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John Grierson (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) was a Scottish filmmaker, film theorist, and critic, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Flaherty's Moana.Ann Curthoys, Marilyn Lake Connected worlds: history in transnational perspective, Volume 2004 p.151. Australian National University Press In 1939, Grierson established the all-time Canadian film institutional production and distribution company The National Film Board of Canada controlled by the Government of Canada.
The family moved to Cambusbarron, Stirling, in 1900, when the children were still young, after Grierson's father was appointed headmaster of Cambusbarron school. When the family moved, John had three elder sisters, Agnes, Janet, and Margaret, and a younger brother, Anthony. John and Anthony were enrolled at Cambusbarron school in November 1903. His sister Margaret died in 1906; however, the family continued to grow as John gained three younger sisters, Dorothy, Ruby Grierson, and finally Marion Grierson in 1907.
Both parents steeped their son in Liberalism politics, humanistic ideals, and Calvinist moral and religious philosophies, particularly that education was essential to individual freedom and that hard and meaningful work was the way to prove oneself worthy in the sight of God. John was enrolled in the High School at Stirling in September 1908, and he played football and rugby for the school.
Grierson was the second name on the bursary list and received the John Clark bursary, which was tenable for four years. Grierson entered the University of Glasgow in 1916; however, he was unhappy that his efforts to help in World War I were only through his work at the munitions. Grierson wanted to join the navy; his family on his father's side had long been lighthouse keepers, and John had many memories of visiting lighthouses and being beside the sea. He went to the Crystal Palace in London to train with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. In his recruitment letter he had added a year to his age so that he could attend.
On 7 January 1916, Grierson was sent to the wireless telegraphy station at Aultbea, Cromarty, as an ordinary telegraphist but was promoted to telegraphist on 2 June 1916. On 23 January 1917, he became a telegraphist on the minesweeper H.M.S Surf and served there until 13 October 1917. The next day he joined H.M.S Rightwhale, where he was promoted to leading telegraphist on 2 June 1918 and remained on the vessel until he was demobilised with a British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
In 1923, Grierson received a Rockefeller Research Fellowship to study in the United States at the University of Chicago, and later at Columbia and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focus was the psychology of propaganda—the impact of the press, film, and other mass media on forming public opinion. Grierson was particularly interested in the popular appeal and influence of the "yellow" (tabloid) press, and the influence and role of these journals on the education of new American citizens from abroad.
Like many social critics of the time, Grierson was profoundly concerned about what he perceived to be clear threats to democracy. In the US, he encountered a marked tendency toward political reaction, anti-democratic sentiments, and political apathy. He read and agreed with the journalist and political philosopher Walter Lippmann's book Public Opinion which blamed the erosion of democracy in part on the fact that the political and social complexities of contemporary society made it difficult if not impossible for the public to comprehend and respond to issues vital to the maintenance of democratic society.
In Grierson's view, a way to counter these problems was to involve citizens in their government with the kind of engaging excitement generated by the popular press, which simplified and dramatized public affairs. It was during this time that Grierson developed a conviction that motion pictures could play a central role in promoting this process. (It has been suggested film scholar Paul Swann that some of Grierson's notions regarding the social and political uses of film were influenced by reading Vladimir Lenin writing about film as education and propaganda.)
Grierson's emerging view of film was as a form of social and political communication—a mechanism for social reform, education, and perhaps spiritual uplift. His view of Hollywood movie-making was considerably less sanguine:
During this time, Grierson was also involved in scrutinizing the film industries of other countries. He may have been involved in arranging to bring Sergei Eisenstein's groundbreaking film The Battleship Potemkin (1925) to US audiences for the first time. Eisenstein's editing techniques and film theories, particularly the use of montage, would have a significant influence on Grierson's own work.
Grierson was also a cultural relativist. In the US, he had met pioneering documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty and respected Flaherty immensely for his contributions to documentary form and his attempts to use the camera to bring alive the lives of everyday people and events. Less commendable in Grierson's view was Flaherty's invalidating focus on exotic and faraway cultures. ("In the profounder kind of way", wrote Grierson of Flaherty, "we live and prosper each of us by denouncing the other"). In Grierson's view, the focus of film should be on the everyday drama of ordinary people. As Grierson wrote in his diaries: "Beware the ends of the earth and the exotic: the drama is on your doorstep wherever the slums are, wherever there is malnutrition, wherever there is exploitation and cruelty." "'You keep your savages in the far place Bob; we are going after the savages of Birmingham,' I think I said to him pretty early on. And we did.")
