Free Cinema
Encyclopedia
Free Cinema was a documentary film
movement that emerged in England
in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised
intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson
, though he later disdained the 'movement' tag, with Karel Reisz
, Tony Richardson
and Lorenza Mazzetti. The movement began with a programme of three short films at the National Film Theatre, London
on 5 February 1956. The programme was such a success that five more programmes appeared under the Free Cinema banner before the founders decided to end the series. The last event was held in March 1959. Three of the screenings consisted of work from overseas film makers.
, the short-lived, but influential journal Sequence
. Of which Anderson later wrote '"No Film Can Be Too Personal". So ran the initial pronouncement in the first Free Cinema manifesto. It could equally well have been the motto of SEQUENCE'.
The manifesto was drawn up by Lindsay Anderson and Lorenza Mazzetti at a Charing Cross
cafe called The Soup Kitchen, where Mazzetti worked. It reads:
At an interview in 2001, Mazzetti explained that the reference to size was prompted by the then-new experiments in CinemaScope
and other large screen formats. "The image speaks" was an assertion of the primacy of the image over the sound. Reisz said that "An attitude means a style" meant that "a style is not a matter of camera angles or fancy footwork, it's an expression, an accurate expression of your particular opinion."
The first Free Cinema programme featured just three films:
The films were accompanied by the above provocative film manifesto
, written chiefly by Anderson, which brought the film-makers valuable publicity. Later programmes brought in like minded filmmakers, among them Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta
(with Nice Time
), Michael Grigsby
and Robert Vas
. The two film technicians closely associated with the movement were Walter Lassally
and John Fletcher. The three of the six programmes were devoted to foreign work, included the new Polish cinema (fourth programme), emerging French New Wave
(fifth programme) and American independent filmmaker Lionel Rogosin
was invited to screen his ground breaking film On the Bowery
at the second Free cinema programme in September 1956. That event also included the work of Norman McLaren
and Georges Franju
.
's Experimental Film Fund. Some of the later films were sponsored by the Ford Motor Company
or funded independently. They were typically shot in black and white on 16mm film, using lightweight, hand-held cameras, usually with a non-synchronised soundtrack
added separately. Most of the films deliberately omitted narration. The film-makers shared a determination to focus on ordinary, largely working-class British subjects. They felt these people had been overlooked by the middle-class-dominated British film industry of the time, displaying a rare sympathy and respect, and a self-consciously poetic style.
The founders were dismissive of mainstream documentary film-making in Britain, particularly of the documentary film movement
of the 1930s and 1940s associated with John Grierson
, although they made an exception for Humphrey Jennings
. Another acknowledged influence was French
director
Jean Vigo
(1905–34). Free Cinema bears some similarities to the cinéma vérité
and Direct Cinema
movements, and yet retains its uniqueness.
of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and all of the founders except Mazzetti would make films associated with the movement.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
movement that emerged in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
, though he later disdained the 'movement' tag, with Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz
Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
, Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
and Lorenza Mazzetti. The movement began with a programme of three short films at the National Film Theatre, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on 5 February 1956. The programme was such a success that five more programmes appeared under the Free Cinema banner before the founders decided to end the series. The last event was held in March 1959. Three of the screenings consisted of work from overseas film makers.
Background
Anderson and Reisz had previously founded, with Gavin LambertGavin Lambert
Gavin Lambert was a British-born screenwriter, novelist and biographer who lived for part of his life in Hollywood...
, the short-lived, but influential journal Sequence
Sequence (journal)
Sequence was a short-lived but influential British film journal founded in 1947 by Lindsay Anderson, Gavin Lambert and Karel Reisz.Anderson had returned to Oxford after his time with the army Intelligence Corps in Delhi, Lambert was a schoolfriend of Anderson from Cheltenham College who had dropped...
. Of which Anderson later wrote '"No Film Can Be Too Personal". So ran the initial pronouncement in the first Free Cinema manifesto. It could equally well have been the motto of SEQUENCE'.
