78-439: A newsreel is a form of short documentary film , containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema , newsreels were a source of current affairs, information, and entertainment for millions of moviegoers. Newsreels were typically exhibited preceding a feature film , but there were also dedicated newsreel theaters in many major cities in
156-399: A Peabody Award and one of the first Emmy Awards . The March of Time was based on a news documentary and dramatization series, also called The March of Time , that was first broadcast on CBS Radio in 1931. Produced by Madison Avenue advertising agency, Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO), the series was designed to cross promote Time magazine on the radio. Usually called
234-564: A historical record ". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries". Early documentary films, originally called " actuality films ", briefly lasted for one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length and to include more categories. Some examples are educational , observational and docufiction . Documentaries are very informative , and are often used within schools as
312-596: A $ 2 show twice a day to a continuous 25-cent programme, establishing the first newsreel theater in the United States; the idea was such a success that Fox and his backers announced they would start a chain of newsreel theaters across the country. The newsreels were often accompanied by cartoons or short subjects . The First World War saw the major countries using the newest technologies to develop propaganda for home audiences. Each used carefully edited newsreels to combine straight news reports and propaganda. During
390-591: A Metropolis (dir. Walter Ruttmann , 1927); Man with a Movie Camera (dir. Dziga Vertov , 1929); Douro, Faina Fluvial (dir. Manoel de Oliveira , 1931); and Rhapsody in Two Languages (dir. Gordon Sparling , 1934). A city symphony film, as the name suggests, is most often based around a major metropolitan city area and seeks to capture the life, events and activities of the city. It can use abstract cinematography (Walter Ruttman's Berlin ) or may use Soviet montage theory (Dziga Vertov's, Man with
468-421: A Movie Camera ). Most importantly, a city symphony film is a form of cinepoetry , shot and edited in the style of a " symphony ". The European continental tradition ( See: Realism ) focused on humans within human-made environments, and included the so-called city symphony films such as Walter Ruttmann's, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (of which Grierson noted in an article that Berlin, represented what
546-429: A Summer ( Jean Rouch ), Dont Look Back ( D. A. Pennebaker ), Grey Gardens ( Albert and David Maysles ), Titicut Follies ( Frederick Wiseman ), Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (both produced by Robert Drew ), Harlan County, USA (directed by Barbara Kopple ), Lonely Boy ( Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor ) are all frequently deemed cinéma vérité films. The fundamentals of
624-527: A broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave , the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinéma vérité ( Jean Rouch ) and
702-630: A documentary should not be); Alberto Cavalcanti's, Rien que les heures; and Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera . These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde. Dziga Vertov was central to the Soviet Kino-Pravda (literally, "cinematic truth") newsreel series of the 1920s. Vertov believed the camera – with its varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion – could render reality more accurately than
780-437: A form of journalism, advocacy, or personal expression. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. Single-shot moments were captured on film, such as a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as those made by Auguste and Louis Lumière , were
858-521: A magazine, but the success of The March of Time' s experiments in pictorial journalism overcame the hesitation of the corporation's board of directors. Larsen proposed that the new magazine be named The March of Time , but the name Life was purchased from the owners of a declining periodical. Life magazine was a great success and notable influence on photojournalism throughout its 36-year history. Louis de Rochemont succeeded Larsen as producer of The March of Time , while Larsen continued to supervise
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#1732783637394936-515: A major battle and re-enact scenes to film them. The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most celebrated and controversial propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl 's film Triumph of the Will (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by Adolf Hitler . Leftist filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed Borinage (1931) about
1014-437: A minute or less in length, due to technological limitations. Examples can be viewed on YouTube. Films showing many people (for example, leaving a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight . Using pioneering film-looping technology, Enoch J. Rector presented
1092-506: A more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Examples of their work include Drifters (John Grierson), Song of Ceylon (Basil Wright), Fires Were Started , and A Diary for Timothy (Humphrey Jennings). Their work involved poets such as W. H. Auden , composers such as Benjamin Britten , and writers such as J. B. Priestley . Among the best known films of the movement are Night Mail and Coal Face . Calling Mr. Smith (1943)
