0:00:02 > 0:00:04At Scotland's Stirling University they remember a native son
0:00:04 > 0:00:07whose life was so remarkable that they have an entire archive
0:00:07 > 0:00:11devoted to writings both by him and about him.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14The man's name was John Grierson,
0:00:14 > 0:00:18and, quite simply, he changed the way we see the world.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23APPLAUSE
0:00:23 > 0:00:25The Grierson Awards is the only British awards event
0:00:25 > 0:00:27devoted solely to documentary.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29Slightly cocky demeanour.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31A man with a flair.
0:00:32 > 0:00:37No sort of conception that men were different to women.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39He was dictatorial, noisy.
0:00:39 > 0:00:41He was a teacher all the time, I think.
0:00:41 > 0:00:42A subversive.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46A bit of a connoisseur of the morose.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48He made us believe that we could change the world.
0:00:53 > 0:00:56ALFRED HITCHCOCK: London Euston to Glasgow Central.
0:00:56 > 0:01:02Greetings, reunions, people arriving, faces in a crowd.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04Ordinary faces, ordinary people.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09Yet one of these people is famous.
0:01:09 > 0:01:10I wonder if you spotted him.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13One great British film-maker celebrates another.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15The master of suspense
0:01:15 > 0:01:18speaking in his own characteristic deadpan way.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21Some many years ago before I left England,
0:01:21 > 0:01:25young Grierson was making his early mark on the film world
0:01:25 > 0:01:28at much the time as my own humble efforts
0:01:28 > 0:01:31were beginning to reach the screen.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33In the years that have intervened,
0:01:33 > 0:01:39Dr John Grierson has become dubbed the father of the documentary.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42Grierson first made his name when, aged 30,
0:01:42 > 0:01:46he persuaded a Tory government in London to finance a short film
0:01:46 > 0:01:49about herring fisherman in the North Sea.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53Grierson's film Drifters was revolutionary.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55For the first time in class-conscious Britain,
0:01:55 > 0:01:58British workers were shown in a way where people could see
0:01:58 > 0:02:03the value of the work they did and the effort needed to do it.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06Grierson called this type of film "documentary".
0:02:06 > 0:02:10He had started a movement which would spread around the world.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12Drifters was a huge success.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16Grierson thought that for democracy to function as best it could
0:02:16 > 0:02:19then people voting should have the best possible understanding
0:02:19 > 0:02:22of how the society they were a part of worked.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25Grierson believed that film as a medium
0:02:25 > 0:02:27could change things for the better.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29APPLAUSE
0:02:29 > 0:02:33Later in life, in a classic lecture at the National Film Theatre,
0:02:33 > 0:02:36Grierson outlined what had been his manifesto.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40It was always, as we saw it, a chance to say something,
0:02:40 > 0:02:45a chance to teach something, a chance to reveal something,
0:02:45 > 0:02:47a chance, possibly, to inspire -
0:02:47 > 0:02:51certainly always an opportunity for influence of one kind or another.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54And you had political angles.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56I was a pretty radical fella,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59and saw a chance of doing certain things about the working class,
0:02:59 > 0:03:01about housing problems and all that sort of thing.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04John Grierson was a headmaster's son.
0:03:04 > 0:03:07He grew up in the small Stirlingshire town of Cambusbarron.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12He inherited his social conscience from both his parents.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17His mother was politically active at a time when most mothers weren't.
0:03:17 > 0:03:18She was a suffragette,
0:03:18 > 0:03:23and during bad times she ran a soup kitchen for the unemployed.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26Grierson was just 16 when the First World War broke out.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29Underage, he joined the Navy and served on minesweepers.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32Off duty, he made little sketches
0:03:32 > 0:03:35and wrote letters home for any of his shipmates
0:03:35 > 0:03:37who couldn't read or write.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40After the war, while at Glasgow University,
0:03:40 > 0:03:44John Grierson toyed with the idea of becoming a minister of the church,
0:03:44 > 0:03:46but on a scholarship to America
0:03:46 > 0:03:49he saw the factual films of Robert Flaherty.
