Humphrey Jennings' wartime documentaries

21 October 2006

Last Wednesday I went to the Imperial War Museum to view five films from their archive.

The first four were short wartime documentaries directed by Humphrey Jennings: 'London Can Take It,' 'Heart of Britain,' 'Listen to Britain' and 'A Diary for Timothy.'

'London Can Take It' was made in 1940, during the blitz. It was intended for release in the US, to persuade Americans that the British could take everything that was thrown at them and deserved US support.

'The Heart of Britain' made a year later, showed what were considered to be quintessentially English scenes, including cathedrals, countryside, textile workers in Lancashire and bombed buildings in Coventry. The commentary includes some memorable phrases such as:

"... and the simplest, most difficult task of all - just staying put"

"... people who sing like that in times like these cannot be beaten" (to scenes of the Huddersfield chorus singing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah).

"... and the Nazis will learn, once and for all, that no-one with impunity troubles the heart of Britain."

'Listen to Britain,' made in 1942, consists of a dense sequence of sights and sounds, with no commentary at all, apart from a 2-3 minute spoken introduction, added to the film later, against the wishes of the directors. 

The absence of any commentary in this film may have been influenced by research undertaken by Mass Observation.

Tom Harrisson, one of the three founders of Mass Observation, (together with Humphrey Jennings and Tom Madge) has described work done in the war on the effect Ministry of Information films, such as these, had on morale. ('Films and the Home Front - the evaluation of their effectiveness by Mass Observation', in  Propaganda, Politics and Film, 1918-1945, Nicholas Pronay and D.W. Spring, eds. Macmillan Press Ltd. 1982.)

"So already before the war and partly because of Humphrey Jennings, who to my mind was one of the real - I do not think it is too strong a word to use - intellectual geniuses of our time, we started a lot of film observation, working out techniques for observing people's responses and behaviour in cinemas."

Harrisson describes how film viewers were uncomfortable with overt propaganda and switched off when they detected it in films. People were more interested in the pictures, and disliked too much commentary.

The fourth Jennings film I saw on Wednesday, was 'A Diary for Timothy' released in 1945. It was made in the closing months of the war, when, despite setbacks at Arnhem and the Ardennes, victory was certain and mines and barbed wire were being cleared from the beaches, as everyone knew the threat of invasion was over.

This film looks to the future, following the early life of a baby, Timothy Jenkins, born in September 1944, on the fifth anniversary of the start of the war. It asks the question: What will happen when the war is over - will it be followed by unemployment and economic depression, as after the First World War, or will the world become a different place, for an injured miner, a farmer, an engine driver, and a shot-down and wounded fighter pilot, as well as for baby Timothy?

I found all four films deeply moving, even sixty years on, after they were made.

With my own interest in how the British approached the occupation of Germany after the war, using Jennings' film 'A Defeated People' as evidence of this, (see earlier postings), I was especially struck by three sequences in his earlier wartime films:

Firstly in 'The Heart of Britain' the commentator says, to scenes of the Halle Orchestra playing Beethoven's Fifth symphony: "But in Manchester today they still respect the genius of Germany; the genius of Germany that was." To the sounds of the music, the film moves on from pictures of the orchestra playing to scenes of bomb damage and ruined buildings in Coventry. The message is ambiguous: either, there are two Germanys, the good and the bad, or alternatively, how could people who created such beautiful music create such destruction?

Secondly, in 'A Diary for Timothy' the same theme is repeated. In a sequence of Myra Hess playing Beethoven's Appassionata piano sonata, at one of her National Gallery lunchtime concerts, the commentator says (speaking to baby Timothy): "Did you like the music that lady was playing. Some of us think it's the greatest music in the world. Yet it's German music. And we're fighting the Germans. That's something you'll have to think about later on."

And thirdly, in 'Listen to Britain' there was a sequence of children in a school playground, playing games and walking round in a circle. This reminded me of a similar passage at the end of 'A Defeated People' which shows a group of German children holding hands, walking round in a circle.

By now, the message portrayed in 'A Defeated People' seems to be that children in Britain and children in Germany are really much the same, even after the most violent and bitter war in history.

The fifth film I viewed at the Imperial War Museum was quite different. 'Your Job in Germany' was a training film prepared by the US War Department, shown to all soldiers in the US army of occupation. I'll talk about it in a later posting.

Humphrey Jennings' wartime documentary films can be viewed, by appointment, at the Imperial War Museum. Copies are also held and can be viewed at the British Film Institute Library (subject to a viewing charge). Three of the films are available commercially (eg from MovieMail) on VHS video cassette, Listening to Britain, A Jennings Trilogy and a collection of four films on DVD: The Humphrey  Jennings Collection.

Comments

[A. Taylor]

MY late mother-in-law was a motor-cycle despatch rider for the fire service (Manchester) in WW11 and she mentioned that a film had been made at the time. I have often wondered if that film has survived as we would like to see her as a young woman "doing her bit" Any ideas, please ?

[Chris Knowles]

Your mother-in-law may have been thinking of Humphrey Jennings' film 'Fires were started' also known as 'I was a Fireman'. It is available on DVD as part of the Humphrey Jennings Collection (mentioned above). It was based in London, not Manchester, and, as far as I can remember, does not have any shots of a motor-cycle despatch rider. I don't know of any other films about the wartime fire service, but I think you would enjoy watching 'Fires were Started'.