1170-577: A new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts for 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 definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance; however, this position is at variance with Soviet film-maker Dziga Vertov 's credos of provocation to present "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously), and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by
1248-404: A newsreel series, The March of Time was actually a monthly series of short feature films twice the length of standard newsreels. The films were didactic, with a subjective point of view. The editors of Time described it as "pictorial journalism". Like its radio namesake, The March of Time included reporting, on-location shots, and dramatic reenactments. The March of Time' s relationship to
1326-536: A newsreel story can be found in the film Citizen Kane (1941), which was prepared by RKO's actual newsreel staff. Citizen Kane includes a fictional newsreel called "News on the March" that summarizes the life of title character Charles Foster Kane while parodying The March of Time . On August 12, 1949, one hundred twenty cinema technicians employed by Associated British Pathé in London went on strike to protest
1404-428: A resource to teach various principles . Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic. Social media platforms (such as YouTube ) have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary- film genre . These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-of-accessibility. Polish writer and filmmaker Bolesław Matuszewski
1482-451: A wordless meditation on wartime Britain. From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the similar Baraka could be described as visual tone poems, with music related to the images, but no spoken content. Koyaanisqatsi (part of the Qatsi trilogy ) consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. Baraka tries to capture
1560-474: Is a separate area. Pathé was the best-known global manufacturer of such films in the early 20th century. A vivid example is Moscow Clad in Snow (1909). Biographical documentaries appeared during this time, such as the feature Eminescu-Veronica-Creangă (1914) on the relationship between the writers Mihai Eminescu , Veronica Micle and Ion Creangă (all deceased at the time of the production), released by
1638-419: Is an anti-Nazi color film created by Stefan Themerson which is both a documentary and an avant-garde film against war. It was one of the first anti-Nazi films in history. Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct cinema ) was dependent on some technical advances to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in
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#17327836373941716-670: The Bucharest chapter of Pathé . Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor (known for the feature With Our King and Queen Through India (1912)) and Prizma Color (known for Everywhere With Prizma (1919) and the five-reel feature Bali the Unknown (1921)) used travelogues to promote the new color processes. In contrast, Technicolor concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by Hollywood studios for fiction feature films. Also during this period, Frank Hurley 's feature documentary film, South (1919) about
1794-654: The DuMont Television Network launched two short-lived newsreel series, Camera Headlines and I.N.S. Telenews , the latter in cooperation with Hearst's International News Service . On August 15, 1948, CBS started their evening television news program Douglas Edwards and the News . Later the NBC, CBS, and ABC (USA) news shows all produced their own news film. In New Zealand, the Weekly Review
1872-542: The HBO Archive's summary of The March of Time newsreels. Episodes 1.1–1.4 were distributed by First Division Pictures; episodes 1.5–8.13 were distributed by RKO Pictures ; episodes 9.1–17.6 were distributed by 20th Century-Fox . Four feature-length films were produced by The March of Time . In 1949 The March of Time created the first extensive documentary series for television, Crusade in Europe , based on
1950-666: The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was released. The film documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914. With Robert J. Flaherty 's Nanook of the North in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism . Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic documentary films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For instance, in Nanook of
2028-526: The March of Time were not political theorists, they were journalists. For them, fascism, communism, and native demagogues seemed foreign to the American ethic, and they exposed and attacked them accordingly. … A cinematic agent provocateur , the March of Time turned over a lot of rocks, both at home and abroad, and illuminated the creatures it found beneath them. The demagogues and quacks whom they attacked in
2106-884: The 1920s and 1930s. These films were particularly influenced by modern art , namely Cubism , Constructivism , and Impressionism . According to art historian and author Scott MacDonald , city symphony films can be described as, "An intersection between documentary and avant-garde film: an avant-doc "; however, A.L. Rees suggests regarding them as avant-garde films. Early titles produced within this genre include: Manhatta (New York; dir. Paul Strand , 1921); Rien que les heures /Nothing But The Hours ( France ; dir. Alberto Cavalcanti , 1926); Twenty Four Dollar Island (dir. Robert J. Flaherty , 1927); Moscow (dir. Mikhail Kaufman , 1927); Études sur Paris (dir. André Sauvage , 1928); The Bridge (1928) and Rain (1929), both by Joris Ivens ; São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole (dir. Adalberto Kemeny , 1929), Berlin: Symphony of