0:03:49 > 0:03:51Grierson had showed great interest
0:03:51 > 0:03:54in Flaherty's film about the Inuit people,
0:03:54 > 0:03:55Nanook of the North,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58and in a review of his second film, Moana,
0:03:58 > 0:04:00he used the word "documentary"
0:04:00 > 0:04:02for the first time in a film context.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08He and Flaherty were to form a long friendship,
0:04:08 > 0:04:11with frequent arguments about working methods -
0:04:11 > 0:04:16but Grierson always said Flaherty had the best eye in cinema.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20John Grierson decided that cinema would be his pulpit.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23He would make films with a message.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25Films that would change the world.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30The term "documentary" was his and Flaherty's...
0:04:31 > 0:04:35..and it was invented in New York.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39Sounds like the night they invented champagne!
0:04:39 > 0:04:43It WAS invented in New York.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46They didn't know what they were going to call the movement
0:04:46 > 0:04:53and they thought "actuality", "actuality films",
0:04:53 > 0:04:57and then, no, because it would resemble too much
0:04:57 > 0:05:01the French newsreels "actualite".
0:05:01 > 0:05:04And so, they had to think again.
0:05:04 > 0:05:10And, finally, the first one was very uncompromising, it was the...
0:05:12 > 0:05:15.."the self-dramatisation of the actual",
0:05:15 > 0:05:19which was fairly tough-going, and limiting.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23But that lasted for two or three years,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25and eventually it came out,
0:05:25 > 0:05:31as you know, as "the creative interpretation of the actual".
0:05:31 > 0:05:35'The old order changes, giving place to new.'
0:05:43 > 0:05:46This poetic film on industrial Britain
0:05:46 > 0:05:49was produced by Grierson and directed by Robert Flaherty.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52Grierson had realised that he could advance his cause more quickly
0:05:52 > 0:05:56by producing films rather than by directing them.
0:05:56 > 0:06:01He set up a film-making unit at the Empire Marketing Board in London.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03Being termed a civil servant didn't bother him,
0:06:03 > 0:06:06though "civil" is perhaps not the first word
0:06:06 > 0:06:09that many would have applied to him.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12He had an amazing gift of the gab.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15He could inspire and enthuse them to do things.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18He could also con money out of a sponsor
0:06:18 > 0:06:20like nobody I have ever seen.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23That was part of his genius, was to be able to
0:06:23 > 0:06:26walk into somebody's office and explain to them
0:06:26 > 0:06:30why it was important for them, what was in their self-interest,
0:06:30 > 0:06:33to make this film which...
0:06:33 > 0:06:36for his self-interest, was completely different.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38- Scenario's ready.- Right-oh. Thanks.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42Driven by the force of Grierson's personality
0:06:42 > 0:06:44and his seemingly inexhaustible energy,
0:06:44 > 0:06:47films started pouring out of the unit.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49With a Government department paying the bills,
0:06:49 > 0:06:51Grierson had to take great care
0:06:51 > 0:06:55nothing they did could be seen in any way as an artistic indulgence
0:06:55 > 0:06:57and a misuse of public money.
0:06:57 > 0:06:58Right, cut it there.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02When the Empire Marketing Board closed, his film unit survived
0:07:02 > 0:07:05and was transferred across to the GPO - a very powerful body
0:07:05 > 0:07:09running both Britain's postal service and the nation's telephones.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11Right, start 'em up.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18Grierson's contribution was first of all in selecting people.
0:07:18 > 0:07:24I mean, he selected - I don't know whether it was five, six or seven
0:07:24 > 0:07:26young men and women
0:07:26 > 0:07:29who had got first class degrees at Oxford and Cambridge -
0:07:29 > 0:07:33people like Stewart Legg and Arthur Elton, Humphrey Jennings -
0:07:33 > 0:07:39and developed them as his creative team.
