Humphrey Jennings and British Documentary Film: A Re-assessment

Humphrey Jennings and British Documentary Film: A Re-assessment PDF Author: Mr Philip C Logan
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409482286
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Humphrey Jennings ranks amongst the greatest film makers of twentieth century Britain. Although a relatively unknown figure to the wider public, his war-time documentaries are regarded by many (including Lord Puttnam, Lindsay Anderson and Mike Leigh) as amongst the finest films of their time. Groundbreaking both in terms of their technique and their interest in, and respect for, the everyday experiences of ordinary people, these films are much more than mere government propaganda. Instead, Jennings work offers an unparalleled window into the British home-front, and the hopes, fears and expectations of a nation fighting for its survival. Yet until now, Jennings has remained a shadowy figure; with his life and work lacking the sustained scholarly investigation and reassessment they deserve. As such film and social historians will welcome this new book which provides an up-to-date and thorough exploration of the relationships between Jennings life, ideas and films. Arguing that Jennings's film output can be viewed as part of a coherent intellectual exercise rather than just one aspect of the artistic interests of a wide ranging intellectual, Philip Logan, paints a much fuller and more convincing picture of the man than has previously been possible. He shows for the first time exactly how Jennings's artistic expression was influenced by the fundamental intellectual, social and cultural changes that shook British society during the first decades of the twentieth century. Combining biography, social history and international artistic thought, the book offers a fascinating insight into Jennings, his work, the wider British documentary film movement and the interaction between art and propaganda. Bringing together assessments of his tragically short life and his films this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in British cinema or the social history of Britain in the 1930s and 40s.

Humphrey Jennings and British Documentary Film: A Re-assessment

Humphrey Jennings and British Documentary Film: A Re-assessment PDF Author: Mr Philip C Logan
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409482286
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
Humphrey Jennings ranks amongst the greatest film makers of twentieth century Britain. Although a relatively unknown figure to the wider public, his war-time documentaries are regarded by many (including Lord Puttnam, Lindsay Anderson and Mike Leigh) as amongst the finest films of their time. Groundbreaking both in terms of their technique and their interest in, and respect for, the everyday experiences of ordinary people, these films are much more than mere government propaganda. Instead, Jennings work offers an unparalleled window into the British home-front, and the hopes, fears and expectations of a nation fighting for its survival. Yet until now, Jennings has remained a shadowy figure; with his life and work lacking the sustained scholarly investigation and reassessment they deserve. As such film and social historians will welcome this new book which provides an up-to-date and thorough exploration of the relationships between Jennings life, ideas and films. Arguing that Jennings's film output can be viewed as part of a coherent intellectual exercise rather than just one aspect of the artistic interests of a wide ranging intellectual, Philip Logan, paints a much fuller and more convincing picture of the man than has previously been possible. He shows for the first time exactly how Jennings's artistic expression was influenced by the fundamental intellectual, social and cultural changes that shook British society during the first decades of the twentieth century. Combining biography, social history and international artistic thought, the book offers a fascinating insight into Jennings, his work, the wider British documentary film movement and the interaction between art and propaganda. Bringing together assessments of his tragically short life and his films this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in British cinema or the social history of Britain in the 1930s and 40s.

Humphrey Jennings and British Documentary Film: A Re-assessment

Humphrey Jennings and British Documentary Film: A Re-assessment PDF Author: Philip C. Logan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131711938X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Humphrey Jennings ranks amongst the greatest film makers of twentieth century Britain. Although a relatively unknown figure to the wider public, his war-time documentaries are regarded by many (including Lord Puttnam, Lindsay Anderson and Mike Leigh) as amongst the finest films of their time. Groundbreaking both in terms of their technique and their interest in, and respect for, the everyday experiences of ordinary people, these films are much more than mere government propaganda. Instead, Jennings work offers an unparalleled window into the British home-front, and the hopes, fears and expectations of a nation fighting for its survival. Yet until now, Jennings has remained a shadowy figure; with his life and work lacking the sustained scholarly investigation and reassessment they deserve. As such film and social historians will welcome this new book which provides an up-to-date and thorough exploration of the relationships between Jennings life, ideas and films. Arguing that Jennings's film output can be viewed as part of a coherent intellectual exercise rather than just one aspect of the artistic interests of a wide ranging intellectual, Philip Logan, paints a much fuller and more convincing picture of the man than has previously been possible. He shows for the first time exactly how Jennings's artistic expression was influenced by the fundamental intellectual, social and cultural changes that shook British society during the first decades of the twentieth century. Combining biography, social history and international artistic thought, the book offers a fascinating insight into Jennings, his work, the wider British documentary film movement and the interaction between art and propaganda. Bringing together assessments of his tragically short life and his films this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in British cinema or the social history of Britain in the 1930s and 40s.

British art cinema

British art cinema PDF Author: Paul Newland
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526133148
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
This is the first book to provide a direct and comprehensive account of British art cinema. Film history has tended to view British filmmakers as aesthetically conservative, but the truth is they have a long tradition of experiment and artistry, both within and beyond the mainstream. Beginning with the silent period and running up to the 2010s, the book draws attention to this tradition while acknowledging that art cinema in Britain is a complex and fluid concept that needs to be considered within broader concerns. It will be of particular interest to scholars and students of British cinema history, film genre, experimental filmmaking, and British cultural history.

