Humphrey Jennings
Encyclopedia
Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings (19 August 1907, Walberswick, Suffolk
– 24 September 1950, Poros, Greece
) was an English
documentary
filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organization. Jennings was described by film critic and director Lindsay Anderson
in 1954 as: "the only real poet
that British cinema has yet produced."
, an architect
father and a painter mother. He was educated at The Perse School
and later read English at Pembroke College
, Cambridge. When not studying, he painted and created advanced stage designs and was the founder-editor of Experiment in collaboration with William Empson
and Jacob Bronowski
.
After graduating with a starred First Class degree in English
, Jennings undertook post graduate research in the poet Thomas Gray
, under the supervision of a predominantly absent I. A. Richards
, who was teaching abroad. After abandoning what looked like being a successful academic career, Jennings undertook a number of jobs including photographer, painter and theatre designer. He joined GPO Film Unit
, then under John Grierson
, in 1934, largely it is thought because Jennings needed the income after the birth of his first daughter, rather than from a strong interest in film. Relations with his colleagues were difficult, they saw him as something of a dilettante, but he did form a friendship with Alberto Cavalcanti
.
In 1936, Jennings helped with the organisation of the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London
, in association with André Breton
, Roland Penrose
and Herbert Read
. It was at about this time that Jennings, along with Charles Madge
and Tom Harrisson
helped found Mass Observation and co-edited with Madge the text May the Twelfth, a montage of extracts from observer reports of the 1937 coronation of King George VI
and Queen Elizabeth
for Mass Observation. A fiftieth anniversary edition of this text was published in 1987 by Faber.
in 1940, a movie-making propaganda
arm of the Ministry of Information, and Jennings joined the new organisation.
Jennings only feature length film, the 70-minute Fires Were Started
(1943), also known as I Was A Fireman, details the work of the Auxiliary Fire Service
in London. It blurs the lines between fiction and documentary
because the scenes are re-enactments. This film, which uses techniques such as montage, is considered one of the classics of the genre
.
His films are otherwise shorts, inclusively patriotic in sentiment and very English in their sensibility, such as: Spare Time (1939), London Can Take It! (1940), Words for Battle (1941), A Diary for Timothy (with a narration written by E.M. Forster, 1945), The Dim Little Island (1948) and Family Portrait (his last completed film, which tells of the Festival of Britain
, 1950). Co-directed with Stewart McAllister, Jennings' best remembered short film is Listen to Britain (1942). Excerpts are often seen in other documentaries, especially portions of one of the concerts given by Dame Myra Hess
in the National Gallery
while its collection was evacuated for safe-keeping.
He died in Poros, Greece
in a fall on the cliffs of the Greek
island while scouting locations for a film on post-war healthcare in Europe. Jennings married Cicely Cooper in 1929; the couple had two daughters.
's This Sporting Life
(1962) or Karel Reisz
's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
(1960).
After 2001 this situation was partly rectified: firstly by the feature-length documentary by Oscar
-winning documentary-maker Kevin Macdonald
, Humphrey Jennings: The Man Who Listened to Britain (made by Figment Films in 2002 for British television
's Channel 4
); and secondly by Kevin Jackson's 450-page biography Humphrey Jennings (Picador, 2004). In 2003 two of his films, Listen to Britain and Spare Time, were included in the Tate Britain
retrospective, A Century of Artists' Film in Britain which featured the work of over one hundred filmmakers. The Macdonald documentary is included in the Region 2 DVD of I Was a Fireman (Fires Were Started) released by Film First in 2008.
Walberswick
Walberswick is a village on the Suffolk coast in England, across the River Blyth from Southwold. Coastal erosion and the shifting of the mouth of the River Blyth meant that the neighbouring town of Dunwich was lost as a port in the last years of the 13th century...
– 24 September 1950, Poros, Greece
Poros
Poros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the strait. Its surface is about and it has 4,117...
) was an English
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...
documentary
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...
filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organization. Jennings was described by film critic and director 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...
in 1954 as: "the only real poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
that British cinema has yet produced."
Early life and career
Humphrey Jennings was the son of Guild SocialistsGuild socialism
Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds. It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was strongly associated with G. D. H...
, an architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
father and a painter mother. He was educated at The Perse School
The Perse School
The Perse Upper School is an independent secondary co-educational day school in Cambridge, England. The school was founded in 1615 by Dr Stephen Perse, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and has existed on several different sites in the city before its present home on Hills...
and later read English at Pembroke College
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...
, Cambridge. When not studying, he painted and created advanced stage designs and was the founder-editor of Experiment in collaboration with William Empson
William Empson
Sir William Empson was an English literary critic and poet.He was known as "燕卜荪" in Chinese.He was widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, fundamental to the New Critics...
and Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski was a Polish-Jewish British mathematician, biologist, historian of science, theatre author, poet and inventor...