0:07:39 > 0:07:41With these energetic, young college types,
0:07:41 > 0:07:43Grierson changed the possibility
0:07:43 > 0:07:45of what short films could be.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49With subjects ranging from miners working at the coalface,
0:07:49 > 0:07:51taking cameras underground...
0:07:51 > 0:07:54to an innovative mix of animation and actuality
0:07:54 > 0:07:56in Len Lye's Rainbow Dance,
0:07:56 > 0:07:59selling the idea of the savings bank...
0:07:59 > 0:08:02to director Humphrey Jennings first short film,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05Post Haste, on the history of the postal service...
0:08:10 > 0:08:13..and an intimate look at people's housing problems,
0:08:13 > 0:08:17using actuality sound from working people.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19Grierson's unit was one of the first
0:08:19 > 0:08:22to put women in positions behind the camera.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25With Housing Problems it was Ruby,
0:08:25 > 0:08:27one of Grierson's two sisters in the unit.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31Ruby used the then revolutionary technique of on-camera interviews
0:08:31 > 0:08:35with ordinary working people to great success.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38Gets on your nerves, where everything's filthy.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Dirty, filthy walls - and the vermin in the walls is wicked.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45She told her brother, "You look at people in a glass bowl -
0:08:45 > 0:08:48"I'm going to smash that bowl."
0:08:48 > 0:08:50So, I tell you, we're fed up.
0:08:50 > 0:08:51Anybody comes to see you,
0:08:51 > 0:08:54they say they feel bilious when they get down the stairs
0:08:54 > 0:08:55because it's all crooked.
0:08:55 > 0:09:00Grierson had no conception that men were different to women,
0:09:00 > 0:09:04so he would be quite happy to hire a female director
0:09:04 > 0:09:07when it absolutely was not done.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11He actually hired his two sisters, Marion and Ruby,
0:09:11 > 0:09:16who both worked as directors - and very good ones, too.
0:09:16 > 0:09:21By showing the nature of the social problems in a very graphic way,
0:09:21 > 0:09:26Grierson built up an emotional reservoir of commitment
0:09:26 > 0:09:29to that idea of central planning,
0:09:29 > 0:09:31of an interventionist role for the State
0:09:31 > 0:09:35which was seen as very benign and very progressive -
0:09:35 > 0:09:36in contrast, perhaps,
0:09:36 > 0:09:39to what was happening through the State in the Soviet Union,
0:09:39 > 0:09:42or had happened through the State in Nazi Germany.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46Film-making was one of the holy professions.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51You had power to communicate ideas that were really important
0:09:51 > 0:09:54and it was very important what you were going to say -
0:09:54 > 0:09:57much more so than the simple act of film-making, you know,
0:09:57 > 0:10:00which was attractive to us then,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03but it was, what were you going to do with that?
0:10:03 > 0:10:04What were you going to say,
0:10:04 > 0:10:07what were your ideas that you were going to express?
0:10:07 > 0:10:11And that you had a responsibility to use that art,
0:10:11 > 0:10:14which was an incredibly powerful one,
0:10:14 > 0:10:17to actually say something that would make the world a better place.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21Grierson's gift for grouping other talents around him
0:10:21 > 0:10:24was at its peak in this ground-breaking film.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27He brought in sound expert, Alberto Cavalcanti,
0:10:27 > 0:10:29the poet, WH Auden
0:10:29 > 0:10:33and the composer Benjamin Britten.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35The idea of having poetry in the commentary
0:10:35 > 0:10:37so bothered the film's co-director, Harry Watt,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40that Grierson told him to take a holiday.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44When word got out that the poetry was actually working very well,
0:10:44 > 0:10:46Watt soon came back.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48'This is the night mail crossing the Border
0:10:48 > 0:10:50'Bringing the cheque and the postal order
0:10:50 > 0:10:52'Letters for the rich Letters for the poor
0:10:52 > 0:10:55'The shop at the corner and the girl next door
0:10:55 > 0:10:57'Pulling up Beattock A steady climb
0:10:57 > 0:11:00'The gradient's against her but she's on time.'
