British Documentary History Online
Need to brush up your documentary film history? If so, the BFI (British Film Institute) can help you. I have just spent a little hour in company with two brilliant British actors, Derek Jacobi and Malcolm McDowell, who have introduced me to the GPO Unit film tradition way back in the 30’es with John Grierson as the mastermind – and to the 50’es and the so called Free Cinema with Lindsay Anderson as the main player, who after his contribution to the documentary history picked McDowell to be his favourite actor in films like ”If” and ”O Lucky Man”. This interactive online elementary documentary course that you can reach and use for free is introduced like this:
”The General Post Office may seem an unlikely source for some of the most creative British filmmaking of the 1930s, but with a talent roster including W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Alberto Cavalcanti, Humphrey Jennings, Len Lye, Norman McLaren and J.B. Priestley, that’s exactly what it was. Here, Sir Derek Jacobi presents an extensively illustrated interactive guide to the history of the GPO Film Unit, with clips ranging from well-known classics like Night Mail (1936) to rarer but equally sparkling gems.”
”Fifty years ago, a programme of short documentary films changed British cinema for ever. In the third BFI series developed in partnership with BT, Malcolm McDowell introduces an interactive history of Free Cinema, the pivotal but under-recognised film movement of the late 1950s.” Some of these films can be watched on the FourDocs website, see below.
Photo: Lindsay Anderson and Malcolm McDowell on the set of 1973’s O Lucky Man!