2184-438: The 1930s and ’40s, and some large city cinemas also included a smaller theaterette where newsreels were screened continuously throughout the day. By the end of the 1960s television news broadcasts had supplanted the format. Newsreels are considered significant historical documents, since they are often the only audiovisual record of certain cultural events. this list is incomplete. Silent news films were shown in cinemas from
2262-511: The 1930s may seem like obvious targets now, but they didn't seem so then. They were popular, powerful, frightening people, and the March of Time stood entirely alone in theatrical motion picture circles as a muckraker. In late 1936, producer Roy E. Larsen reluctantly left The March of Time to serve as publisher of Life , a weekly news magazine that began publication in November 1936. Time executives had long vacillated over launching such
2340-537: The 1970s, rendered them obsolete. Newsreel cinemas either closed or went to showing continuous programmes of cartoons and short subjects, such as the London Victoria Station News Cinema, later Cartoon Cinema that opened in 1933 and closed in 1981. The last American newsreel was released on December 26, 1967, the day after Christmas . Nonetheless, some countries such as Cuba, Japan, Spain, and Italy continued producing newsreels into
2418-560: The 1980s and 1990s. An Australian movie production dramatizing the cameramen and producers of newsreels was released in 1978. The title was Newsfront . Some events featured during the presentation were regarding the 1949 election of the Australian Prime Minister, the rabbit plague, and the introduction of television (1956). A 2016 Irish documentary, Éire na Nuachtscannán ("Ireland in the Newsreels") looked at
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2496-553: The Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a " surrealist " documentary Las Hurdes (1933). Pare Lorentz 's The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1938) and Willard Van Dyke 's The City (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each presenting complex combinations of social and ecological awareness, government propaganda, and leftist viewpoints. Frank Capra 's Why We Fight (1942–1944) series
2574-694: The Cinesound Movietone Australian Newsreel Collection, a comprehensive collection of 4,000 newsreel films and documentaries representing news stories covering all major events. The first official British news cinema that only showed newsreels was the Daily Bioscope that opened in London on May 23, 1909. In 1929, William Fox purchased a former cinema called the Embassy . He changed the format from
2652-810: The Furnaces , from 1968), directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas , influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many political documentaries produced in the early 1970s was "Chile: A Special Report", public television's first in-depth expository look at the September 1973 overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in Chile by military leaders under Augusto Pinochet , produced by documentarians Ari Martinez and José Garcia. A June 2020 article in The New York Times reviewed
2730-574: The North , Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. Paramount Pictures tried to repeat the success of Flaherty's Nanook and Moana with two romanticized documentaries, Grass (1925) and Chang (1927), both directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack . The " city symphony " sub film genre consisted of avant-garde films during
2808-680: The North American " direct cinema " (or more accurately " cinéma direct "), pioneered by, among others, Canadians Michel Brault , Pierre Perrault and Allan King , and Americans Robert Drew , Richard Leacock , Frederick Wiseman and Albert and David Maysles . The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their subjects. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct involvement or even provocation when they deem it necessary. The films Chronicle of
2886-465: The Penguins , and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable. The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 30 years from the cinéma vérité style introduced in the 1960s in which
2964-581: The Romanian professor Gheorghe Marinescu made several science films in his neurology clinic in Bucharest : Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy (1898), The Walking Troubles of Organic Paraplegies (1899), A Case of Hysteric Hemiplegy Healed Through Hypnosis (1899), The Walking Troubles of Progressive Locomotion Ataxy (1900), and Illnesses of the Muscles (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his works "studies with
3042-635: The Second World War, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , a state organization in Nazi Germany for disseminating stories favorable to the administration's goals, created Die Deutsche Wochenschau (1940–1945). There were no other newsreels disseminated within the country during the war. In some countries, newsreels generally used music as a background for usually silent on-site film footage. In some countries,