0:11:00 > 0:11:03Music: "Night Mail" by Benjamin Britten
0:11:12 > 0:11:15Night Mail remains the most famous of the unit's films,
0:11:15 > 0:11:18and when the train crosses the Scottish Border,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21Grierson's voice takes over the commentary.
0:11:23 > 0:11:25'Down towards Glasgow she descends,
0:11:25 > 0:11:29'Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes.
0:11:29 > 0:11:33'Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
0:11:33 > 0:11:36'set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39'All Scotland waits for her -
0:11:39 > 0:11:43'in the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs,
0:11:43 > 0:11:44'men long for news.
0:11:44 > 0:11:46'Letters of thanks Letters from banks
0:11:46 > 0:11:48'Letters of joy from the girl and the boy
0:11:48 > 0:11:49'Receipted bills and invitations
0:11:49 > 0:11:51'To inspect new stock or to visit relations
0:11:51 > 0:11:53'And applications for situations...'
0:11:53 > 0:11:56This was a man who recruited an amazing
0:11:56 > 0:11:58number of avant garde artists.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02Think of WH Auden, think of Benjamin Britten.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07Possibly the paramount illustration of that is Norman McLaren.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11Never, if you see the early films of Norman McLaren
0:12:11 > 0:12:13could you find somebody so...
0:12:13 > 0:12:16apparently different from Grierson.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19But what was Grierson like to work with?
0:12:19 > 0:12:20As long as you got on with him,
0:12:20 > 0:12:22that was all right
0:12:22 > 0:12:24and I didn't get on with him.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26I'd find him...
0:12:26 > 0:12:28I was away with him
0:12:28 > 0:12:30in the North of Ireland,
0:12:30 > 0:12:33alone there quite a bit,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36and he was really delightful.
0:12:36 > 0:12:39Quite different from the man in London.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42In London, he was dictatorial, noisy.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45Critical of everything
0:12:45 > 0:12:46he didn't like.
0:12:46 > 0:12:50So, today, in the roar of a Glasgow football crowd,
0:12:50 > 0:12:52you may well observe the vigour and the enthusiasm,
0:12:52 > 0:12:57the ambition and the unconquerable determination of the Scottish race.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59Like the night mail,
0:12:59 > 0:13:03Grierson himself headed back to Scotland and helped form a committee
0:13:03 > 0:13:08to make seven films of Scotland for the forthcoming Empire exhibition.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12With his GPO colleague Basil Wright directing The Face Of Scotland,
0:13:12 > 0:13:15an optimistic picture of the character of the nation
0:13:15 > 0:13:17in 13 minutes.
0:13:17 > 0:13:18ALL SHOUT
0:13:27 > 0:13:30Today they are the same race of whom, nearly 500 hundred years ago,
0:13:30 > 0:13:33the historian Holinshed spoke.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37"There unto we find them to be courageous and hardy,
0:13:37 > 0:13:40"offering themselves often unto the uttermost perils
0:13:40 > 0:13:42"with great assurance."
0:13:42 > 0:13:44In 1937,
0:13:44 > 0:13:46Grierson was invited to Canada
0:13:46 > 0:13:49to advise their government on the uses of film.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53He wrote a plan for a Canadian national film board.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57The Canadians liked his plan so much they asked him to run it.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00None of us can imagine the Film Board having been made without him.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03It was his genius
0:14:03 > 0:14:07that persuaded McKenzie King -
0:14:07 > 0:14:10the Prime Minster at the time -
0:14:10 > 0:14:15to give him a mandate.
0:14:15 > 0:14:18And Grierson wrote, drafted,
0:14:18 > 0:14:22the Film Act of Parliament.
