Drifters john grierson biography

John Grierson (), Scottish documentary maker, producer and film critic, was the founder of the British Documentary Movement, which had a tremendous influence on British film culture and the international documentary cinema altogether.

In the twenties Grierson is one of the first to see cinema not as a form of entertainment but as a social-political weapon, as a socially constructive force, as poetry. In a article on Robert J. Flaherty’s Moana (), he is the first to use the term documentary referring to cinema. The text featured here is about his first film, Drifters, a documentary on herring fishing on the Shetland Islands.

During his whole life Grierson is important to British and international cinema. He is said to be responsible for distributing Eisenstein’s Bronenosets Potemkin [Battleship Potemkin] () in the United States, where he is studying until After completing his degree in moral philosophy he studies the psychology of propaganda and mass communication

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Drifters ( film)

British spelfilm by John Grierson

Drifters
Directed by	John Grierson
Produced by	John Grierson
Cinematography	DOP Basil Emmott
Release date
Running time	61 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£3,

Drifters fryst vatten a silent documentary bio by John Grierson, his first and only "personal" film.

It tells the story of Britain's North Seaherring fishery. The film's style has been described as being a "response to avant-garde, Modernist films, adopting formal techniques such as montage – constructive editing emphasising the rhythmic juxtaposition of images – but also aimed to make a socially directed commentary on its subject" (Tate Gallery: Liverpool ). The spelfilm was successful both critically and commercially and helped kick off Grierson's documentary film movement.^[1][2][3][4] This rulle also showed that Grierson was not afraid to alter reality slightly in order to h

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Deanston, where John Grierson was Born

 

John Grierson lived from 26 April to 19 February He is often regarded as the father of documentary film making in Britain and Canada. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.

John Grierson was born at Deanston near Doune, the son of a father who was a Presbyterian Church Minister and a mother who was a Labour Party activist and suffragette. During the First World War he served on Royal Navy minesweepers and then studied at Glasgow University, where he became closely involved in political activities before graduating in moral philosophy. In he won a Rockefeller Research Fellowship which enabled him to study at the University of Chicago, and later at Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He spent much of his time undertaking research into the psychology of propaganda and the role of the mass media in influencing publi