hypnotic images that make subtle yet effective use of soft focus, dissolves and super-impositions, give Drifters a quality that has been described by many as poetic. This idea of visual poetry in documentary would continue to emerge throughout the following decade in work such as Night Mail (Harry Watt and Basil Wright 1936) which Grierson helped to produce and for which he provided the voice-over commentary. Such an approach helps to evoke an impression of life for the fishermen at work at that time, and for the fishing town generally, rather than informing through facts in the style of a newsreel, and as such Drifters helped to mark the documentary out as a distinctive form. John Grierson, who is credited with having coined the term ‘documentary’ when reviewing Flaherty’s second film, Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age (1926 US), went on to become the founder and leading figure in the British Documentary film movement. This influential group is now widely regarded as one of the main reference points for the approach of realism that is recognised as central to British cinema – fiction as well as documentary. He continued to believe passionately that ‘cinema was unable to perform an educational or public service role in the private sector’ (Enticknap in Ashby and Higson 2000: 209). In fact, he was hostile to the ethos of entertainment cinema and sought to use film instead for more austere social purposes. Concerned to reveal and explore the social role documentary film could play, as well as with its distinct aesthetic qualities as a cinematic form, Grierson argued that documentary film-makers within the genre should ‘devote themselves to the social duty of revealing and describing social interconnection.’ (Aitken 2001: 61) His views emerged largely as a response to the economic difficulties and insecurities of the inter-war period, and were rooted in a firm belief that film, as a relatively new form of mass communication, could play a key role in strengthening a sense of national unity and stability. Having made Drifters and established his reputation as a socially committed film-maker with a concern for invigorating the artistic potential of cinema, Grierson then went on to collaborate with and support the careers of other film-makers such as Jennings, Alberto Cavalcanti, Henry Watt, Len Lye and Basil Wright. He also employed the likes of Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden to provide evocative soundtracks on his later documentary collaborations. When the Empire Marketing Board was disbanded, Grierson helped set up and became head of the General Post Office film unit in 1930s, a Government-run production and distribution organisation for non-commercial cinema, later renamed the Crown Film Unit. Within all these institutions, he continued and developed the strategy that he had begun with the making of Drifters, that of using government money to make films with clear social intent, but which also had ambitious aesthetic aims. Such a strategy was continued throughout the 1930s and ensured the development of the much respected film-making tradition of social realism that still influences fiction and documentary production in the UK and beyond today. Notes 1. Flaherty, like Grierson, was interested in the ongoing struggle with the forces of modernity. They first worked together on Industrial Britain (1931), also sponsored by the Empire Marketing Board’s Film Unit. 2. Paul Rotha’s seminal book, The Film Till Now, was first published in 1930. 3. This aspect of the rhythm of modern machinery has led to comparisons with the work of Soviet documentary film-maker, Dziga Vertov, in particular his Man with a Movie Camera (1929). The montage style more generally is indebted to the work of other famous Soviet film-makers, Eisenstein and Pudovkin, with Drifters sharing a programme with Eisenstein’s banned Battleship Potemkin (1925) at a Film Society event in London in 1929. Further Reading Ian Aitken, ‘The British Documentary Film Movement’, in Robert Murphy (ed.), The British Cinema Book, 2nd edn, London, BFI, 2001. Geoff Brown, ‘Paradise Found and Lost: The Course of British Realism’, in in Robert Murphy (ed.), The British Cinema Book, 2nd edn, London, BFI, 2001. Leo Enticknap, ‘This Modern Age and the British Non-Fiction Film’, in Justine Ashby and Andrew Higson, British Cinema, Past and Present, London and New York, Routledge, 2000. Andrew Higson, Waving the Flag: Constructing a National Cinema in Britain, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995.
Paul Rotha, The Film Till Now (revised edition), London, Spring Books, 1967. Dean Williams, ‘Robert Flaherty’, in http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/flaherty.html, October 2002. Sarah Barrow The 39 Steps (1935) [Production Company: Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Screenwriters: Charles Bennett and Ian Hay (from novel by John Buchan). Cinematographer: Bernard Knowles. Music: Louis Levy. Editor: Derek Twist. Cast: Robert Donat (Robert Hannay), Madeleine Carroll (Pamela), Lucie Mannheim (Annabella Smith), Geoffrey Teale (Professor Jordan), Peggy Ashcroft (Margaret Crofter), John Laurie (John Crofter).] [it is a ] perfect example of the thriller plot in its natural state. (Rohmer and Chabrol, 1957: 42) At nearly every stop on its cross country journey we find complacency and venality. It is a country without confidence, unity or purpose. (Glancy, 2002: 18) For Hitchcock, all these shifting identities [in the film] are emblematic of the disparity between appearance and reality, of the unpredictable basis of relationships and the precarious necessity of trust – a complex of ideas made clear in each sequence of the picture. (Spoto, 1992: 43) These quotations suggest that The 39 Steps is a genre film - a thriller - made to excite and entertain an audience. It also apparently deals with significant themes such as the nature of identity and the state of a nation. If this is so then The 39 Steps illustrates one of the central arguments for film studies as an academic subject - that popular, genre films can be as thoughtful and stimulating as more obviously ‘serious’ films (or even works of literature, fine art etc). This idea is part of a much wider theoretical context – the perceived divide between high art and popular culture. These two groups can be defined through certain attributes. In high art the producer is characterised as a uniquely gifted individual driven by the desire to create, whose work is received by an elite audience whose specialist knowledge provides intellectual pleasures. In opposition to this, popular culture is often produced in collaboration within the context of a commercial institution, for a global audience for the purpose of entertainment. While these categories are probably recognisable there are clear contradictions. Not every text fits neatly into one side or the other; arias from opera have become sporting anthems and chart hits. Texts shift between the categories; Shakespeare’s plays were originally performed for a popular audience, later becoming part of elite theatre and the focus of academic study, more recently translated into contemporary television drama using popular stars. Initially