0:14:22 > 0:14:25Grierson brought a few of his documentary colleagues
0:14:25 > 0:14:26to Canada with him.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29Among them Norman McLaren, the brilliant animator,
0:14:29 > 0:14:35and, crucially, the exceptional film-making talents of Stewart Legg.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37For the duration of the Second World War,
0:14:37 > 0:14:40Grierson drove his ever-growing team at the Film Board
0:14:40 > 0:14:43with characteristic energy and inspiration.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45In addition to their many other films,
0:14:45 > 0:14:47they produced two series every month -
0:14:47 > 0:14:49Canada Carries On
0:14:49 > 0:14:51and World In Action.
0:14:51 > 0:14:55The World In Action series was up against the American March Of Time,
0:14:55 > 0:14:59but still succeeded in being shown in several thousand American cinemas
0:14:59 > 0:15:01as well as throughout Canada.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04From the safety of Canada, Grierson was all too aware
0:15:04 > 0:15:09of the dangers facing the team he had brought together in Britain,
0:15:09 > 0:15:11busy making effective propaganda films
0:15:11 > 0:15:14such as Humphrey Jennings' Fires Were Started.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18This film reflected the "Britain can cope" attitude
0:15:18 > 0:15:22to the effect of German bombing, whilst also boosting moral.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24SIRENS WAIL
0:15:31 > 0:15:32Once we had the war
0:15:32 > 0:15:35and an understanding of the kind of propaganda
0:15:35 > 0:15:37that the enemy was using against us,
0:15:37 > 0:15:41and the very sophisticated Nazi propaganda, then...
0:15:42 > 0:15:45..in Britain, as part of the war effort,
0:15:45 > 0:15:47far more resources went into film.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50And, of course, Grierson played a very important role
0:15:50 > 0:15:53with his World In Actions, made in Canada at that time,
0:15:53 > 0:15:55made in North America,
0:15:55 > 0:16:00which helped bring North American opinion round to the side of Britain
0:16:00 > 0:16:03with its fight against Nazism.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06The National Film Board of Canada
0:16:06 > 0:16:09was probably his finest achievement.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14He was no longer lodging his film operation
0:16:14 > 0:16:16within a conventional government ministry,
0:16:16 > 0:16:21but he had an ad hoc national institution for film
0:16:21 > 0:16:25devoted entirely to the production of documentary
0:16:25 > 0:16:30and, of course, thanks to another Scot, to animated film.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34It had always been his intention to leave the Film Board
0:16:34 > 0:16:37at the end of the war, and put it in the hands of Canadians.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45No case ever ends for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
0:16:45 > 0:16:49until it is solved and closed with the conviction of the guilty
0:16:49 > 0:16:50or the acquittal of the innocent.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54In 1945, in the middle of a Communist scare panic,
0:16:54 > 0:16:56the name of a Russian contact was discovered
0:16:56 > 0:16:59in the notebook of one of Grierson's secretaries.
0:16:59 > 0:17:03Despite it's perfectly legitimate reason for being there,
0:17:03 > 0:17:06rumours ran wild and Grierson resigned.
0:17:06 > 0:17:11In court he treated the idea of being any kind of Communist agent
0:17:11 > 0:17:12or spy as laughable.
0:17:16 > 0:17:18Grierson headed for New York.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21He had hoped that the newly-founded UNESCO might be interested
0:17:21 > 0:17:25in funding documentary films addressing world problems.
0:17:25 > 0:17:30But he was targeted by J Edgar Hoover, chief of the American FBI.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33Hoover saw Grierson as a dangerous Red
0:17:33 > 0:17:36and his American visa was cancelled.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38I think it's going to be necessary
0:17:38 > 0:17:40to enlarge the detail of agents at Little Rock, Arkansas.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42Grierson was under constant surveillance
0:17:42 > 0:17:44from the point when he went to New York.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47Hoover was convinced Grierson was a Communist spy
0:17:47 > 0:17:50and was trying to figure out some way to prove it and couldn't,
0:17:50 > 0:17:52and was really annoyed.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55And so Hoover got somebody who was a member of the World Today,
0:17:55 > 0:17:59which was Grierson's New York company, to spy for the FBI.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01This person, I don't know who that was,
0:18:01 > 0:18:05would go through the company correspondence at the end of the day
0:18:05 > 0:18:08and then write down anything that was interesting
0:18:08 > 0:18:10or photograph it and give it to the FBI.
