“Nearly all the films that emerged from the radical cinema movement in the United States were documentaries…Why has documentary been the characteristic mode of left-wing expression in the cinema, to the exclusion of other alternatives?” Russell Campbell
To answer this question, we must focus upon key similarities and dissimilarities between montage and social realist documentaries particularly [...]
SPanish Earth 1
1937
Directed by Joris Ivens
Commentary by Ernest Hemingway
Photography by John Ferno
Music by Marc Blitzstein and Virgil Thomson
Narrator Orson Welles
Sound Director Irving Reis
Film Editor Helen Van Dongen
SPanish Earth, end
1937
Directed by Joris Ivens
Commentary by Ernest Hemingway
Photography by John Ferno
Music by Marc Blitzstein and Virgil Thomson
Narrator Orson Welles
Sound Director Irving Reis
Film Editor Helen Van Dongen ( more )
Spanish Earth, leave
1937
Directed by Joris Ivens
Commentary by Ernest Hemingway
Photography by John Ferno
Music by Marc Blitzstein and Virgil Thomson
Narrator Orson Welles
Sound Director Irving Reis
Film Editor Helen Van Dongen
“Fascism, like Communism, believes in progress. The followers of both creeds look to a social order based on technology…Progress is dangerous because it is based on perfect technology. It is its success which has distorted the normal values of life and compelled man to live in a world for which he was not intended.”
Jean Renoir, [...]
“I was surprised to find that many people automatically assumed that any documentary film would inevitably be objective. Perhaps the term is unsatisfactory, but for me the distinction between the words document and documentary is quite clear. Do we demand objectivity in the evidence presented at a trial? No, the only demand is that each [...]
“A writer’s problem does not change. He himself changes, but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and having found what is true, to project it in such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it” (Ernest Hemingway in Ivans)– I would [...]
Filmmakers Against War are a collective of activists, filmmakers and artists who are using their creative skills to help raise the awareness of UK and International War Laws.
Filmmakers Against War seeks to educate and raise awareness of UK and international war law, and [...]
And on every hand, in both the United States and England, there were demands for more ‘objectivity’. I was often asked, why hadn’t we gone to the other side, too, and made an objective film? my only answer was that a documentary film maker has to have an opinion on such vital issues as fascism [...]
A clip from the Pare Lorentz documentary featuring a newly recorded soundtrack of the classic score by Virgil Thomson.
“but for me, as I have said again and again and shall go on saying, the real enemy is progress, not because it doesn’t work but precisely because it does. Aircraft are not dangerous because they occasionally crash, but because they leave and land on time and carry their passengers in comfort. Progress is dangerous [...]
“Many young documentary film makers start with the commentary on the right side and later fill in the visual part which will illustrate the commentary. This can be done only in exceptional cases when the film has to give exact instructions or information which the commentary must express. In that case the commentary stands by [...]
When is it right to kill? In the midst of war, is it right to refuse? Eight U.S. soldiers, some who have killed and some who said no, reveal their inner moral dilemmas in “Soldiers of Conscience.” Made with official permission of the U.S. Army, the film transcends politics to explore the tension between spiritual [...]
“Art is not a calling in itself, but the way in which one exercises a calling, and also the way in which one performs any human activity. I will give you my definition of art: art is ‘making’.” (Renoir, p.99)