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A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries".
John Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Flaherty's Moana.
Robert Joseph Flaherty, was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, Nanook of the North (1922). The film made his reputation and nothing in his later life fully equaled its success, although he continued the development of this new genre of narrative documentary with Moana (1926), set in the South Seas, and Man of Aran (1934), filmed in Ireland's Aran Islands. Flaherty is considered the father of both the documentary and the ethnographic film.
A drifter is a vagrant who moves from place to place without a fixed home or employment.
Night Mail is a 1936 British documentary film directed and produced by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and produced by the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit. The 24-minute film documents the nightly postal train operated by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) from London to Scotland and the staff who operate it. Narrated by John Grierson and Stuart Legg, the film ends with a "verse commentary" written by W. H. Auden to a score composed by Benjamin Britten. The locomotive featured in the film is LMS Royal Scot Class 6115 Scots Guardsman.
Churchill's Island is a 1941 propaganda film chronicling the defence of Britain during the Second World War. The film was written and directed by Stuart Legg and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) for the Director of Information, Government of Canada.
Sir John Akomfrah is a British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter, theorist and curator of Ghanaian descent, whose "commitment to a radicalism both of politics and of cinematic form finds expression in all his films".
Grierson: The British Documentary Awards or more informally, The Grierson Awards as they are known, are awards bestowed by The Grierson Trust to recognise innovative and exciting documentary films, in honour of the pioneering Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson.
Stuart Legg was a pioneering English documentary filmmaker. At the 14th Academy Awards in 1941, Legg's National Film Board of Canada film Churchill's Island became the first-ever documentary to win an Oscar.
John Walsh is an English filmmaker and author. He is the founder of the film company Walsh Bros. Ltd. His film work on subjects such as social mobility and social justice has received two BAFTA nominations.
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck is a 2015 American documentary film about Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain. The film was directed by Brett Morgen and premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. It received a limited theatrical release worldwide and premiered on television in the United States on HBO on May 4, 2015. The documentary chronicles the life of Kurt Cobain from his birth in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1967, through his troubled early family life and teenage years and rise to fame as frontman of Nirvana, up to his suicide in April 1994 in Seattle at the age of 27.
Music for Drifters is the official release of the soundtrack to the 1929 documentary Drifters, credited for kickstarting the "documentary" film genre. The soundtrack, commissioned in 2013 by the Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, was composed by the Sunderland band Field Music. The composition is the first of their works to feature pianist Andrew Moore since 2007's Tones of Town. After touring the film accompanied by the band playing the soundtrack live around the UK, the composition was recorded and released firstly on vinyl for Record Store Day 2015, and then digitally in July 2015.
Evelyn Spice Cherry was a Canadian documentary filmmaker, director, and producer. She is best known for her work as the head of the Agricultural Films Unit at the National Film Board of Canada and as a member of the British Documentary Film Movement.
Women Are Warriors is a 14-minute 1942 Canadian documentary film, made by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) as part of the wartime Canada Carries On series, and dealt with women in war. The film was produced by Raymond Spottiswoode and written and directed by Jane Marsh. The film's French version title is Les Femmes dans la mêlée.
Proudly She Marches is an 18-minute 1943 Canadian documentary film, made by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) as part of the wartime Canada Carries On series. The film, directed by Jane Marsh and produced by Raymond Spottiswoode, described the work of Canadian women in uniform during the Second World War. The film's French version is titled Carrières de femmes.
Inside Fighting Canada is an 11-minute 1942 Canadian documentary film, made by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) as part of the wartime Canada Carries On series. The film, written and directed by Jane Marsh and produced by James Beveridge, was an account of the Canadian military during the Second World War. The film's French version is titled Canada en guerre.
Inside Fighting Russia is a 1942 22-minute Canadian short documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) for distribution by United Artists, as part of the wartime The World in Action series. The film documents Russia's fight against Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Inside Fighting Russia is produced by Stuart Legg, and narrated by Lorne Greene. The film's French version title is La Russie sous les armes.
Gordon Weisenborn was an American director, producer, writer, and cinematographer specializing in sponsored and educational films. His works express a style that blends naturalism and lyricism with modernist abstraction. Many of Weisenborn's films address race and issues of diversity, and his film People Along the Mississippi (1952), produced with John Barnes, is credited as being the first classroom film to depict interracial friendship. He worked with John Barnes on the Academy Award nominated film The Living City (1953), and won over 70 national and international awards for films and productions. He was listed as one of the top 20 makers of specialized film by the Directors Guild.
Henry Forsyth Hardy was a Scottish critic, writer and film administrator.
Cold War Steve is the pen name of Christopher Spencer, a British collage artist and satirist. He is the creator of the Twitter feed @coldwarsteve. His work typically depicts a grim, dystopian location in England populated by British media figures, celebrities, and politicians, usually with EastEnders actor Steve McFadden looking on in disgust. His work has been described as having "captured the mood of Brexit Britain" and has been likened to that of earlier British political satirists Hogarth and Gillray. As of September 2021, his Twitter account has over 345,000 followers.
References
- ↑ "John Grierson : 1898 - 1972" (PDF). Griersontrust.org. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- ↑ "DRIFTERS (John Grierson, 1929) | Dennis Grunes". Grunes.wordpress.com. 11 September 2007. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- ↑ "Tate Liverpool | Past Exhibitions | Making History". www.tate.org.uk. Archived from the original on 5 May 2007. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
- ↑ "Montage Film Reviews - Written Reviews Section: 'Drifters' 1929 (Dir. John Grierson) "Dramatising the Mundane: The Working Man Hero in John Grierson's 'Drifters' "". Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 19 July 2011.
- ↑ Evans, Gary. John Grierson: Trailblazer of Documentary Film. Montreal: XYZ Publishing, 2005. Print.
- ↑ Khouri 2007, p. 90.
