Producer of documentary films, born in Kilmadock, Stirling, C Scotland, UK. He went to Glasgow University, then studied film art in Chicago, making his name with Drifters (1929), a study of North Sea fishermen. Regarded as the founder of the British documentary movement, he moved to the GPO Film Unit in 1933 for his most creative period, during which he produced Night Mail (1936). In 1938 he was invited to set up the Canadian Film Board, with which he remained until 1945.
John Grierson (April 26, 1898 - February 19, 1972) is often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film.
Early life
Grierson was born in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland.
After a stint working on minesweepers in the Royal Navy during World War I, Grierson entered the University of Glasgow, where he spent a good part of his academic career enmeshed in impassioned political discussion and leftist political activism.
Social Critic
Like a number of other social critics of the time, Grierson was profoundly concerned about what he perceived to be clear threats to democracy.
In Grierson's view, a way to counter these problems was to involve citizens in their government with the kind of engaging excitement generated by the popular press, which simplified and dramatized public affair. (It has been suggested some of Grierson's notions regarding the social and political uses of film were influenced by reading Lenin's's writing about film as education and propaganda.)
Grierson's emerging view of film was as a form of social and political communication--a mechanism for social reform, education, and perhaps spiritual uplift.
Film critic
Grierson's emerging and outspoken film philosophies caught the attention of New York film critics at the time. At the Sun, Grierson wrote articles on film aesthetics and audience reception, and developed broad contacts in the film world. In the course of this writing stint, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in writing about Robert Flaherty's film Moana (NY Sun, February 8, 1926: "Of course Moana, being a visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his family, has documentary value").
During this time, Grierson was also involved in scrutinizing the film industries of other countries. Eisenstein's editing techniques and film theories, particularly the use of montage, would have a significant influence on Grierson's own work.
Filmmaker
Grierson returned to Great Britain in the late 1920s armed with the sense that film could be enlisted to deal with the problems of the Great Depression, and to build national morale and national consensus.
In the US Grierson had met pioneering documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty. Grierson respected Flaherty immensely for his contributions to documentary form and his attempts to use the camera to bring alive the lives of everyday people and everyday events. In Grierson's view, the focus of film should be on the everyday drama of ordinary people. And we did.")
On his return to England, Grierson joined the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), a governmental agency which had been established several years earlier to promote British world trade and British unity throughout the empire. In 1930 Grierson convinced government funding agencies to establish a film unit within the EMB and to assign him the directorship of the unit.
In late 1929 Grierson and his cameraman, Basil Emmott, completed his first film, The Drifters, which he wrote, produced and directed. The film, which follows the heroic work of North Sea herring fishermen, was a radical departure from anything being made by the British film industry or Hollywood.
After this success, Grierson moved away from film direction into more production and administration within the EMB. He became a tireless organizer and recruiter for the EMB, enlisting a stable of energetic young filmmakers into the film unit between 1930 and 1933.
In 1933 the EMB Film Unit was disbanded, a casualty of Depression era economics. Grierson's boss at the EMB moved to the General Post Office (GPO) as its first public relations officer with the stipulation that he could bring the EMB film unit with him. During Grierson's administration, the GPO Film Unit produced a series of groundbreaking films, including Night Mail (dir. Basil Wright and Harry Watt, 1936), and Coal Face (dir.
Grierson eventually grew restless with having to work within the bureaucratic and budgetary confines of government sponsorship. Perhaps the most significant works produced during this time were Housing Problems (dir. Arthur Elton, Edgar Anstey, John Taylor, and Grierson's sister Ruby Grierson, 1935) and Song of Ceylon (dir. Basil Wright, 1935)
In 1938, Grierson was invited by the Canadian government to study the country's film production. In 1939, Canada created the National Film Commission, which would later become the National Film Board of Canada. When Canada entered World War II in 1939, the NFB focused on the production of propaganda films, many of which Grierson directed.
From 1957 to 1967 Grierson hosted a successful weekly television program on Scottish television, This Wonderful World, which showed excerpts from outstanding documentaries. first screened at the British premiere of Battleship Potemkin) Granton Trawler (1934)
Filmography as producer/creative contributor:
O'er Hll and Dale (dir. Basis Wright 1932) Cargo from Jamaica (dir. Basil Wright 1933) Industrial Britain (dir. Robert Flaherty 1933) Cable Ship (dir. (Alexander Shaw and Stuart Legg 1933) Coming of the Dial (dir. Stuart Legg 1933) Liner Cruising South (dir. Basil Wright 1933) Man of Aran (dir. Robert Flaherty 1934) New Operator (dir. Stuart Legg 1934) Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs (dir. Alberto Cavalcanti 1934) Post Haste (dir. Humphrey Jennings 1934) Spring Comes to England dir. Donald Taylor 1934) Six-thirty Collection (dir. Harry Watt and Edgar Anstey 1934) Song of Ceylon (dir. Basil Wright 1934) BBC: The Voice of Britain (dir. Stuart Legg 1935) A Colour Box (dir. Len Lye 1935) Housing Problems (dir. Edgar Anstey, Arthur Elton 1935) Introducing the Dial (dir. Stuart Legg 1935) Coal Face (dir. Droitwich (dir. Harry Watt 1935) Night Mail ( dir. (Basil Wright, and Harry Watt 1936) Saving of Bill Blewitt (dir. Basil Wright 1936) Line To The Tschierva Hut (dir. Alberto Cavalcanti 1937) Children At School (dir. Basil Wright 1937) We Live In Two Worlds (dir. Alberto Cavalcanti 1937) Daily Round (dir. Richard Massingham, Karl Urbahn 1937) Trade Tattoo (dir. Len Lye 1937) The Face of Scotland (dir. Basil Wright 1938) The Londoners (dir. John Taylor (director) 1939) Judgement Deferred (dir. John Baxter 1951) Brandy for the Parson (dir. John Eldridge 1952) The Brave Don't Cry (dir. Philip Leacock 1952) Miss Robin Hood (dir. John Guillermin 1952) Time Gentlemen Please! (dir. Lewis Gilbert 1952) You're Only Young Twice (dir. Terry Bishop 1952) Man of Africa (dir. Cyril Frankel 1953) Background (dir. Daniel Birt 1953) Laxdale Hall (dir. John Eldridge 1953) The Oracle (dir. Pennington-Richards 1953) Child's Play (dir. Margaret Thomson 1954) Devil on Horseback (dir. Cyril Frankel 1954) Seawards the Great Ships (dir. Hilary Harris 1960) The Heart of Scotland (dir. Laurence Henson 1961) The Creative Process (dir. Donald McWilliams 1961)Bibliographies
Grierson Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)
Documentaries About Grierson
Grierson.
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