0:18:10 > 0:18:15And, of course, this person's complaints were used by the FBI
0:18:15 > 0:18:18to justify kicking Grierson out of the United States,
0:18:18 > 0:18:20which they did do.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24But Grierson landed on his feet, in 1947, in Paris,
0:18:24 > 0:18:28as UNESCO's first director of mass communications.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31There he developed the policy of "each to each",
0:18:31 > 0:18:35where each country contributed to the wider group of countries
0:18:35 > 0:18:37their own particular strength.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41After three years in Paris, he was invited back to Britain
0:18:41 > 0:18:44to take over at the Central Office of Information.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47But he found the bureaucracy stifling.
0:18:47 > 0:18:49No, I mean, quite honestly,
0:18:49 > 0:18:51he was not a success at the COI.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53Erm...
0:18:53 > 0:18:57My recollections are vivid because he
0:18:57 > 0:19:00was enormously stimulating,
0:19:00 > 0:19:03and a very exciting man
0:19:03 > 0:19:05to have in your midst,
0:19:05 > 0:19:07and the debates we had both
0:19:07 > 0:19:10in the office and in his own flat,
0:19:10 > 0:19:12which was very close by,
0:19:12 > 0:19:14were wonderful.
0:19:14 > 0:19:16I mean, people would drift in and out
0:19:16 > 0:19:17of these debates
0:19:17 > 0:19:20rather like a seminar.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22Although the purpose of the meeting
0:19:22 > 0:19:24might be to decide
0:19:24 > 0:19:26whether we'd make a film on coal,
0:19:26 > 0:19:28you might get absolutely anywhere -
0:19:28 > 0:19:31like growing strawberries in Wiltshire,
0:19:31 > 0:19:33who should select teachers,
0:19:33 > 0:19:35who were the most important people
0:19:35 > 0:19:36within a democracy
0:19:36 > 0:19:40and fundamentally deciding the issues of democracy,
0:19:40 > 0:19:42and all of this would happen
0:19:42 > 0:19:45with a room full of perhaps six, eight, ten people.
0:19:45 > 0:19:47And a good deal of whisky in the evenings.
0:19:47 > 0:19:52He had that bright-eyed, brisk, slightly cocky demeanour.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56He looked around like a sparrow the whole time.
0:19:56 > 0:20:02He was always decently but not foppishly dressed.
0:20:02 > 0:20:04He didn't affect the artist's garb.
0:20:04 > 0:20:11He treated everyone as if they were slightly hostile to him.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14He did not accept warm overtures easily.
0:20:14 > 0:20:16He kept people at a distance -
0:20:16 > 0:20:18and I remember at the first meeting,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21if anyone got a little bit too familiar
0:20:21 > 0:20:24or began talking a little bit too intimately
0:20:24 > 0:20:26he was instantly slapped down.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31Next - Group 3.
0:20:33 > 0:20:35Grierson led a Government initiative
0:20:35 > 0:20:37to make feature films in Britain.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42At Group 3, Grierson, as always, inspired.
0:20:42 > 0:20:46The company made some great films, such as The Brave Don't Cry,
0:20:46 > 0:20:50a realistic fiction about a Scottish mining disaster
0:20:50 > 0:20:53reflecting the harsher side of Scottish life.
0:20:53 > 0:20:55But Rank distribution cold-shouldered
0:20:55 > 0:20:58these Government-subsidised films.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01As a result, their cinema release was severely limited
0:21:01 > 0:21:04and the unit was finally forced to close.
0:21:04 > 0:21:05Can you hear me?
0:21:05 > 0:21:08After 15 years, Grierson's American visa was renewed.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11When he arrived in New York on the Queen Mary,
0:21:11 > 0:21:15two FBI men came aboard before anyone disembarked.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17They escorted Grierson ashore,
0:21:17 > 0:21:22telling him, "This is just so you know we know you're here."