In late 1929 Grierson and his cameraman, Basil Emmott completed his first film, Drifters, which he wrote, produced and directed. The film, which follows the heroic work of North Sea herring fishermen, was a radical departure from anything being made by the British film industry or Hollywood. A large part of its innovation lies in the fierce boldness in bringing the camera to rugged locations such as a small boat in the middle of a gale while leaving relatively less of the action staged. The choice of topic was chosen less from Grierson's curiosity than the fact that he discovered that the Financial Secretary had made the herring industry his hobbyhorse. It premiered in a private film club in London in November 1929 on a double-bill with Eisenstein's -then controversial- film The Battleship Potemkin (which was banned from general release in Britain until 1954) and received high praise from both its sponsors and the press. The film was shown from 9 December 1929, in the Stoll in Kingsway and then was later screened throughout Britain.
After this success, Grierson moved away from film direction into a greater focus on production and administration within the EMB. He became a tireless organizer and recruiter for the EMB, enlisting a stable of energetic young filmmakers into the film unit between 1930 and 1933. Those enlisted included filmmakers Basil Wright, Edgar Anstey, Stuart Legg, Paul Rotha, Arthur Elton, Humphrey Jennings, Harry Watt, and Alberto Cavalcanti. This group formed the core of what was to become known as the British Documentary Film Movement. Robert Flaherty himself also worked briefly for the unit. In 1933 the EMB Film Unit was disbanded, a casualty of Depression-era economics.
In 1934, Grierson sailed on the Isabella Greig out of Granton to film Granton Trawler on Viking Bank which is between Shetland and the Norwegian coast. The footage from his voyage was handed over to Edgar Anstey, who pulled footage of when the camera had fallen over on the deck of the boat to create a storm scene. Granton Trawler was a favourite film of Grierson's, he saw it as a homage to the Isabella Greig that was sunk in 1941 by German bombs when it went out to fish and was never seen again. The Private Life of Gannets was also filmed on the Isabella Greig; the film was shot on Grassholm with Grierson shooting the slow-motion sequence of the gannets diving for fish which took only one afternoon to shoot near Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth. The Private Life of Gannets went on to pick up an Academy Award in 1937.
Grierson eventually grew restless with having to work within the bureaucratic and budgetary confines of government sponsorship. Grierson resigned from the G.P.O. on 30 June 1937, which gave him more time to pursue his passions and the freedom to speak his mind on issues around the world. In response, he sought out private industry sponsorship for film production. He was finally successful in getting the British gas industry to underwrite an annual film program. Perhaps the most significant works produced during this time were Housing Problems (dir. Arthur Elton, Edgar Anstey, John Taylor, and Grierson's sister Ruby Grierson, 1935).
Grierson grieved the death of his sister Ruby in 1940; she was on the SS City of Benares while it was evacuating one hundred children to Canada. The Benares was torpedoed four days after its sailing, and sank within thirty-one minutes in a Force 10 Gale. Ruby Grierson had managed to enter Lifeboat 8, full with more than thirty people, including eighteen girls and two female escorts, but as it was lowering, a wave crashed into the lifeboat, sending it into a vertical position, and throwing everyone in that boat into the sea. No one from Boat 8 survived. In the end, of 406 people on board, only 148 people survived, including only 19 of 100 children. Grierson resigned from his position in January 1941. Over his year as Commissioner at the National Film Board 40 films were made; the year before the Motion Picture Bureau had made only one and a half. Recommendations for the future running were made for the National Film Board, and Grierson was persuaded to stay for a further six months to oversee the changes.
During WWII, Grierson was a consultant to prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King as a minister of the Wartime Information Board. He remained on the National Film Board and managed to complete his duties to Wartime Information Board as well through his deputies that aided him in the task. Grierson was asked to keep his dual role until January 1944, however, he resigned in 1943 as the job he had been asked to complete had been finished as far as he was concerned. Before he finished with the Wartime Information Bureau Grierson was also offered the role of chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation but turned it down as he believed that this would give him too much power.
