Documentary: Research On Free Cinema, Italian Neorealism And The Documentary Movement

Essay Question:

The films and filmmakers of the various European new waves discussed on this module can be understood as addressing themes of conflict between an individual and a changing society. Discuss this statement with reference to a film, filmmaker or set of films or group of filmmakers of your choice.

For this essay, I’m going to be looking at “Free Cinema in Britain”, as well as the influences that went in to help create the film movement. Those influences being Italian neorealism and documentary movement. I will be detailing examples of free cinema is as well as its influences, as well as discussing films from each film movement, as well as how they all link together. I plan on detailing how these film movements all link together and what types of films were produced at the end of these movements. I will be doing this by researching in detail Free Cinema, Italian Neorealism and The Documentary Movement. To back up the points I make I will have references as well as films that have been made during each specific film movement. With each film I want to analyise the film movement its from and why it was made the way it was. I also want to detail the cross overs between each of the film movements.

Free Cinema was a documentary specific film movement in the United Kingdom, which came about in the mid to late 1950’s. Free Cinema is a series of programs featuring a certain number of films. The first Free Cinema program there were only three films which were mostly all of them being short documentaries. These films included Anderson’s O Dreamland (1953). This was a film about an amusement park in Margate, Kent, Reisz and Richardson’s Momma Don’t Allow (1956). This was a film about a jazz club in Wood Green, in the north of London. Mazzetti’s Together (1956), this is a short story about a pair of deaf-mute dockworkers in the east end of London. The films were also accompanied by a film manifesto which is written to explain the purpose of the films, such as the why, or how. The manifesto for the first Free Cinema was written by Lindsay Anderson and said, “These films were not made together; nor with the idea of showing them together. But when they came together, we felt they had an attitude in common. Implicit in this attitude is a belief in freedom, in the importance of people and the significance of the everyday. As filmmakers we believe that No film can be too personal. The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments. Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.” The term “free” comes from the films being made out of the tight confines of the film industry. They were free to discover different film styles and attitudes, as well as the final outcome of the films. The films were made in a very cheap way, not exceeding over a couple hundred pounds, though these were mostly grants received from the BFI’s experimental fund. However, as Free Cinema became a lot more popular, they received sponsorships from companies such as Ford.

An example of Free Cinema is the film “Together”. This is a film directed by Italian director Lorenza Mazzetti, made in 1956. To make this film, she took the idea of Italian neorealism, to study the life of the east end and what it’s like to be a deaf and mute dock worker. This film was also one of the three films in the first Free Cinema program. It was also the longest running film as well as the only one in the program, which was strictly fiction, all the others being documentary based. During the time of production, she was studying at the Slade School of Art. She was persuaded by a director of BFI to apply for the fund after seeing her first short. The entirety of the film was made with a grant gifted from the new experimental film fund of the BFI. Mazzetti was given £2000 to make the film. Set in the east end of London, we are faced with bombsites and narrow streets. The film has very little dialogue due to the main characters being deaf and mute. To help portray the story, the use of music and camera angles is very important.

One of the influencers of Free Cinema is Italian neorealism is known as the “golden age of cinema. It is a group of films that show the stories of the poor and less fortunate. These films are shot on location often using non-professional actors. Italian neorealism came to light around the end of World War 2, as well as when Benito Mussoliini’s (Prime Minster of Italy 1922-1945) government had fallen. This caused the Italian film industry to lose its centre. After that, a cultural change in social progress caused by neorealism occurred. The films created during the neorealism period, were presented as “contemporary stories and ideas” and these were often shot in the streets. This is due to the fact that the film studios were damaged during the war and wasn’t habitable for film making, this is where the idea for filming on the streets comes from.

