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.
Early life and education Grierson was born in the old schoolhouse in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland, to schoolmaster Robert Morrison Grierson from Boddam, near Peterhead, and Jane Anthony, a teacher from Ayrshire. His mother, a suffragette and ardent Labour Party activist, often took the chair at Tom Johnston's election meetings.
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, and finally Marion in 1907.
Both parents steeped their son in liberal 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.
World War I In July 1915, Grierson left school with an overall subject mark of 82%; John had sat the bursary examination at Gilmorehill the month before, as his parents wanted him to follow his elder sisters, Janet and Agnes, in going to the University of Glasgow. The results for the bursary examination were not posted until October 1915; Grierson applied to work at the munitions at Alexandria; the munitions building had been the original home of the Argyll Motor Company which had earlier in the twentieth century built the first complete motor car in Scotland.
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.
University of Glasgow Grierson returned to university in 1919; he joined the Fabian Society in 1919 and dissolved it in 1921. The New University Labour Club was initiated by John as well as the Critic's Club; he also had poetry published in the Glasgow University magazine from November 1920 until February 1923. Grierson received the Buchan Prize in the Ordinary Class of English Language in the academic year of 1919–20, he also received the prize and first-class certificate in the academic year of 1920–21 in the Ordinary Class of Moral Philosophy and graduated with a Master of Arts in English and moral philosophy in 1923.
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.
Social critic In his review of Robert Flaherty's film Moana (1926) in the New York Sun (8 February 1926), Grierson wrote that it had 'documentary' value. In his essay "First Principles of Documentary" (1932), Grierson argued that the principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's views align with the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov's contempt for dramatic fiction as "bourgeois excess", though with considerably more subtlety. Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance, though it presents philosophical questions about documentaries containing stagings and reenactments.
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 Lenin's 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:
"In an age when the faiths, the loyalties, and the purposes have been more than usually undermined, mental fatigue--or is it spiritual fatigue?--represents a large factor in everyday experience. Our cinema magnate does no more than exploit the occasion. He also, more or less frankly, is a dope pedlar."
Film critic Grierson's emerging and outspoken film philosophies caught the attention of New York film critics at the time. He was asked to write criticism for the New York Sun. At the Sun, Grierson wrote articles on film aesthetics and audience reception, and developed broad contacts in the film world. According to popular myth, in the course of this writing stint, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in writing about Robert J. Flaherty's film Moana (1926): "Of course Moana, being a visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his family, has documentary value."New York Sun, 8 February 1926.
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.
Filmmaker Grierson returned to Great Britain in 1927 armed with the sense that film could be enlisted to build national morale and consensus, and to deal with social problems, a theory he would enact especially during the Great Depression. Filmmaking for Grierson was an exalted, patriotic calling. Grierson's thinking was elitist in some ways, which he exposed with his many dicta of the time, such as "The elect have their duty" and "I look on cinema as a pulpit, and use it as a propagandist."
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.")
Empire Marketing Board On his return to England, Grierson was employed on a temporary basis as an Assistant Films Officer of the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), a governmental agency which had been established in 1926 to promote British world trade and British unity throughout the empire. One of the major functions of the EMB was publicity, which the Board accomplished through exhibits, posters, and publications and films. It was within the context of this State-funded organisation that the "documentary" as we know it today got its start.
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.