The Golden Age

Are British documentaries as golden as they used to be?

The 1930s was the time of a documentary movement in Britain. The founder John Grierson led other documentarians, such as Harry Watt and Basil Wright, in making films in new ways that celebrated the working class. Grierson's pioneering film Drifters documented the North Sea herring fisheries in his Scottish homeland. It the decade of the 30s that was considered to be 'The Golden Age' of British Documentary. It went downhill after the second World War but my question is, why hasn't The Golden Age returned for a second run? Perhaps it has and yet today's documentarians are not being recognised?

(Scene from Drifters) 

The Post-War Downfall

The Golden Age came to a head thanks to the Second World War. The minority movement became a majority movement since the success of propaganda documentaries during the war. The industry gained many new recruits after the war with people wanting to earn a new living. Many objectives that the movement fought for became legislation and backed by the Labour party who came to power after the war. What made the movement so relevant was its distinctiveness. It was a group of young filmmakers with new ideas. 

“What is important is the sort of spirit which lay behind them” -Paul Rotha ('The Rise and Fall of British Documentary', Sussex, 1975)

Unfortunately this spirit did not sustain itself in documentarians after the war and by 1947 the documentary style of the Golden Age became old fashioned and over the peak.

Current Documentaries

Legg described the Documentary Movement as a:

"Relatively small, very cohesive around different orbits, and essentially a minority movement, rather dedicated, it was not without a political purpose, obviously, and political reference. It was a progressive movement essentially” - Stuart Legg ('The Rise and Fall of British Documentary', Sussex, 1975)

To me, the dedication, political purpose and progressiveness is something that applies to documentaries now. Documentaries are being made to teach the world about various issues within it, with the intensions of advocating change. This is just as they did in the 1930s with films such as Housing Problems, which called to help the working class residents of an East End block of flats with the rebuilding of their homes. Today we have documentaries such as the Stacey Dooley Investigates series in which Dooley investigates current issues around the world effecting young people. She covers topics including missing girls in Canada, children being sold by their mothers in the Philippines, the sexualisation of children in Japan and kids selling drugs online in the UK. While investigating these issues, she herself is there amongst the danger, immersing herself in her filmmaking.

Documentaries like these demonstrate all the defining features of the Documentary Movement. The only difference lays in the advances of the modern world, allowing the filmmakers to travel further afield and are not limited to documenting stories within their own surroundings. Today we see footage of newly discovered species and locations around the globe thanks to nature documentaries such as Planet Earth. Global crises are uncovered in documentaries such as The Cove where illegal dolphin hunting was revealed in Japan. 

Documentary director Steve James "believes many of the brightest creative talents are now turning to documentaries" and he too says "I hope it's not like the real estate bubble, but I sincerely believe we are living in a golden age for documentary film-making. The quality is incredible. Before, people used to want to make narrative films, but suddenly people realised what you could do with documentary." This summarises my point that we are now less limited and we are now able to create significant impacts on the world with the resources, talent and accessibility we have. 

Perhaps it was the steady increase in the quality of documentaries over the years that has prevented today's documentarians from being recognised. In the 1930s there was a dramatic change in the genre of documentary. Many young filmmakers were advocated in the field, such as Grierson being the first to use the term 'documentary' when referring to Robert Flaherty's film Moana and also being the first to features interviews. But with many 'firsts' already done, it is difficult for today's documentarians to be distinguished no matter how spectacular their filmmaking is.