An example of Italian neorealism is film called Ladri di biciclette “Bicycle Thieves”. The film was made in 1948 by Vittorio De Sica and is branded as a “Italian neorealist drama film”. The film is about a poor father who is living in post, World War 2 Rome searching for his stolen bicycle. Without the bicycle, he is unable to work which will result in him losing his job which he had to care for his young family. The film is stated to be the best-known work of Italian neorealism. After making his film, Shoeshine (1946), he was unsuccessful in getting a finical break with his film from a major studio, so he decided to raise the money himself and from willing friends. The idea of Bicycle Thieves is to show what life was like in poverty as well as unemployment of the aftermath of the war in Italy. Within the film, we see a young family struggling, the father in that family desperate for a job to help provide for that family. The father is offered a job, he is unable to take it because it requires a bicycle. After the wife hears this, she gets as much as she can together to be able to pawn to get the bicycle back. However, on his first day of work the bicycle gets stolen. We see the father chasing the thieve but is unable to catch him. The father and son sit on the street looking visibly defeated, during this there are a constant stream of people going past them on bicycles. I think this is the director’s way of “rubbing it in the characters face” showing that he no longer has a bicycle, yet everyone else around him does and he has to struggle. The film also stuck to the idea of Italian neorealism, that being that the film was entirely shot on the street, there were no studio set designs made for the film. Another way that De Sica stuck to the idea of Italian neorealism is that he had unexperienced actors and actresses.

Another influence for Free Cinema Film Movement was Documentary Movement which occurred in 1930’s as a new “distinct mode of film practice”. During the time of 1896 to 1910 the films were given the name “actuality” films, most that were made had trick effects within their films. A film made in 1900 titled How It Feels to be Run Over, by Ceclil Hepsworth, is a one-minute silent film that gives the audience the illusion they are being run over by a car. This is done by having the camera represented as a first-person point of view and having the car go directly towards the camera giving the audience the quick time reaction that they’re being ran over. John Grierson in 1929 made Drifters, after its popularity, he decided to create Documentary Film Movement at the Empire Marketing Board, which is a government organisation. Documentaries were then produced until around 1929. The documentary film movement began to die down around the late 40’s until the next “important” documentary group surfaced as Free Cinema in the 50’s. Free Cinema, who was led by Lindsay Anderson, rejected the idea of journalistic documentary which was founded by Grierson. In the 60’s, documentary wasn’t a big featured within the film industry, so instead of documentaries being produced, there was a range of short series being produced.

Drifters is a silent documentary made in 1929 by John Grierson. It is described as his first and only personal film. The documentary tells the story of Britain’s North Sea herring fishery, with the films style described as being a ‘response to avant-garde, Modernist films, adopting formal techniques such as montage – constructive editing emphasising the rhythmic juxtaposition of images – but also aimed to make a socially directed commentary on its subject’ a quote from Tate Gallery. The film could also be described as modernist. After drifters, Grierson developed more of a journalist approach to documentaries. He made a reportage film titled Children at School (1937), which had a sponsorship funding from the gas industry. It was a documentary about the conditions of schools before the occurrence of World War 2. The director of this film was Basil Wright who was very popular within the documentary film movement in the 1930’s and the 1940’s. he had the film made by his new production company at the time, Realist Film Unit. Critics of the film described it as poetic.

All of these film movements link together because of Free Cinema. Free cinema is a list of films that can either be categorised or not and show at film festivals, usually at a theatre in London. A lot of the time these films are documentaries with the rare occasion fiction films are added to the list. This is where the essay begins to link together on one of the first programs of free cinema is a film titled together. It’s a fiction film about two deaf and mute dock workers. The film is part of the free cinema movement but does follow the style Italian neorealism film making, that being the entire film being shot outside, so no studios or sets being made for the film. The actors are also not experienced. This is because Italian neorealism is usually a form of documentary making, so these documentaries are usually shot outside, so not on a studio setting or sets being made for the documentary. The people within documentaries aren’t actors, they are “real people”. So, the idea of getting unexperienced actors for Italian neorealism films helps portray this better. The film movements link further by introducing documentary film movement. The documentary film movement is a period of time that beings in 1896 and runs till 1910 with a short one-minute documentary by Ceclil Hepsworth. He made a film titled How It Feels to be Run Over, it gives the audience the illusion they are being run over by a car. this short also links in with Italian neorealism because he used unexperienced actors and actresses for his film also.

To conclude my essay, I think that the movement I looked at, Free cinema Film Movement. Is highly influenced by both the two film movements I looked at, Italian neorealism film movement and documentary film movement. I think that these films link together because there a major links between each movement. For example, the free cinema film movement include a lot of documentaries, which are highly influenced in the style of Italian neorealism. One film I looked links all three, and that is the film Together by Italian director Lorenza Mazzetti, made in 1956. This is because it features in the first Free Cinema program, the film is highly influenced by the style of neorealism by having non experienced actors and not shooting in any form of studio, or having any sets made. As well as Italian neorealism being considered a popular make of documentary style.

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