Humphrey Jennings

Humphrey Jennings' documentaries were shown at the Watershed cinema in Bristol last weekend and I went along to the Sunday screening of Words for Battle, Spare Time, Listen to Britain and The Silent Village. I know his work well from studying British cinema from the 30s and 40s, but I'd only seen excerpts of his films, so this was a wonderful opportunity, especially as they'd all been digitised and remastered. The quality was superb, and it was a real treat to see such old films in such glorious condition. Jenningswas an exceptionally fine film-maker, and as well as being part of the famous documentary movement of the period, he was a surrealist. Rather fittingly, then, he met his premature death in 1950 at the age of 43 by falling backwards off a cliff as he attempted to get the right shot for a film he was making. Tragic, yes, but also bizarre.
Anyway, his films remain beautiful examples of the quality of British film-making of the period. His wartime films are lovely, and provide a remarkable picture of everyday life during the war, but, for me, I was struck most by Spare Time, made in (I think) 1937. It's a depiction of ordinary people, working and middle class, at leisure, in an era when most people had very little time off work, and it's a fascinating window into a vanished world. We're familiar with many of the wartime images, but the pre-war era, even with its radios, cars and bikes, still retains startling traces of the Victorians and Edwardians. The commentary was by the poet Laurie Lee, a voice which, in spite of his attempt at BBC English, still kept traces of its Gloucestershire burr.
Jennings' visual images are unforgettable and I found them very affecting. The close attention to the everyday lives of ordinary people, making them visually beautiful as well as interesting, is unparalleled. A wonderful afternoon.