The Documentary Film Movement

The Documentary Film Movement PDF Author: Ian Aitken
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This book is the first to bring together the most important material by and on the documentary film movement which has laid the foundations of British national film culture. It includes generous selections from the work of John Grierson as well as writings by Paul Rotha, Humphrey Jennings, Alberto Cavalcanti and Basil Wright. Each section is accompanied by short commentaries. A full introduction examines the historical development of the documentary film movement between 1927 and 1950, the types of films made by the movement, its relationship to other British film genres and to contemporary debates on British national cinema. An accessible, comprehensive and illuminating source book for courses on Documentary Film and the History of British Cinema.

Pandaemonium 1660–1886

Pandaemonium 1660–1886 PDF Author: Humphrey Jennings
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 1848315864
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Collecting texts taken from letters, diaries, literature, scientific journals and reports, Pandæmonium gathers a beguiling narrative as it traces the development of the machine age in Britain. Covering the years between 1660 and 1886, it offers a rich tapestry of human experience, from eyewitness reports of the Luddite Riots and the Peterloo Massacre to more intimate accounts of child labour, Utopian communities, the desecration of the natural world, ground-breaking scientific experiments, and the coming of the railways. Humphrey Jennings, co-founder of the Mass Observation movement of the 1930s and acclaimed documentary film-maker, assembled an enthralling narrative of this key period in Britain's national consciousness. The result is a highly original artistic achievement in its own right. Thanks to the efforts of his daughter, Marie-Louise Jennings, Pandæmonium was originally published in 1985, and in 2012 it was the inspiration behind Danny Boyle's electrifying Opening Ceremony for the London Olympic Games. Frank Cottrell Boyce, who wrote the scenario for the ceremony, contributes a revealing new foreword for this edition.

British Social Realism

British Social Realism PDF Author: Samantha Lay
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231501617
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
British Social Realism details and explores the rich tradition of social realism in British cinema from its beginnings in the documentary movement of the 1930s to its more stylistically eclectic and generically hybrid contemporary forms. Samantha Lay examines the movements, moments and cycles of British social realist texts through a detailed consideration of practice, politics, form, style and content, using case studies of key texts including Listen to Britain, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Letter to Brezhnev, and Nil by Mouth. In discussing the work of many prominent realist filmmakers, the book considers the challenges for social realist film practice and production in Britain, now and in the future.

Shadows of Progress

Shadows of Progress PDF Author: Patrick Russell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1838718133
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
Britain emerged from war a changed country, facing new social, industrial and cultural challenges. Its documentary film tradition – established in the 1930s and 1940s around legendary figures such as Grierson, Rotha and Jennings – continued evolving, utilising technical advances, displaying robust aesthetic concerns, and benefiting from the entry into the industry of wealthy commercial sponsors. Thousands of films were seen by millions worldwide. Received wisdom has been that British documentary went into swift decline after the war, resurrected only by Free Cinema and the arrival of television documentary. Shadows of Progress demolishes these simplistic assumptions, presenting instead a complex and nuanced picture of the sponsored documentary in flux. Patrick Russell and James Piers Taylor explore the reasons for the period's critical neglect, and address the sponsorship, production, distribution and key themes of British documentary. They paint a vivid picture of institutions – from public bodies to multinational industries – constantly redefining their relationships with film as a form of enlightened public relations. Many of the issues that these films addressed could not be more topical today: the rise of environmentalism; the balance of state and industry, individual and community; a nation and a world travelling from bust to boom and back again. In the second part of the book, contributors from the curatorial and academic world provide career biographies of key film-makers of the period. From Lindsay Anderson's lesser-known early career to neglected film-makers like John Krish, Sarah Erulkar, Eric Marquis and Derrick Knight, a kaleidoscopic picture is built up of the myriad relationships of artist and sponsor.

If I Could Tell You

If I Could Tell You PDF Author: Elizabeth Wilhide
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143130439
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
"First published in Great Britain by Fig Tree, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK, 2016"--Title page verso.

The Extinct Scene

The Extinct Scene PDF Author: Thomas S. Davis
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231537883
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In 1935, the English writer Stephen Spender wrote that the historical pressures of his era should "turn the reader's and writer's attention outwards from himself to the world." Combining historical, formalist, and archival approaches, Thomas S. Davis examines late modernism's decisive turn toward everyday life, locating in the heightened scrutiny of details, textures, and experiences an intimate attempt to conceptualize geopolitical disorder. The Extinct Scene reads a range of mid-century texts, films, and phenomena that reflect the decline of the British Empire and seismic shifts in the global political order. Davis follows the rise of documentary film culture and the British Documentary Film Movement, especially the work of John Grierson, Humphrey Jennings, and Basil Wright. He then considers the influence of late modernist periodical culture on social attitudes and customs, and presents original analyses of novels by Virginia Woolf, Christopher Isherwood, and Colin MacInnes; the interwar travel narratives of W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, and George Orwell; the wartime gothic fiction of Elizabeth Bowen; the poetry of H. D.; the sketches of Henry Moore; and the postimperial Anglophone Caribbean works of Vic Reid, Sam Selvon, and George Lamming. By considering this group of writers and artists, Davis recasts late modernism as an art of scale: by detailing the particulars of everyday life, these figures could better project large-scale geopolitical events and crises.

A New History of British Documentary

A New History of British Documentary PDF Author: J. Chapman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230392873
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description
A New History of British Documentary is the first comprehensive overview of documentary production in Britain from early film to the present day. It covers both the film and television industries and demonstrates how documentary practice has adapted to changing institutional and ideological contexts.