3120-485: The advantage of documentaries lies in introducing new perspectives which may not be prevalent in traditional media such as written publications and school curricula. Documentary practice is the complex process of creating documentary projects. It refers to what people do with media devices, content, form, and production strategies to address the creative, ethical, and conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make documentaries. Documentary filmmaking can be used as
3198-501: The book by Dwight D. Eisenhower . The ABC series received a Peabody Award and one of the first Emmy Awards (Best Public Service, Cultural or Educational Program). It was followed by Crusade in the Pacific (1951). In 1965–1966, producer David L. Wolper revived the March of Time title for a series of documentary films produced in association with Time-Life, Inc. The series was not successful. Dorothy Fields ' lyrics for
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3276-474: The camera). The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic." Others further state that a documentary stands out from the other types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts it presents. Scholar Betsy McLane asserted that documentaries are for filmmakers to convey their views about historical events, people, and places which they find significant. Therefore,
3354-498: The creation of a Film Archive to collect and keep safe visual materials. The word "documentary" was coined by Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson in his review of Robert Flaherty 's film Moana (1926), published in the New York Sun on 8 February 1926, written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson). Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in
3432-429: The development of "reality television" that occasionally verges on the documentary but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The "making-of" documentary shows how a movie or a computer game was produced. Usually made for promotional purposes, it is closer to an advertisement than a classic documentary. Modern lightweight digital video cameras and computer-based editing have greatly aided documentary makers, as has
3510-407: The director. The commercial success of these documentaries may derive from this narrative shift in the documentary form, leading some critics to question whether such films can truly be called documentaries; critics sometimes refer to these works as " mondo films " or "docu-ganda." However, directorial manipulation of documentary subjects has been noted since the work of Flaherty, and may be endemic to
3588-609: The dismissal of fifteen men on the grounds of redundancy while conciliation under trade union agreements was pending. Their strike lasted through to at least Tuesday August 16, the Tuesday being the last day for production on new newsreels shown on the Thursday. Events of the strike resulted in over three hundred cinemas across Britain having to go without newsreels that week. In 1936, when the BBC Television Service
3666-452: The dramatic drop in equipment prices. The first film to take full advantage of this change was Martin Kunert and Eric Manes ' Voices of Iraq , where 150 DV cameras were sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to record themselves. Films in the documentary form without words have been made. Listen to Britain , directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister in 1942, is
3744-536: The early part of the 20th century. They were often referred to by distributors as "scenics". Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. An important early film which moved beyond the concept of the scenic was In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), which embraced primitivism and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans . Contemplation
3822-527: The entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States. In May 1896, Bolesław Matuszewski recorded on film a few surgical operations in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen invited Matuszewski and Clément Maurice to record his surgical operations. They started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898. Until 1906,
3900-412: The episodes were about war or the threat of war; from December 1941 until the end of World War II nearly every episode dealt with war. "Although the March of Time was professedly nonpartisan, a clear and persistent antifascist tone was becoming apparent in its analysis of world politics and rising militarism", Fielding wrote. "'Rehearsal for War' [August 6, 1937] was unquestionably anti-Franco , which
3978-520: The films was so vital that they were often given co-director credits. Famous cinéma vérité/direct cinema films include Les Raquetteurs , Showman , Salesman , Near Death , and The Children Were Watching . In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often regarded as a political weapon against neocolonialism and capitalism in general, especially in Latin America, but also in a changing society. La Hora de los hornos ( The Hour of
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#17327836373944056-533: The form due to problematic ontological foundations. Documentary filmmakers are increasingly using social impact campaigns with their films. Social impact campaigns seek to leverage media projects by converting public awareness of social issues and causes into engagement and action, largely by offering the audience a way to get involved. Examples of such documentaries include Kony 2012 , Salam Neighbor , Gasland , Living on One Dollar , and Girl Rising . Although documentaries are financially more viable with