On 26 February 1942, Grierson attended the Academy Awards and received the award on behalf of the National Film Board for Churchill's Island. Grierson also presented the award for the best documentary, the first time that this award was given by the Academy. After the Dieppe Raid, there were reports that Canadians that had been taken as prisoners of war had been manacled under Hitler's orders. Grierson proposed that the Film Board show how the German prisoners of war were being treated in Canada through a film. Ham Wright directed the film showing the German sailors that had been captured; playing football, enjoying meals and looking healthy. Only one copy of the film was made, it was sent to the Swiss Red Cross who deliberately let it fall into German hands. Grierson was to learn at a later date that Hitler had indeed watched the film and ordered that the Canadian prisoners of war released from their manacles.
After the war, the National Film Board focused on producing documentaries that reflected the lives of Canadians. The National Film Board has become recognized around the world for producing quality films, some of which have won Academy Awards. The National Film Board had become one of the largest film studios and was respected around the world for what it had achieved; it had especially had influence in Czechoslovakia and China.
In December 1943 Grierson was elected by the Permanent Film Committee of the National Council for Canadian-Soviet Friendship to become honorary chairman. One of the tasks at the National Film Board that Grierson strongly pushed for the films being produced to be in French as well as English. He also pushed for a French unit in the National Film Board.
Grierson concentrated on documentary film production in New York after resigning his post following in August 1945; his resignation was to take effect in November 1945. In 1946 Grierson was asked to testify as part of the investigation of the Gouzenko Affair regarding communist spies in the National Film Board and the Wartime Information Board, rumours spread that he had been a leader of a spy ring during his offices with the Canadian government, a rumour he denied. Due to the rumours, the projects that Grierson had been trying to put together were not commissioned and he was barred from taking an important position at the United Nations.
During this time Grierson had been diagnosed with tuberculosis in May 1953, he spent a fortnight in hospital and then had a year of convalescing at his home, Tog Hill in Calstone. Grierson spent much of his time corresponding with the directors at Group 3, as well as commenting on scripts and story ideas. He had recovered enough to attend the Cannes Film Festival in April 1954, taking the production of Man of Africa. At the Edinburgh Film Festival in the same year, a dinner was held in Grierson's honour to celebrate twenty-five years of documentary.
This Wonderful World began to be aired in England in February 1959, it ran for a further eight years and was in the Top Ten programmes for the week for the UK in 1960. In 1961, Grierson was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours. In 1962, he was a member of the jury for the Vancouver Film Festival, during his visit to Canada he also received the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Medal for his contribution to the visual arts. In 1963, he was busy with This Wonderful World and the Films of Scotland Committee but still found time to attend the twenty-fifth anniversary of the National Film Board in Montreal.
In 1965, Grierson was the patron of the Commonwealth Film Festival which took place in Cardiff in that year. In 1966, he was offered the role of Governor of the British Film Institute; however, he turned down the position. This Wonderful World changed the title to John Grierson Presents.
In 1967, after returning from the Oberhausen Film Festival where he had been the President of Honour of the jury, Grierson suffered a bout of bronchitis which lasted eight days. His brother Anthony, who had trained to be a doctor was called and diagnosed Grierson with emphysema, his coughing fits were a cause for concern, and he was admitted to Manor Hospital. Grierson decided to give up smoking and drinking to benefit his health.
In January 1969, Grierson left for Canada to lecture at McGill University; enrollment for his classes grew to around seven hundred students. He also lectured at Carleton University once a fortnight. At Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh on 8 July 1969, Grierson received an Honorary degree of Literature. A few days earlier on 4 July 1969, Grierson had opened the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther.
Grierson was a member of the jury for the Canadian Film Awards in 1970. He spent a few months in 1971, travelling around India instilling the importance of having small production units throughout the country. He returned to the UK in December 1971 and was meant to travel back to India; however, his trip was delayed by the Indo-Pakistani War. Grierson went into hospital for a health check-up in January 1972; he was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer and was given months to live. During his time in hospital he spent time dictating letters to his wife, Margaret, and received visitors; however, he fell unconscious on 18 February and died on the 19th. In his wishes for his funeral he had detailed his desire to be cremated. Also according to his wishes, his urn was placed in the sea off the Old Head in Kinsale, and his brother Anthony, who had died in August 1971, had his ashes placed at the same time. A small flotilla followed the Able Seaman, which carried the ashes, and when the urns were lowered into the water, the fishing boats sounded their sirens.
The Grierson Archive at the University of Stirling Archives was opened by Angus Macdonald in October 1977.
Filmography as producer/creative contributor:
Grierson Awards are presented annually in nine categories:
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