0:21:22 > 0:21:25Grierson recalled with humour, "For the first time,
0:21:25 > 0:21:29"I had my pick of that long line of yellow cabs."
0:21:29 > 0:21:33The documentary form developed and strengthened through the war,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35through the 1940s,
0:21:35 > 0:21:39but then along came television in the early '50s,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42and here you had suddenly a mass medium.
0:21:42 > 0:21:44A very democratic medium in some ways,
0:21:44 > 0:21:47although it still talked in rather upper class tones
0:21:47 > 0:21:50in the BBC in the early '50s.
0:21:50 > 0:21:56But then, in 1956, a certain more brash approach
0:21:56 > 0:22:00was brought in by commercial television and the ITV companies,
0:22:00 > 0:22:05and that led to a wonderful series called This Wonderful World.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08On This Wonderful World programme for Scottish Television,
0:22:08 > 0:22:11which was the only network programme coming from Scotland at that time,
0:22:11 > 0:22:14which was of course an assortment of clips from films
0:22:14 > 0:22:17that had taken his fancy over the world.
0:22:17 > 0:22:18Calling all workers!
0:22:23 > 0:22:26This Wonderful World, for Scottish Television,
0:22:26 > 0:22:29was a well-loved prime time opportunity to show excerpts
0:22:29 > 0:22:32from documentaries from around the world
0:22:32 > 0:22:35as well as looking back on the best of home production
0:22:35 > 0:22:39such as Humphrey Jennings' brilliant wartime propaganda film,
0:22:39 > 0:22:42the lyrical Listen To Britain.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44MUSIC PLAYS OVER SPEAKERS
0:22:44 > 0:22:46SINGING MUFFLED BY MACHINERY
0:23:05 > 0:23:09It was during this time that Grierson was asked to write
0:23:09 > 0:23:11a film treatment about Clyde shipbuilding.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15Grierson picked an American director, Hilary Harris,
0:23:15 > 0:23:18whose work he had seen at a festival in Brussels.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21Grierson told Hilary he should look for that moment
0:23:21 > 0:23:23when a ship is being launched
0:23:23 > 0:23:26and its hull kisses the water for the first time.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30Hilary shot many, many launches but ended up frustrated,
0:23:30 > 0:23:33saying, "There is no kiss."
0:23:37 > 0:23:38But with all those launches,
0:23:38 > 0:23:41he now had the footage to make one of the very best openings
0:23:41 > 0:23:43of a documentary.
0:23:43 > 0:23:46VOICES AND STRIDENT MUSIC MERGE
0:24:01 > 0:24:04Seawards The Great Ships went on to win an Oscar.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11In his late 60s, Grierson was invited back to Canada,
0:24:11 > 0:24:14to Montreal's McGill University.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17To continue to do what he had always done.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21Inspiring, energising and enabling a new generation
0:24:21 > 0:24:23to follow in his footsteps.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26Well, we learned that Grierson was coming to Montreal
0:24:26 > 0:24:30to teach at McGill, and we were very excited about this,
0:24:30 > 0:24:32because this was going to be a chance
0:24:32 > 0:24:35for a number of us to get to know him better.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39We spent time visiting him at his Crescent Street apartment
0:24:39 > 0:24:42and we got to know a number of his students,
0:24:42 > 0:24:47and we witnessed what we saw as a whole new generation
0:24:47 > 0:24:54of kids who were going to be imprinted by this guy.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58And some of them were going to become very important in the film business.
0:24:58 > 0:25:03When Grierson was in town it just sparked
0:25:03 > 0:25:06so many people's imagination.
