Fifties Free Cinema: No Film can be too Personal

Course Dates: 22/02/25
Time: 10:30 - 16:30
Location: Keeley Street
Tutors: 
John Wischmeyer
John Grierson has a lot to answer for. Not only did he popularise that most dreary and off-putting term ‘documentary’ in the 1930s, he only approved those that were utilitarian, pedagogic or impersonal. But in the 1950s a new generation of filmmakers rejected these restrictive forms and a Free Cinema was born: an interest in the poetry of the everyday and a talent for finding art hiding in plain sight in unsung and unprepossessing neighbourhoods. Documentary to provoke change. No film can be too personal. An urgent cultural revolution was suddenly exploding everywhere. New York’s ‘off Broadway’ film movement, influenced by Italian neorealism, shot Little Fugitive (1953 Morris Engel/Ruth Orkin) on location on Coney Island. It was nominated for an Oscar. This landmark film led to John Cassavetes’ independent style and was an acknowledged influence on the French New Wave, Direct Cinema (U.S.) and Cinema Verite (France). As if on cue, Agnes Varda filmed La Pointe Courte (1955) on location in Sete, inventing and kick-starting the New Wave of Godard and Truffaut and her own Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962). However, the biggest stirring of a new kind of documentary impulse was the Free Cinema in Britain, where Lindsay Anderson scorned the Griersonian style as didactic and dull and led the way to the British New Wave’s ‘kitchen sink’ films that were about our lives.
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Fifties Free Cinema: No Film can be too Personal
  • Course Code: HF233
  • Dates: 22/02/25 - 22/02/25
  • Time: 10:30 - 16:30
  • Taught: Sat, Daytime
  • Duration: 1 session
  • Location: Keeley Street
  • Tutor: John Wischmeyer

Course Code: HF233

Sat, day, 22 Feb - 22 Feb '25

Duration: 1 session

Please note: We offer a wide variety of financial support to make courses affordable. Just visit our online Help Centre for more information on a range of topics including fees, online learning and FAQs.

What is the course about?

This film studies course demonstrates documentary’s development from Grierson to Anderson and from Free Cinema (UK) to Direct Cinema (U.S.) to Cinema Verite (France). The camera eye was focused on society and everyday life. Free Cinema was free from sponsors and box office demands. The theme of new 50s documentary and Free Cinema was: ‘The image speaks. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude. Perfection is not an aim. No film can be too personal’.

What will we cover?

What is documentary anyway?
Documentary, never an easy fit for the cinema, came into its own on television, which offered the factual filmmaker a host of new opportunities in its formative decades. The years treated on this course fall between the aftermath of WW2 (during which documentary as propaganda came into its own) and a 1950s United States/UK blanketed by television. In 1950 the U.S. NBC network famously screened the poetic Louisiana Story (1948 Robert Flaherty, originator of Nanook of the North in 1922) to audience rapture. They hadn’t seen its like. In Britain, Lindsay Anderson’s Everyday Except Christmas (1957) documented the old Covent Garden produce market, which Hitchcock later captured in its final closing days in Frenzy (1972). Something new, more critical, was in the air, such as: The See It Now series (1953-54 CBS network): Edward R. Murrow Talks on Senator McCarthy, O Dreamland (1953 Lindsay Anderson UK Free Cinema), which castigated the dull, synthetic pleasures offered the working classes at Margate and Momma Don’t Allow (1955 Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz UK Free Cinema), which was filmed at a London jazz club patronised by working class teenagers.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...

- Define and analyse the characteristics of the documentary genre.
- Be familiar with the shared characteristics of New York (independents), British (Free Cinema) and French (cinema verite) documentaries.
- Have an understanding of the visual style associated with the various documentary types explored on the course.

What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?

This is a course for those interested in cinema. No previous experience or film study is necessary but those who have done previous study will find it well-informed and genuinely educational.

How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?

Opening lecture, proper big screen screenings of films, clips, sequences and re-mixes that stimulate group discussion and debate.

Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?

There are no other costs. The tutor will show extracts of films or supply links to online viewing. Please bring a notepad, tablet or other device for taking notes.

When I've finished, what course can I do next?

Look for other film studies courses on our website at www.citylit.ac.uk/history, culture & writing/film studies.

John Wischmeyer

John Wischmeyer (MA in Film Theory) set up, ran and programmed his own cinema in West London and has since taught film studies at the former Gainsborough studio, the BFI and City Lit since 1999, Hitchcock’s centenary year. John has covered a wide range film topics under the banner ‘Cinema Investigates America’ and has a particular interest in and considerable knowledge of Hitchcock, Hollywood studios, American independent cinema and film noir, film technique and style.

Please note: We reserve the right to change our tutors from those advertised. This happens rarely, but if it does, we are unable to refund fees due to this. Our tutors may have different teaching styles; however we guarantee a consistent quality of teaching in all our courses.