Basil Wright: Definitions of Documentary

BASIL WRIGHT: DEFINITIONS OF DOCUMENTARY G. E. PALMER Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosopy University of Stirling 1990 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following - Dr John Izod and Professor Ian Lockerbie of Stirling University acted as my supervisors over five years and who gave me much help and encouragement Basil Wright and Kassim Al-bin Said both demonstrated great generosity and patience dunng my frequent visits to Little Adam Farm My wife Sheena Palmer has been patient and supportive over these difficult times and has helped enormously Janet McBain and The Scottish Film Archive The Stirling University Archive Team The staff of the Dorset Institute and Stirling University libranes Mr Bruce-Jones and Mr and Mrs Readman Stirling University for granting me a three-year studentship My parents Mr and Mrs Carl Palmer And especially my Grandparents Mr and Mrs Rattenbury God Bless Abstract. A close textual analysis of the films of Basil Wright between 1931 and 1938 This work will give a fresh perspective on the working methods of one of the senior members of the British Documentary Movement It will also discuss the influence exerted by the leader of this group John Gnerson Seven films will be looked at in detail beginning with The Country Comes to the Town and concluding with Face of Scotland In these detailed analyses we will discuss how the ideological thinking of the group found expression through Wright The purpose of studying an individual is to judge what measure of freedom individual members of the unit were permitted In seven chapters we will chart the growth of the movement from Gnerson's Dnfters in 1929 to Wright's Face of Scotland in 1938 During the period the Movement went through changes in direction which had a direct bearing on the style of Wright's work In order to understand these changes we shall chart Wright's development from cutter in late 1929 to senior member in the late thirties Each chapter will begin with socio-historical data on the subject Wnght was filming Also included in this section is material on key personnel and details of shooting This is followed with a close analysis of the form and meaning of Wright's style In the conclusions we will discuss Gnerson's reaction to the films in question as well as giving further political and historical data The purpose of this thesis is to re-evaluate Wright's early work and to judge how much it is a reflection of the middle-opinion group whose ideas on social policy find expression in some of the films BASIL WRIGHT: DEFINITIONS OF DOCUMENTARY CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE Gnerson and Dnfters 5 CHAPTER TWO The Early Years 36 CHAPTER THREE The First Two Films 67 CHAPTER FOUR The West Indian Films 108 CHAPTER FIVE Song of Ceylon 149 CHAPTER SIX A Change of Direction 194 CHAPTER SEVEN Face of Scotland 246 CONCLUSION 289 THE FILMS 293 BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 Introduction Basil Wright has a central role in the history of documentary as the first man chosen by John Gnerson to join him in the film-making enterprise which came to be known as the British Documentary Movement Wright was a typical member of the Movement in that he shared the same class and education as that of his colleagues, but what distinguished Wright was that he developed a lyrical style which was very much his own Between 1929 and 1939 Wright was to play a key role as a film-maker, propagandist and as a teacher for the Movement In this thesis we shall be evaluating Wright's work as one particular and distinctive contribution to the history of documentary In order to extract Wright from Gnerson's shadow we have to deal with the myth that has grown up around the Movement The main reason for this has been an over-concentration on Gnerson and his writings To a degree this is understandable as Gnerson was undeniably the father of the Movement, and its guiding force But such a concentration inevitably fails to read the films as anything more than expressions of Gnerson's philosophy and not as texts of value in themselves By focusing on Wright we will be discussing to what extent individuality was permitted within the Movement This in turn necessitates questioning the very idea of a 'Movement' as a group of film-makers with shared aims We will investigate how Wright negotiated his own artistic 'space' between the institutional demands of the EMB and his own desire to express himself as an artist Wright has always maintained that his pnmary purpose was to 'please himself' by creating what he called 'little works of art' This has significant implications In the traditional histories, Wright and his colleagues record their allegiance to Gnerson's socially purposive approach But while those in the Movement may have believed in their leader's rhetoric, as artists they all sought to make individual contributions Wright's particular concern was in what can broadly be termed 'the aesthetic' His concern with the detail, pattern and the form of his films are all symptomatic of his interest in style It is Wright's distinctive method and the manner in which he constructed his films and treated the subjects handed to him by Gnerson that will be analysed in order to discover the ideological significance of Wnght's style 1 In the course of this investigation we will also be dealing with the history of the penod The films of the Movement have a special place in the story of Bntish film because of their claim to be 'realistic' This is a claim we shall be examining by looking at the historical and economic background in which the films were made We will ask whether the films tell us something about the thirties or whether they are significant only as the insights and discoveries of one man Wright's work will be placed in its historical context and seen as a response to a complex of forces His films will be contrasted with other artifacts from the penod Our analysis will also touch upon the question of audiences The Movement has received a great deal of critical attention which is out of all proportion to the number of people who actually saw the films at the time It is important to investigate just who saw the films to understand their meaning in the thirties This is not just a statistical question but a crucial issue, for Wright's knowledge of this audience would have influenced his approach to the subject For example the non-theatrical circuit that developed in the thirties included not only the burgeoning cineastes but comprised a high percentage of children and these featured predominantly in Wnght's work throughout the decade This knowledge will contribute to our analysis One of the recurring themes of the thirties was the importance of defining British democracy in a rapidly changing world Wnght and his colleagues were concerned with this problem and the films they made were often conceived with this theme in mind Indeed 'democracy' was one of Gnerson's key-words and a concept from which the Movement drew inspiration In looking at Wright's work we shall be examining his own filmic definition of democracy and how this was influenced by the various institutional demands acting upon him Our investigation then is also a discussion of the role of intellectuals in the state as mediators of mass democracy What makes this pertinent is that the forms Wright adopted to portray this idea, is a form still utilised by film-makers today in what has been called mainstream documentary As a result, it is important that we take into account the economic and political circumstances surrounding the original formulation It is fortunate that in our attempt to evaluate Wnght's contribution to the 2 documentary form we have some private letters and interviews conducted with the director in the last years of his life These have offered insights on the planning and construction of Wright's work as well as revealing his feelings about particular subjects and locations Wright and his colleagues have contributed to the myth of the Movement by constructing their own inevitably subjective history of the penod It is hoped that by discussing Wright's recollections in the context of other accounts of the period we will be helping to re-locate his work and providing a fresh perspective which may have implications for future studies of the Movement and the history of Bntish film The method adopted in the following will be to trace Wright's career from the time he first joined joined Gnerson in late 1929 to 1938 and the release of Face of Scotland - his last major film before the war and the last project he worked on before the gradual break-up of the Movement dunng the war We shall be focussing on seven films that Wright is credited with directing, and analysing them in chronological order We shall look at his preparations for shooting, the editing process and then concentrate on a close textual analysis of the film in question This will be followed with a conclusion in which we assess to what extent Wright's work is an expression of the Gnersonian philosophy Wright's concern with the history of his subject is of particular interest because it is here that he reveals what he considers important about the culture under investigation Wright's priorities will be analysed and his approach discussed before we move on to a closer examination of the technical aspects of the film We will be concerned with questions of address and the central organising role of the narrator as well as the meaning of Wright's particular sense of form It will be borne in mind that Wnght was filming in a period of

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