The manifesto was drawn up by Lindsay Anderson and Lorenza Mazzetti at a Charing Cross
Charing Cross
Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London, England. It is named after the now demolished Eleanor cross that stood there, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross is now occupied by an equestrian...
cafe called The Soup Kitchen, where Mazzetti worked. It reads:
These films were not made together; nor with the
idea of showing them together. But when they came
together, we felt they had an attitude in common.
Implicit in this attitude is a belief in freedom,
in the importance of people and the significance of
the everyday.
As filmmakers we believe that
No film can be too personal.
The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments.
Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim.
An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.
At an interview in 2001, Mazzetti explained that the reference to size was prompted by the then-new experiments in CinemaScope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
and other large screen formats. "The image speaks" was an assertion of the primacy of the image over the sound. Reisz said that "An attitude means a style" meant that "a style is not a matter of camera angles or fancy footwork, it's an expression, an accurate expression of your particular opinion."
The first Free Cinema programme featured just three films:
- Anderson's O DreamlandO DreamlandO Dreamland is a 1953 documentary by British film director Lindsay Anderson.The documentary was made in 1953 by Anderson and his camerman/assistant, John Fletcher, using a single 16mm camera and an audiotape recorder...
(1953), previously unshown, about an amusement parkAmusement parkthumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...
in MargateMargate-Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity....
, KentKentKent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of... - Reisz and Richardson's Momma Don't AllowMomma Don't AllowMomma Don't Allow is a short British documentary film about a north London jazz club made in 1955. It was co-directed by Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson and filmed by Walter Lassally. It was produced by the British Film Institute Experimental Film Fund. It was first shown as part of the first Free...
(1956), about a Wood GreenWood GreenWood Green is a district in north London, England, located in the London Borough of Haringey. It is situated north of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London.-History:...
(North London) jazzJazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
club - Mazzetti's TogetherTogether (1956 film)Together is a 1956 film about two deaf people in the East End of London, directed by Lorenza Mazzetti, in collaboration with Denis Horne. The two main characters are played by artists Eduardo Paolozzi and Michael Andrews, who were friends of the filmmaker...
(1956), a documentary-style fiction about a pair of deaf-mutes in London's bomb-torn East End.
The films were accompanied by the above provocative film manifesto
Film manifesto
There have been a number of manifestos related to film. These propose the author/s feelings and briefing on the how and why of film:...
, written chiefly by Anderson, which brought the film-makers valuable publicity. Later programmes brought in like minded filmmakers, among them Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta
Claude Goretta
Claude Goretta is an internationally successful television producer and film director. His 1981 film La provinciale was entered into the 31st Berlin International Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
(with Nice Time
Nice Time
Nice Time is a 1957 documentary film made by Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta in Britain and included in the third Free Cinema programme at the National Film Theatre, London in May 1957...
), Michael Grigsby
Michael Grigsby
Michael Grigsby is an English documentary filmmaker.With a filmography spanning six decades and nearly 30 films, Grigsby occupies a unique position in British documentary filmmaking, having witnessed and commented on many of the dramatic changes in British society from the late 1950s through to...
and Robert Vas
Robert Vas
Robert Vas — film director He came to England after the Hungarian uprising in 1956. He was committed to documentary and, after a short period working for the National Coal Board, he went on to make a seminal series of films for the BBC...
. The two film technicians closely associated with the movement were Walter Lassally
Walter Lassally
Walter Lassally is a German-born British cinematographer. He was closely associated with the Free cinema movement in the 1950s, and the British New Wave in the early 1960s. He also worked with Greek filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis between 1956 and 1967, and with James Ivory in the 1970s and 1980s...
and John Fletcher. The three of the six programmes were devoted to foreign work, included the new Polish cinema (fourth programme), emerging French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
(fifth programme) and American independent filmmaker Lionel Rogosin
Lionel Rogosin
Lionel Rogosin was a maverick independent American filmmaker who helped pioneer a form of non-fiction filmmaking influenced by the traditions of Robert Flaherty and Italian neorealism.-Early life:...
was invited to screen his ground breaking film On the Bowery
On the Bowery
On the Bowery is a 1956 American documentary film directed by Lionel Rogosin. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature....
at the second Free cinema programme in September 1956. That event also included the work of Norman McLaren
Norman McLaren
Norman McLaren, CC, CQ was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada...
and Georges Franju
Georges Franju
-External links:* at Allmovie...
