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Humphrey Jennings the Man Behind the Documentaries by Carol Harris

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Humphrey Jennings the Man Behind the Documentaries by Carol Harris The 1940s Society For Everyone Interested in Wartime Britain Issue 59 January / February 2010 £2.50 Humphrey Jennings The man behind the documentaries by Carol Harris Watch Out - In The Blackout by Jon Mills PLUS Events, reviews and much more! The 1940’s Society, 90 Lennard Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 2UX Tel: 01732 452505 Web: www.1940.co.uk Email: [email protected] 1 Still from ‘Britain Can Take it’ directed by Humphrey Jennings A Warm Welcome to 2010 The 1940s Society A warm welcome but it’s certainly a cold start to the year. I look For Everyone Interested in Wartime Britain out to a view of 6 inches of snow in the garden and icicles nearly a foot long hanging down outside my window. I’m tucked- Regular meetings at Otford Memorial Hall near Sevenoaks up cosily inside with my central heating working overtime but Friday 29th January 2010 - 8pm can’t help thinking of the wartime years when central heating was rare and saving precious coal was far more important for the war effort. I think they were a hardy bunch back then and we’ve gone a little soft in these modern times. An Evening with Thank you for all the good wishes over the Christmas period and the positive comments regarding the magazine. Yes, its Humphrey Jennings more time consuming and expensive to produce but it seems to Presented by Carol Harris be appreciated and enjoyed. If you haven’t done so already please send in your application and subscription renewal for Humphrey Jennings produced 2010. The magazine is totally reliant on these and your support and directed some outstanding is appreciated. In an effort to make it easier you can also renew documentary films of the 1930’s online on the society website at www.1940.co.uk (navigate to the shop section). & 1940s. His wartime films for the crown film unit are We do now carry some advertising which helps towards running masterpieces and his social costs so please do look at the adverts and please mention the documentaries give us a glimpse society magazine when responding to any. If you, or someone of the ordinary people. you know would like to take out regular advertising please contact me for further details. Your support would be greatly appreciated. Carol Harris will be showing excerpts of many of his films and T-shirts for members who have written for the magazine seem to talking about the huge be popular but I do have more in stock so do keep up the good contribution he made to both the work and I will continue to send out a Society T-shirt for all contributions we print. war effort and the documentary film movement. I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2010 and look forward to Carol Harris is a journalist, speaker and author who specialises in the seeing and speaking to many of you in the coming year. history of fashion in the 1930s and 1940s. She is the author of many books including, ‘Collecting Fashion and Accessories’ and ‘Women at Ian War: The Home Front’. Carol has also contributed to exhibitions at the Imperial War Museum. We are delighted to have Carol come and speak If you have any comments, articles or information of interest we would be pleased to consider it for future use. Please contact us at: The 1940’s Society, 90, Lennard Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN13 2UX or email us at: [email protected] . to us so please come to what is sure to be a fascinating evening. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part and in any form whatsoever, is strictly prohibited without the prior permission of the editor. Friendly meetings learning more about life in the 1940’s. Whilst every care is taken with material submitted to ‘The 1940s Society”, no responsibility can be accepted for loss or damage. Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor or the 1940s Society. Meetings start at 8pm at Otford Memorial Hall, Nr. Sevenoaks. Whilst every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders, the sources of some pictures that may be used are obscure. The Admission £3. Further details from Ian on 01732 452505 or publishers will be glad to make good in future editions any error or omissions brought to their attention. The publication of any quotes or visit the Web Site at: www.1940.co.uk illustrations on which clearance has not been given is unintentional. Designed and produced by Ian Bayley. © Ian Bayley 2010 2 3 Humphrey Jennings The man behind the documentaries Our January meeting will feature a look at Humphrey Jennings’ wartime short films. Here Carol Harris looks at the influences which made Jennings’ unique style and includes a first hand account by an Auxiliary Firemen who played a leading role in Fires Were Started, Jennings’ only An early photograph of Humphrey Jennings (Right) with friend under Walberswick Pier feature-length film. main tenets were that guilds were Stuart Legg