.
After graduating with a starred First Class degree in English
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
, Jennings undertook post graduate research in the poet Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.-Early life and education:...
, under the supervision of a predominantly absent I. A. Richards
I. A. Richards
Ivor Armstrong Richards was an influential English literary critic and rhetorician....
, who was teaching abroad. After abandoning what looked like being a successful academic career, Jennings undertook a number of jobs including photographer, painter and theatre designer. He joined GPO Film Unit
GPO Film Unit
The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. The unit was established in 1933, taking on responsibilities of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit...
, then under 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...
, in 1934, largely it is thought because Jennings needed the income after the birth of his first daughter, rather than from a strong interest in film. Relations with his colleagues were difficult, they saw him as something of a dilettante, but he did form a friendship with Alberto Cavalcanti
Alberto Cavalcanti
Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer.-Early life:Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a...
.
In 1936, Jennings helped with the organisation of the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London
London International Surrealist Exhibition
The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London, England.The exhibition was organised by:* Hugh Sykes Davies* David Gascoyne* Humphrey Jennings* Rupert Lee* Diana Brinton Lee...
, in association with André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, Roland Penrose
Roland Penrose
Sir Roland Algernon Penrose CBE was an English artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of the surrealists in the United Kingdom.- Biography :...
and Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
. It was at about this time that Jennings, along with Charles Madge
Charles Madge
Charles Madge , was an English poet, journalist and sociologist, now most remembered as a founder of Mass-Observation.As a sociologist, he co-founded Mass-Observation with Tom Harrisson in 1937, an endeavour which would occupy more of his time than literature...
and Tom Harrisson
Tom Harrisson
Major Tom Harnett Harrisson DSO OBE was a British polymath. In the course of his life he was an ornithologist, explorer, journalist, broadcaster, soldier, guerrilla, ethnologist, museum curator, archaeologist, documentarian, film-maker, conservationist, and writer...
helped found Mass Observation and co-edited with Madge the text May the Twelfth, a montage of extracts from observer reports of the 1937 coronation of King George VI
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
and Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
for Mass Observation. A fiftieth anniversary edition of this text was published in 1987 by Faber.
The War years
The GPO Film Unit became the Crown Film UnitCrown Film Unit
The Crown Film Unit was an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information during World War II. Formerly the GPO Film Unit it became the Crown Film Unit in 1940. Its remit was to make films for the general public in Britain and abroad...
in 1940, a movie-making propaganda
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....
arm of the Ministry of Information, and Jennings joined the new organisation.
Jennings only feature length film, the 70-minute Fires Were Started
Fires Were Started
Fires Were Started is a British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II...
(1943), also known as I Was A Fireman, details the work of the Auxiliary Fire Service
Auxiliary Fire Service
The Auxiliary Fire Service was first formed in 1938 in Great Britain as part of Civil Defence Air raid precautions. Its role was to supplement the work of brigades at local level. In this job it was hampered severely by the incompatibility of equipment used by these different brigades - most...
in London. It blurs the lines between fiction and documentary
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...
because the scenes are re-enactments. This film, which uses techniques such as montage, is considered one of the classics of the genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
.
His films are otherwise shorts, inclusively patriotic in sentiment and very English in their sensibility, such as: Spare Time (1939), London Can Take It! (1940), Words for Battle (1941), A Diary for Timothy (with a narration written by E.M. Forster, 1945), The Dim Little Island (1948) and Family Portrait (his last completed film, which tells of the Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
, 1950). Co-directed with Stewart McAllister, Jennings' best remembered short film is Listen to Britain (1942). Excerpts are often seen in other documentaries, especially portions of one of the concerts given by Dame Myra Hess
Myra Hess
Dame Myra Hess DBE was a British pianist.She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the Gold Medal...
in the National Gallery
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
while its collection was evacuated for safe-keeping.
He died in Poros, Greece
Poros
Poros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the strait. Its surface is about and it has 4,117...
in a fall on the cliffs of the Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
island while scouting locations for a film on post-war healthcare in Europe. Jennings married Cicely Cooper in 1929; the couple had two daughters.
Reputation
Humphrey Jennings' reputation always remained very high among film makers, but had faded among others. His films appear strikingly different from the 'social critique' approach which typified the documentaries of Grierson and his "school" of the 1930s and the feature films of the 1960s and 70s such as Lindsay AndersonLindsay 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...
's This Sporting Life
This Sporting Life
This 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...
(1962) or 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:...
's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Saturday 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).
After 2001 this situation was partly rectified: firstly by the feature-length documentary by Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-winning documentary-maker Kevin Macdonald
Kevin MacDonald (director)
Kevin Macdonald is a Scottish director, best known for his films One Day in September, State of Play, The Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void.-Personal life:...
, Humphrey Jennings: The Man Who Listened to Britain (made by Figment Films in 2002 for British television
British television
Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...
's Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
); and secondly by Kevin Jackson's 450-page biography Humphrey Jennings (Picador, 2004). In 2003 two of his films, Listen to Britain and Spare Time, were included in the Tate Britain
Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...
retrospective, A Century of Artists' Film in Britain which featured the work of over one hundred filmmakers. The Macdonald documentary is included in the Region 2 DVD of I Was a Fireman (Fires Were Started) released by Film First in 2008.
As director
- Post Haste (1934)
- The Story of the Wheel (1934)
- Locomotives (1934)
- Farewell Topsails (1937)
- Making Fashion (1938)
- The Farm (1938)
- Design for Spring (1938)
- Penny Journey (1938)
- Speaking from America (1938)
- Spare Time (1939)
- SS Ionian (1939)
- The First Days (1939)
- Cargoes (1939)
- Spring Offensive (1940)
- Welfare of the Workers (1940)
- London Can Take It!London Can Take It!London Can Take It! is a short documentary film produced by the GPO Film Unit for the Ministry of Information covering less than eighteen hours of the German blitz on London and its people...
(1940) - Words for BattleWords for BattleWords for Battle is a British propaganda film produced by the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit in 1941. It was written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, and originally had the title In England Now...
(1941) - Listen to Britain (co-director 1942)
- The True Story of Lilli Marlene (1943)
- Fires Were StartedFires Were StartedFires Were Started is a British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II...
(aka: I Was A Fireman, 1943) - The Silent VillageThe Silent VillageThe Silent Village is a 1943 British propaganda short film in the form of a drama documentary, made by the Crown Film Unit and directed by Humphrey Jennings...
(1943) - V. 1 (1944)
- A Diary for TimothyA Diary for TimothyA Diary for Timothy is a British documentary film directed by Humphrey Jennings. It was produced by Basil Wright for the Crown Film Unit....
(1945) - A Defeated PeopleA Defeated PeopleA Defeated People is a 1946 British documentary short film made by the Crown Film Unit, directed by Humphrey Jennings and narrated by William Hartnell. The film depicts the shattered state of Germany, both physically and as a society, in the immediate aftermath of World War II...
(1946) - The Cumberland Story (1947)
- The Dim Little Island (1949)
- Family Portrait (1950)
- The Good Life (completed by Graham Wallace 1951)
As producer/creative contributor
- Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs (dir. Alberto CavalcantiAlberto CavalcantiAlberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer.-Early life:Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a...
, 1934) - The Birth of the Robot (dir. Len LyeLen LyeLen Lye, born Leonard Charles Huia Lye , was a Christchurch, New Zealand-born artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives such as the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific...
, 1936)
See also
- Edgar AnsteyEdgar AnsteyEdgar Anstey OBE, , was a leading British documentary film-maker....
- Alberto CavalcantiAlberto CavalcantiAlberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer.-Early life:Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a...
- Arthur Elton
- Robert Flaherty
- E. M. ForsterE. M. ForsterEdward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
- John GriersonJohn GriersonJohn 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...
- Tom HarrisonTom HarrisonThomas James Harrison is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He pitched in one game for the Kansas City Athletics in ....
- Stuart LeggStuart LeggStuart Legg was a documentary film-maker.As part of the British Documentary Film Movement, he worked with the General Post Office film unit from 1933, before replacing Paul Rotha as head of Strand Films in 1937...
- Charles MadgeCharles MadgeCharles Madge , was an English poet, journalist and sociologist, now most remembered as a founder of Mass-Observation.As a sociologist, he co-founded Mass-Observation with Tom Harrisson in 1937, an endeavour which would occupy more of his time than literature...
- Stewart McAllisterStewart McAllisterStewart McAllister was a British documentary film editor who collaborated closely with Humphrey Jennings during the Second World War to produce films for the Crown Film Unit of the Ministry of Information...
- I. A. RichardsI. A. RichardsIvor Armstrong Richards was an influential English literary critic and rhetorician....
- Paul RothaPaul RothaPaul Rotha was a British documentary film-maker, film historian and critic. He was educated at Highgate School....
- Harry WattHarry Watt (director)Harry Watt was a Scottish documentary and feature film director, who began his career working for John Grierson and Robert Flaherty. His 1959 film The Siege of Pinchgut was entered into the 9th Berlin International Film Festival...
- Basil WrightBasil WrightBasil Wright, , was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher.-Biography:...
Further reading
- Aitken, Ian ed. Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Routledge (2005)
- Jackson, Kevin (Ed.). The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader (Carcanet, 1993)
- Jackson, Kevin. Humphrey Jennings (Picador, 2004).
- Winston, Brian. Fires Were Started- (BFI, 1999)
External links
- Bibliography of books and articles about Jennings via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center
- Channel 4 site about Jennings
- the BFI's "screenonline" site about Jennings
- Review of Kevin Jackson's Jennings biography