Drifters
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Drifters (1929) was the first film directed by John Grierson, a pioneer of the British documentary movement. This film is a study of the lives of North Sea herring fishermen and is considered the initiation of the documentary movement in Britain. Grierson believed in the potential of motion pictures for education and shaping public attitudes. He adapted the term "documentary" from the French word documentaire. The film initiated a new era of realistic filmmaking, influencing subsequent productions and solidifying the importance of documentaries in cinema.12
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documentary film…by such films as Grierson’s Drifters (1929), a description of the British herring fleet, and Night Mail (1936), about the nightly mail train from London to Glasgow. The United States, too, made significant contributions to the genre. Early examples include two films directed by Pare Lorentz: The Plow That Broke…
Read More…by such films as Grierson’s Drifters (1929), a description of the British herring fleet, and Night Mail (1936), about the nightly mail train from London to Glasgow. The United States, too, made significant contributions to the genre. Early examples include two films directed by Pare Lorentz: The Plow That Broke…
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filmNewsreels and documentariesproducer-director John Grierson, whose Drifters (1929) inspired a school of fine directors to produce a succession of memorable documentaries through the 1930s. With the outbreak of World War II, Humphrey Jennings’s Fires Were Started (1943) and Harry Watt’s Target for Tonight (1941), two among many outstanding British wartime documentaries,…
Read Moreproducer-director John Grierson, whose Drifters (1929) inspired a school of fine directors to produce a succession of memorable documentaries through the 1930s. With the outbreak of World War II, Humphrey Jennings’s Fires Were Started (1943) and Harry Watt’s Target for Tonight (1941), two among many outstanding British wartime documentaries,…
Read More