4134-427: The great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity and religious ceremonies. Bodysong was made in 2003 and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best British Documentary." The March of Time The March of Time is an American newsreel series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945 that
4212-694: The help of the cinematograph," and published the results, along with several consecutive frames, in issues of La Semaine Médicale magazine from Paris, between 1899 and 1902. In 1924, Auguste Lumière recognized the merits of Marinescu's science films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I was still receiving La Semaine Médicale , but back then I had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way." Travelogue films were very popular in
4290-428: The human eye, and created a film philosophy from it. The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film. Newsreels at this time were sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site after
4368-471: The increasing popularity of the genre and the advent of the DVD, funding for documentary film production remains elusive. Within the past decade, the largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become their largest funding source. Modern documentaries have some overlap with television forms, with
4446-665: The landmark 14-hour Eyes on the Prize : America's Civil Rights Years (1986 – Part 1 and 1989 – Part 2) by Henry Hampton, 4 Little Girls (1997) by Spike Lee , The Civil War by Ken Burns , and UNESCO-awarded independent film on slavery 500 Years Later , express not only a distinctive voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some films such as The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris incorporate stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moore 's Roger & Me place far more interpretive control with
4524-677: The late 19th century. In 1909 Pathé started producing weekly newsreels in Europe. Pathé began producing newsreels for the UK in 1910 and the US in 1911. Newsreels were a staple of the typical North American , British , and Commonwealth countries (especially Canada , Australia , and New Zealand ), and throughout European cinema programming schedule from the silent era until the 1960s when television news broadcasting completely supplanted its role. The National Film and Sound Archive in Australia holds
4602-458: The narrator used humorous remarks for light-hearted or non-tragic stories. In the U.S., newsreel series included The March of Time (1935–1951), Pathé News (1910–1956), Paramount News (1927–1957), Fox Movietone News (1928–1963), Hearst Metrotone News (1914–1967), and Universal Newsreel (1929–1967). Pathé News was distributed by RKO Radio Pictures from 1931 to 1947, and then by Warner Brothers from 1947 to 1956. An example of
4680-476: The newsreel age in Ireland , mostly focusing on Pathé News and how the (British) company altered its newsreels for an Irish audience. Research Guides Media [REDACTED] Media related to Newsreels at Wikimedia Commons Documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining
4758-415: The newsreel was compared to the weekly interpretive news magazine's relationship to the daily newspaper. The March of Time was launched February 1, 1935, in over 500 theaters. Each entry in the series was either a two- or three-reel film (20 or 30 minutes). Westbrook Van Voorhis , who hosted the radio program, served as narrator of the film series. The series, which finally totalled close to 200 segments,
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#17327836373944836-465: The operations of the series on behalf of the Time corporation. Examining the subjects of The March of Time , series historian Raymond Fielding found that episodes dealing with a single country and its affairs comprised 32.6 to 36 percent of the entire series. Economic issues were the subject of 10 percent of the episodes, and domestic politics 5 percent. Between 1935 and 1942, approximately 24 percent of
4914-513: The political documentary And She Could Be Next , directed by Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia. The Times described the documentary not only as focusing on women in politics, but more specifically on women of color, their communities, and the significant changes they have wrought upon America. Box office analysts have noted that the documentary film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as Fahrenheit 9/11 , Super Size Me , Food, Inc. , Earth , March of
4992-429: The series in September 1942. At its peak The March of Time was seen by 25 million U.S. moviegoers a month. "Implicit in all March of Time issues was a kind of uncomplicated American liberalism — general good intentions, a healthy journalistic skepticism, faith in enlightened self-interest , and substantial pride in American progress and potential", wrote March of Time chronicler Raymond Fielding: The men who made
5070-426: The song " A Fine Romance ", introduced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the 1936 RKO film Swing Time , include a reference to the newsreel series: A fine romance, with no kisses. A fine romance, my friend, this is. True love should have the thrills that a healthy crime has. We don't have half the thrills that The March of Time has. The March of Dimes , a fundraising organization that still exists,
5148-530: The style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film. The editors of the movement – such as Werner Nold , Charlotte Zwerin , Muffie Meyer , Susan Froemke , and Ellen Hovde – are often overlooked, but their input to