0:25:06 > 0:25:12Partly because they had known of him and were dying to meet him.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15He had an energy that was very infectious
0:25:15 > 0:25:18and he would seem to draw you in
0:25:18 > 0:25:20to whatever the subject was.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25What fascinated me was his way of thinking worldwide all the time,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28not just local, it was international.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31We thought the subject was about documentary film,
0:25:31 > 0:25:33but he would turn up with a newspaper
0:25:33 > 0:25:35with a photograph from the Vietnam War,
0:25:35 > 0:25:38and he would start talking about the propagandistic value
0:25:38 > 0:25:40of that photograph.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43To hear him talk internationally the way he was,
0:25:43 > 0:25:45you felt it was like a community.
0:25:45 > 0:25:51Students would skip classes to crash his sessions.
0:25:52 > 0:25:53I know I was at one of them,
0:25:53 > 0:25:56and I thought, "If the fire commissioner ever came by
0:25:56 > 0:25:58"this building he'd close it down."
0:25:58 > 0:26:01There were students sitting in the stairways.
0:26:01 > 0:26:02APPLAUSE
0:26:02 > 0:26:05He somehow managed to engage every one of us
0:26:05 > 0:26:07who was in that large room.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09He was one of those people who could talk -
0:26:09 > 0:26:11he talked to taxi drivers, he talked to everyone,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14and always interested, and always had something to...
0:26:14 > 0:26:17So, in that sense, he was a poet.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20He was a poet of...
0:26:20 > 0:26:25not just of this level that he had in knowledge,
0:26:25 > 0:26:30but also a poet of the common man, you know?
0:26:30 > 0:26:34So that's what made him a great documentarist, and a leader.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36He asked what are you going to be going in for?
0:26:36 > 0:26:40And I said, "Well, I'm in teaching." And he just immediately said,
0:26:40 > 0:26:43"Teaching is the most important job in the world."
0:26:44 > 0:26:49And I felt so validated by that,
0:26:49 > 0:26:53in a small community of people who had dismissed me
0:26:53 > 0:26:56because I wasn't looking at going into film.
0:26:56 > 0:26:58And then all of a sudden, out of the blue one day,
0:26:58 > 0:27:01he said, "How many hours a day do you work?"
0:27:01 > 0:27:05So I worked maybe three hours a day or something like that then,
0:27:05 > 0:27:06as a freelancer.
0:27:06 > 0:27:11And I said - I lied, and I said, "Oh, eight hours a day."
0:27:11 > 0:27:14And he jumped up and he said, "What? You only work eight hours a day?
0:27:14 > 0:27:16"How do you expect to change the world
0:27:16 > 0:27:18"if you only work eight hours a day?!"
0:27:18 > 0:27:21He made us believe that we could change the world.
0:27:21 > 0:27:26He once called Judy when we were first married
0:27:26 > 0:27:28and said, "Well, you know..."
0:27:28 > 0:27:30He wanted to talk to me, I wasn't home.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33He said, "You know, Adam's going to change the world."
0:27:33 > 0:27:35I'm sure he said that to everybody, of course,
0:27:35 > 0:27:38but he really made you believe that,
0:27:38 > 0:27:41even though you knew it was sort of bullshit,
0:27:41 > 0:27:43but the potential was there, you know,
0:27:43 > 0:27:47and he made you want to live up to that expectation.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53Grierson had spent a lifetime smoking and drinking
0:27:53 > 0:27:56and at the age of 71 he was paying the price.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58His brother, a doctor, told him,
0:27:58 > 0:28:02"Give up both and I'll guarantee you three more years."
0:28:02 > 0:28:05Remarkably, Grierson did so.
0:28:05 > 0:28:06He got the three years
0:28:06 > 0:28:07his brother had promised him.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10He died in 1972
0:28:10 > 0:28:12in a hospital in the city of Bath,
0:28:12 > 0:28:15aged 74.
0:28:15 > 0:28:16At an annual event in London,
0:28:16 > 0:28:19Grierson Awards are given to the best documentaries of the year.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23It's a great honour to win one,
0:28:23 > 0:28:26and a reminder of a remarkable man.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31John Grierson didn't just make films,
0:28:31 > 0:28:32he made film-makers.