British Movement

John Grierson

• Responsible for creating a film unit
• Wanted to explore a new form of filmmaking
• Gathered with some creatives to start a film-based movement
• 'Creative interpretation of actuality'
• Believes in finding the drama in mundane everyday life
• Responsible for setting up the first UK film board

Humphrey Jennings

• GPO Film Unit
• Mass Observation Project - still existent as an archive of everyday lives
• Poetic approach to subject matter
• Films include 'Listen to Britain'

Listen to Britain (1942)

Humphrey Jennings' 20 minute black and white film opens with a foreword from Leonard Brockington

'You too will hear that heart beating, for blended together one great symphony, is the music of Britain' 

(Brockington, L. 1942, Listen to Britain)

Talks about war effort in Britain; mainly about the strength of the country and how we will march to freedom and be successful.

'the clank of machinery'

Then cuts to a field with people working and watching the sky with spitfires/war planes flying overhead; in order to signify the population of Britain working just as usual during the war effort.

'roar of spitfires'

BBC Radio news comes on and a shop sign in the window advertising 1/2 price offers for those in the H.M Forces. We then see a ballroom dancehall; a long shot to connote the sense of community and optimism despite the war carrying on.

'the dancers in the great ballroom at Blackpool'

Another scene then shows soldiers walking through a field at night, singing Home on the Range and playing guitar