5226-568: The subject. The March of Time film series ended in 1951, when the widespread adoption of television and daily TV news shows made the newsreel format obsolete. Newsreel series such as Pathé News (1910–1956), Paramount News (1927–1957), Fox Movietone News (1928–1963), Hearst Metrotone News/News of the Day (1914–1967), and Universal Newsreel (1929–1967) continued for a while longer. Unless noted, sources for episode information are The March of Time, 1935–1951 by Raymond Fielding, and
5304-432: The use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between documentary and narrative and some works are very personal, such as Marlon Riggs 's Tongues Untied (1989) and Black Is...Black Ain't (1995), which mix expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses subjectivities rather than historical materials. Historical documentaries, such as
5382-494: The year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations. Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906, Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, two of which survive, the six-film series Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées (1906), and the four-film Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne (1911). These and five other of Doyen's films survive. Between July 1898 and 1901,
5460-505: Was "the principal film series produced in the 1940s". The first television news broadcasts in the country, incorporating newsreel footage, began in 1960. Newsreel-producing companies excluded television companies from their distribution, but the television companies countered by sending their own camera crews to film news events. Newsreels died out because of the nightly television news broadcast, and technological advances such as electronic news-gathering for television news , introduced in
5538-687: Was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war. Constance Bennett and her husband Henri de la Falaise produced two feature-length documentaries, Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935) filmed in Bali , and Kilou the Killer Tiger (1936) filmed in Indochina . In Canada, the Film Board , set up by John Grierson,
5616-479: Was among those who identified the mode of documentary film. He wrote two of the earliest texts on cinema, Une nouvelle source de l'histoire ("A New Source of History") and La photographie animée ("Animated photography"). Both were published in 1898 in French and were among the earliest written works to consider the historical and documentary value of the film. Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to propose
5694-594: Was an immediate success with audiences. Because of its high production costs—estimated at $ 50,000 per episode, released at the rate of about one episode per month—the series was a money loser. However, it remained in production for six years beyond the cancellation of the radio show on which it was based. The films were originally distributed by First Division Pictures , an independent distributor of minor-studio product. Major studio RKO Radio Pictures took over distribution in August 1935, and 20th Century-Fox began releasing
5772-432: Was exactly what liberal staff members had intended." During Louis de Rochemont's tenure (1935–1943), 14 percent of the March of Time episodes were about the impact of specific individuals on political, economic and military events — a number that dropped significantly after his departure. De Rochemont's particular interest in the geopolitical role of the world's waterways resulted in 7.5 percent of all episodes devoted to
5850-672: Was launched in the United Kingdom, it was airing the British Movietone and Gaumont British newsreels for several years (except for a hiatus during World War II), until 1948, when the service launched their own newsreel programme, titled Television Newsreel , that would last until July 1954, when it was replaced by News and Newsreel . On February 16, 1948, NBC launched a ten-minute television program called Camel Newsreel Theatre with John Cameron Swayze that featured newsreels with Swayze doing voiceovers. Also in 1948,
5928-590: Was named by Eddie Cantor in 1938 as a play on The March of Time . Because Franklin D. Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes, originally called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, a dime was chosen to honor him after his death. The March of Time series was satirized in Orson Welles 's film Citizen Kane (1941) with the News on the March segment showing the life and funeral of
6006-504: Was produced by advertising agency Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO). The "voice" of both series was Westbrook Van Voorhis . Produced and written by Louis de Rochemont and his brother Richard de Rochemont , The March of Time was recognized with an Academy Honorary Award in 1937. The March of Time organization also produced four feature films for theatrical release, and created documentary series for early television. Its first TV series, Crusade in Europe (1949), received
6084-610: Was set up for the same propaganda reasons. It also created newsreels that were seen by their national governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the psychological warfare of Nazi Germany orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels . In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement . Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti , Harry Watt , Basil Wright , and Humphrey Jennings amongst others succeeded in blending propaganda, information, and education with
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