.
Characteristics
The films were 'free' in the sense that they were made outside the confines of the film industry and were distinguished by their style and attitude and the conditions of production. All of the films were made cheaply, for no more than a few hundred pounds, mostly with grants from the British Film InstituteBritish Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
's Experimental Film Fund. Some of the later films were sponsored by the Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
or funded independently. They were typically shot in black and white on 16mm film, using lightweight, hand-held cameras, usually with a non-synchronised soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
added separately. Most of the films deliberately omitted narration. The film-makers shared a determination to focus on ordinary, largely working-class British subjects. They felt these people had been overlooked by the middle-class-dominated British film industry of the time, displaying a rare sympathy and respect, and a self-consciously poetic style.
The founders were dismissive of mainstream documentary film-making in Britain, particularly of the documentary film movement
Documentary Film Movement
The Documentary Film Movement is the name given to the group of British film-makers, led by John Grierson, who were influential in British film culture in the 1930s and 1940s.-Principles:...
of the 1930s and 1940s associated with John Grierson
John Grierson
John Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. According to popular myth, in 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" to describe a non-fiction film.-Early life:Grierson was born in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland...
, although they made an exception for Humphrey Jennings
Humphrey Jennings
Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings was an English documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organization...
. Another acknowledged influence was French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Jean Vigo
Jean Vigo
Jean Vigo was a French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and was a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Biography:...
(1905–34). Free Cinema bears some similarities to the cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
and Direct Cinema
Direct Cinema
Direct Cinema is a documentary genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, principally in the Canadian province of Quebec and the United States...
movements, and yet retains its uniqueness.
Legacy
Free Cinema was a major influence on the British New WaveBritish New Wave
The British New Wave is the name given to a trend in filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The label is a translation of Nouvelle Vague, the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others.There is considerable overlap...
of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and all of the founders except Mazzetti would make films associated with the movement.
- Anderson with If.... (1969)
- and This Sporting LifeThis Sporting LifeThis Sporting Life is a 1963 British film based on a novel of the same name by David Storey which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. It tells the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining area of Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting...
(1963). - Reisz with Saturday Night and Sunday MorningSaturday Night and Sunday Morning (film)Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 British film. It is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe wrote the screenplay adaptation and the film was directed by Karel Reisz.-Synopsis:...
(1960) - Richardson with Look Back in AngerLook Back in Anger (film)Look Back in Anger is a 1959 British film starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom and Mary Ure and directed by Tony Richardson.It is based on John Osborne's play of the same name about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and...
(1958) - and A Taste of HoneyA Taste of Honey (film)A Taste of Honey is a 1961 British film adaptation of the play of the same name by Shelagh Delaney. Delaney adapted the screenplay herself, aided by director Tony Richardson, who had previously directed the first production of the play...
(1961) - and The Loneliness of the Long Distance RunnerThe Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (film)The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a 1962 film, based on the short story of the same name.The screenplay, like the short story, was written by Alan Sillitoe....
(1962)
External links
See also
- British New WaveBritish New WaveThe British New Wave is the name given to a trend in filmmaking among directors in Britain in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The label is a translation of Nouvelle Vague, the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others.There is considerable overlap...
- Direct CinemaDirect CinemaDirect Cinema is a documentary genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, principally in the Canadian province of Quebec and the United States...
- Cinéma véritéCinéma véritéCinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
- Kitchen sink realismKitchen sink realismKitchen sink realism is a term coined to describe a British cultural movement which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose 'heroes' usually could be described as angry young men...
- Lindsay AndersonLindsay AndersonLindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
- Karel ReiszKarel ReiszKarel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
- Tony RichardsonTony RichardsonCecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...