Listen to Britain
| Listen to Britain | |
|---|---|
Title card
|
|
| Directed by |
Humphrey Jennings Stewart McAllister |
| Produced by | Ian Dalrymple |
| Written by | Humphrey Jennings Stewart McAllister |
| Starring |
Chesney Allen Bud Flanagan Myra Hess |
| Narrated by | Leonard Brockington |
| Cinematography | H.E. Fowle |
| Edited by |
Humphrey Jennings Stewart McAllister John Krish (uncredited) |
| Distributed by | Crown Film Unit |
|
Release date
|
1942 |
|
Running time
|
19 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Listen to Britain is a 1942 British propaganda short film by Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister. The film was produced during World War II by the Crown Film Unit, an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information to support the Allied war effort. The film was nominated for the inaugural Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 1943, but lost against four other Allied propaganda films. It is noted for its nonlinear structure and its use of sound.
For the American release, Listen to Britain opens with a foreword spoken by Leonard Brockington added by a "nervous civil servant" as there were fears that Americans may be confused by the ambiguity of the film's message. The forewords begins with the famous Listening to Britain poem:
Before the introduction was added, Edward Anstey in The Spectator thought the film would be a complete disaster. Writing in the Documentary News Letter, Anstey complained:
However, Anstey admitted that Listen To Britain "had enormous influence overseas" and the film went down very well with audiences. Helen de Mouilpied (later the wife of Denis Forman), the deputy head of non-theatrical distribution for the Ministry of Information, recalled:
Roger Manvell then working as the Films Officer in the South West and later North-West of the country, claimed he always tried to show the film as the:
The success of 'Listen To Britain' in influencing British public opinion vindicates Jennings and shows "boundary lines in the debate over social utility and aesthetic pleasure are not as distinct as they may seem."
Listen to Britain may be considered as artistic or poetic but the film is based on ambiguity and doubt. Mass Observation, co-founded by Humphrey Jennings in 1937, found in the war's early years that the public considered it “un-British to shove propaganda down your throat”, so Jennings realised that he would have to take a different approach to succeed. Jennings therefore chose to hide the propaganda with ambiguity. The film is therefore part of what Stuart Legg called the 'Poetic Line', in spite of Ansley and Anderson's beliefs that poetry and propaganda were incompatible, and the use of poetry in relation to the constraints imposed by the audience and motivations of Jennings and the Ministry of Information in making the film is central to understanding the film as a work of propaganda. "Poetry and propaganda come together in the myth of the people's war."
...
Wikipedia