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Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance, though it presents philosophical questions about documentaries containing stagings and reenactments. Like many social critics of the time, Grierson was profoundly concerned about what he perceived to be clear threats to democracy.
John Grierson (born April 26, 1898, Kilmadock, Stirlingshire, Scot.—died Feb. 19, 1972, Bath, Somerset, Eng.) was the founder of the British documentary-film movement and its leader for almost 40 years. He was one of the first to see the potential of motion pictures to shape people’s attitudes toward life and to urge the use of films for ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jul 5, 2024 · John Grierson's contributions to the documentary film movement were pivotal and far-reaching. His major works and collaborative efforts significantly shaped the genre and its role in society. Drifters and the Formation of a Style. Grierson's first major work, Drifters (1929), is a landmark in documentary history. The film captures the life of ...
Sep 15, 2017 · John Grierson’s ‘minor manifesto of beliefs’, ‘First principles of documentary’ (1932–34), is one such text, 2 a short work that John Corner describes as the foundational text of documentary theory. 3 Taking Grierson’s intellectual formation and his ‘shrewdly tactical’ manoeuvring into account, Corner summarizes the key arguments of ‘First principles’. 4 He notes Grierson’s initial contrast between ‘lower categories’, including travelogues, newsreels, educational ...
- Martin Stollery
- 2017
This selection of writings by Grierson attempts to illustrate both the continuities and discontinuities within his ideas, from the 1920s to the 1970s. ‘English Cinema Production and the Naturalistic Tradition’ (1927) contains Grierson's first definition of documentary film. It is an essentially modernist definition, which places emphasis on ...
John Grierson was a Scottish filmmaker and documentarian, often credited as the father of documentary film. He emphasized the importance of using film as a means to convey truth and social issues, advocating for a balance between objective representation and subjective storytelling in documentary filmmaking. Grierson’s work laid the foundation for understanding the complexities of objectivity and subjectivity in the genre, where filmmakers often navigate between presenting facts and ...
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Sep 16, 2021 · Indeed, if in 1926 Grierson found no reason to define the “D” word, it is unsurprising that six years later, in “First Principles,” he would choose to assert the allegedly routine familiarity with the word and term by beginning his essay with the seemingly simple statement, “Documentary is a clumsy description ” [Definition A, line 1], followed immediately by another, doubly baffling proposition: “but let it stand” [line 2].