was at also an alternative to state-control of Cambridge with Jennings, and industry or conventional trade had made documentary films as Humphrey Jennings union activity, and that guilds a student. By 1934, he was a key would seek control of industry member of the GPO Film Unit. Humphrey Jennings was tried out theatre and then he tried Jennings for the workers whom they ‘The documentary film movement a maverick in the British out painting, and then he went was ‘totally represented. Ultimately, industrial was boiling up at that time and Documentary Movement. Most of into films, I don’t think with the guilds would serve as the organs the centre of it was the GPO Film its leading lights – John Grierson, expectation of remaining there,’ unaware through which industry would be Unit under John Grierson. And Edgar Anstey, Robert Flaherty his daughter Mary–Lou said later. that every organised in a future socialist I suggested to Humphrey that and Paul Rotha – were committed gesture of society. he might think of that unit as a and experienced film makers. With a wife and baby daughter his was possibility and I well remember Their style was direct and realistic to support, Jennings’ motivation outrageous.’ The family home was on the his sort of casual approach to it. and drew on such influences as for joining GPO Film Unit was not isolated and bleak Suffolk coast He said, “well, why not?” and one Eisenstein, the cinematic hero of entirely artistic. He was regarded at Walberswick, but his parents of Humphrey’s early assignments the Russian revolution. Jennings, as a dilettante by his colleagues took him on their frequent travels was not to direct a film at all but to by contrast, was probably most and would talk with his typical in search of pottery, especially in act in one.’ heavily influenced by, and was tactlessness about film-making France. As a child, he was brilliant influential in surrealism, which as ‘slumming it’ – he saw himself both academically and athletically, So Jennings’ film career started some of his contemporaries as an artist, mainly interested in and generally excelled at anything with his starring role of plucky saw as a frivolous and politically painting, poetry and literature. which interested him. As an adult, GPO messenger Albert Goodbody suspect movement. His fellow film-makers were it was his eccentric appearance in The Glorious Sixth of June, also unimpressed by his lack of and habits that left a lasting a stylised comedy about the Jennings had worked as a commitment to the potential of impression. history of the Post Office. It was photographer, painter and documentary film to inspire social directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, designer and had originally been change, and by his very upper- At the University of Cambridge he who more than any other at the set for an academic career. In class accent. was regarded as the most brilliant unit influenced and encouraged the early 1930s, shortly after student of a brilliant generation. Jennings’ style. Cavalcanti’s first he married, he went to Paris His parents – father an architect A friend and Cambridge film, Rien Que Les Heures (1926), and spent six months trying and mother a painter -- were Guild contemporary, Jacob Bronowski, was an observation, with little unsuccessfully to establish Socialists. Guild socialism was said Jennings was ‘totally unaware direct comment, of 24 hours in himself as an artist. ‘I think he partly inspired by the craftsmens’ that every gesture of his was the life of Paris, and was a huge was trying things out – first he guilds of medieval England. Its outrageous.’ influence on documentary film. 4 5 Jennings’ next credited work was national panel of volunteers to as members of a strange tribe. the right track at last. Never thrown on another Cavalcanti film, Pett reply to regular questionnaires. At the outbreak of war the GPO myself into anything so completely and Pott, for which he designed Harrisson was interested by unit became the Crown Film Unit. Really beginning to understand the sets. He also directed a few the similarity in aims to his own Its brief was to produce films of people and make friends with them films himself but at this point they anthropological study of the public information and instruction, and not .just looking at them and were relatively undistinguished. British and contacted Madge and and to record life in Britain lecturing them. Also should make me Jennings. throughout the war. personally more bearable.’ However, while still officially employed by the GPO unit, Jennings’ fondness for surrealism Jennings was a committed As the war progressed or worsened Jennings took time off to and his anthropological approach left-wing radical and equally it is noticeable how each of Jennings organise and exhibit in the 1936 to people, were given free committed patriot –- values which film becomes less and less about International Surrealist Exhibition rein in his films: those who found an appreciative audience the war and more and more about in London.
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