Archive for the ‘Film History’ Category

Christopher Noonan, Where Are You?

Monday, September 5th, 2011 -

I have long felt that in order for filmmakers to have a positive social impact on society, there had to be a degree of abundant productivity either individually or collectively as a group. Notice my premise and the reason for this discussion. My premise is that film does have a tremendous impact on the social dialog of a society, especially our youth culture. The other assumption that I’m making is that a group of morally responsible filmmakers can grab this industry by the reigns and pull it out of its downward spiral. This will not happen with one film alone, it will not happen with one filmmaker alone, but a collective group of responsible filmmakers, that work together to repeatedly produced content that lifts up the common man to consider the higher views of humanity and the beautiful world we live in, can have such an effect. (more…)

Considering John Grierson

Thursday, July 28th, 2011 -

“Advocate” is the chapter title in Erik Barnouw’s book Documentary discussing the era between the 1920′s and 1940′s in documentary filmmaking. John Grierson pioneered a completely different use for documentary film making, turning from observational to propaganda. (The distinction between documentary and fictional films was first made by Grierson. ) From most angles of modern scholarship, the term “propaganda” has negative connotations associated with Naziism or the Soviets’ Communism. But Grierson, a Briton who studied moral philosophy and then spent a great amount of time understanding American mindset, also used film for propaganda’s sake. By so doing, he found commercial success in the production of documentary film as propaganda. (more…)