it would seem cinema fits firmly into the popular culture category but within film there are further divides, most clearly between Hollywood genre and art house cinema. Traditionally high art with its appeal to an elite, educated audience was judged as more worthwhile than popular culture’s seemingly easy pleasures. Some theorists [e.g. Bordieu (1) and Hall (2)] have argued that this divide is another example of the way that powerful groups categorise people to create hierarchical societies. In this analysis the ‘great divide’ works in a similar way to the class system, with some types of knowledge worth more than others. This has been referred to as an individual’s cultural capital (knowledge of opera is more highly rated than knowledge of soap opera) which signifies social status. According to this model the divide between high art and popular culture is another form of conflict between groups in society; the culture which is consumed by the masses – including genre film – is seen as less important than the high art consumed by elite groups. If mass culture is frivolous, superficial and merely entertaining then it is easier to characterise the groups in society which enjoy it as also being less important. In the late twentieth century a philosophical and cultural movement – postmodernism - explicitly challenged this idea, arguing that this division within the arts was a false one. The increase in academic courses in film, media and cultural studies is an indication of the influence of this movement. The 39 Steps illustrates the constructed nature of the divide; it is a popular genre film which provides thrills, excitement and humour as well as complex themes about identity and human behaviour. It isn’t that these themes are ‘bolted on’ they are an integral part of the genre form. The 39 Steps raises questions about human experience from the first scenes. What motivates people to act in the way they do? What is the difference between acting for good and acting for evil? How do we define ourselves? How fixed is identity when it can change, slip away or be disguised so easily? The film opens with an establishing shot of the illuminated sign for a music hall followed by a low angled, asymmetrical shot of a man (Hannay) buying a ticket. The audience hears the man’s voice but does not see his face; instead the camera follows the man to his seat in the audience. These first moments introduce several ideas which are relevant to the main themes. Throughout the film Hannay has to pretend to be different people in order to escape his captors even in the opening he isn’t introduced; he isn’t given a name or face. The first setting, the music hall, is a type of theatre, a place for performance, for assumed identities – such as Mr. Memory. The audience is working class, signified by costume, props (beer glasses) and the noisy atmosphere. Hannay doesn’t belong in this milieu; this is made clear to the audience when we are finally introduced to the central character. Rather than the full close up that often indicates the appearance of a star, Hannay is part of a crowd, but his difference is denoted in the clean lines of his coat and the stylish cut of his hair. (Hannay’s difference is also later emphasised by the fact that he is Canadian – in the novel he’s English – which also affects the representation of Britishness in the film). Hannay is introduced in this way – a face in the crowd - because it emphasises the random nature of events which is found across Hitchcock’s films. Why should it be Hannay rather than anyone else who is caught up in murder? The opening of the film therefore establishes some crucial ideas. Hannay is the hero of the film but an insubstantial one who doesn’t seem to fit into his surroundings. We discover very little about him throughout the film – subverting audience expectations about identification and the development of character. (3) Life seems to be directed by seemingly random events which can have catastrophic consequences – whether we behave well or badly. People are motivated to act for all kinds of reasons – without having any idea of the consequences. These themes construct a chaotic view of the world; one at odds with a belief in order and control and denying the comfort that these can bring. The precariousness of existence is signified in the second shot of the film, an off-kilter composition influenced by German Expressionism, an art movement which represented the irrationality of every-day life. The film therefore sets up Hannay’s quest for the truth about the 39 Steps within a framework of chance and chaos. In the foreground the search itself, the desire for knowledge which is probably always going to be elusive. (In this context, the MacGuffin, the plot device which has no meaning in itself, makes perfect sense). Introduced in the first shots, these ideas are developed consistently throughout the film within the connected themes of patriotism, politics and sexual desire. These in turn are linked to the concept of performance. The ease of assuming - and discarding – different identities suggests that ideological positions (the good vs evil of the thriller genre) are simply costumes to be worn at different times. For example – why does Hannay take Annabella, the spy, home with him? What motivates the spy? Not the ideal of patriotism but money. Britain is represented as a repressed, parochial country where the landowners, travelling salesmen, academics, politicians – even milkmen – are hypocrites, liars and murderers. Religion is a cover for cruelty and misogyny in the character of the Scottish crofter; the hymn book which stops a bullet aimed at Hannay has a practical rather than spiritual use. The thriller is often interpreted as an allegory - the shadowy organisation against the hero who defeats it – but The 39 Steps removes these certainties through the constant undermining of audience expectations. The pleasures of the thriller form – visceral excitement, suspense etc – are often derided as purely transitory and superficial but in The 39 Steps they can be understood as an attempt to jolt the viewer out of conventional attitudes - an integral part of the meaning of the film. The influence of the themes and style of The 39 Steps can be seen most explicitly in Hitchcock’s later Hollywood films. In North by Northwest (1959) there is a similar use of narrative structure, genre and character, while and Notorious (1946) returns to the themes of patriotism and betrayal. The motif of the innocent man forced on the run is a popular one in contemporary thrillers. Enemy of the State (Scott, 1997) can be read as a homage to The 39 Steps (and North by Northwest), Arlington Road (Pellington, 1998) places the innocent man in the setting of a paranoid conspiracy thriller. The Bourne Identity (Liman, 2002), while having a spy as the central character, also uses a similar plot and atmosphere of cynicism about government action and motivation. Notes
Further Reading Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, ‘The English Period’ in Hitchcock: the First Forty-Four Films, Roundhouse, 1957/1992. Yüklə 1,18 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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