Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings (19 August 1907,
Walberswick, Suffolk
Walberswick is a village on the Suffolk coast, across the River Blyth from Southwold. Coastal erosion and the shifting of the mouth of the River Blyth meant that the neighbouring town of Dunwich was lost as a port in the last years of the 13th century...
– 24 September 1950,
Poros, GreecePoros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel. Its surface is about 31 square kilometres and it has 4,117 inhabitants. The town of Poros has 4,102...
) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organization. Jennings was described by film critic and director
Lindsay AndersonLindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born English feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
in 1954 as: "the only real
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
that British cinema has yet produced."
Humphrey Jennings was the son of
Guild SocialistsGuild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds. It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was strongly associated with G. D. H...
, an
architectAn architect is trained and licensed in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e. chief builder...
father and a painter mother.
Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings (19 August 1907,
Walberswick, Suffolk
Walberswick is a village on the Suffolk coast, across the River Blyth from Southwold. Coastal erosion and the shifting of the mouth of the River Blyth meant that the neighbouring town of Dunwich was lost as a port in the last years of the 13th century...
– 24 September 1950,
Poros, GreecePoros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel. Its surface is about 31 square kilometres and it has 4,117 inhabitants. The town of Poros has 4,102...
) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organization. Jennings was described by film critic and director
Lindsay AndersonLindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born English feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
in 1954 as: "the only real
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
that British cinema has yet produced."
Early life and career
Humphrey Jennings was the son of
Guild SocialistsGuild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds. It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was strongly associated with G. D. H...
, an
architectAn architect is trained and licensed in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e. chief builder...
father and a painter mother. He was educated at
The Perse SchoolThe Perse Upper School is a fee-paying secondary day school for boys 11–18 and girls at 16+ which is situated in Cambridge, England...
and later read English at
Pembroke CollegePembroke College may refer to:*Pembroke College, Cambridge*Pembroke College, Oxford*Pembroke College , the former women's college...
,
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
. When not studying, he painted and created advanced stage designs and was the founder-editor of
Experiment in collaboration with
William EmpsonSir William Empson was an English literary critic and poet.He is sometimes praised as the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt, and widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, fundamental to the New Critics...
and
Jacob BronowskiJacob Bronowski was a British mathematician and biologist of Polish-Jewish origin. He is best remembered as the presenter and writer of the 1973 BBC television documentary series, The Ascent of Man.-Life and work:...
.
After graduating with a starred First Class degree in
EnglishEnglish literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, V.S....
, Jennings undertook post graduate research in the poet
Thomas GrayThomas Gray , was an English poet, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.- Early life and education :...
, under the supervision of a predominantly absent
I. A. RichardsIvor Armstrong Richards was an influential English literary critic and rhetorician....
, who was teaching abroad. After abandoning what looked like being a successful academic career, Jennings undertook a number of jobs including photographer, painter and theatre designer. He joined
GPO Film UnitThe GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. The unit was established in 1933, taking on responsibilities of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit and was headed by John Grierson, and was set up to produce sponsored documentary films mainly related to the activities of the...
, then under
John GriersonJohn Grierson is often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film.-Early life:Grierson was born in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland. His father was the local Protestant preacher, his mother a suffragette and ardent Labour Party activist...
, in 1934, largely it is thought because Jennings needed the income after the birth of his first daughter, rather than from a strong interest in film. Relations with his colleagues were difficult, they saw him as something of a
dilletante, but he did form a friendship with
Alberto CavalcantiAlberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer.-Early life:Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a...
.
In 1936, Jennings helped with the organisation of the
1936 Surrealist Exhibition in LondonThe International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London, England.The exhibition was organised by:* Hugh Sykes Davies* David Gascoyne* Humphrey Jennings* Rupert Lee* Diana Brinton Lee...
, in association with
André BretonAndré Breton was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist, and is best known as the principal founder of Surrealism...
,
Roland PenroseRoland Algernon Penrose , CBE, Kt, was an English artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of the surrealists in the United Kingdom.- Biography :...
and
Herbert ReadSir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner.-Early life:He was born in Kirkbymoorside in North...
. It was at about this time that Jennings, along with
Charles MadgeCharles Madge , was an English poet, journalist and sociologist, now most remembered as one of the founders of Mass-Observation.As a sociologist, he co-founded Mass-Observation with Tom Harrisson in 1937, an endeavour which would occupy more of his time than literature...
and
Tom HarrissonTom Harnett Harrisson was a British polymath...
helped found Mass Observation and co-edited with Madge the text
May the Twelfth, a montage of extracts from observer reports of the 1937 coronation of King
George VIGeorge VI was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 11 December 1936 until his death...
and
Queen ElizabethElizabeth Bowes-Lyon was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 1936 until 1952 as the wife of King George VI. After her husband's death, she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
for Mass Observation. A fiftieth anniversary edition of this text was published in 1987 by Faber.
The War years
The GPO Film Unit became the
Crown Film UnitThe Crown Film Unit was an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information during World War II. Formerly the GPO Film Unit it became the Crown Film Unit in 1940. Its remit was to make films for the general public in Britain and abroad...
in 1940, a movie-making
propagandaPropaganda is communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience...
arm of the Ministry of Information, and Jennings joined the new organisation.
Jennings only feature length film, the 70-minute
Fires Were StartedFires Were Started is a British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II. The film uses actual firefighters rather than professional actors.The film was also released under the title I Was a...
(1943), also known as
I Was A Fireman, details the work of the
Auxiliary Fire ServiceThe Auxiliary Fire Service was first formed in 1938 in Great Britain as part of Civil Defence Air raid precautions. Its role was to supplement the work of brigades at local level. In this job it was hampered severely by incompatibility of equipment used by these different brigades - most...
in London. It blurs the lines between fiction and
documentaryDocumentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
because the scenes are re-enactments. This film, which uses techniques such as
montage, is considered one of the classics of the
genreA genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance...
.
His films are otherwise shorts, inclusively patriotic in sentiment and very English in their sensibility, such as:
Spare Time (1939),
London Can Take It! (1940),
Words for Battle (1941),
A Diary for Timothy (with a narration written by E.M. Forster, 1945),
The Dim Little Island (1948) and
Family Portrait (his last completed film, which tells of the
Festival of BritainThe Festival of Britain was a national exhibition which opened in London and around Britain in May 1951. The official opening was on 3 May. The principal exhibition site was on the South Bank Site, London of the River Thames near Waterloo Station...
, 1950). Co-directed with Stewart McAllister, Jennings' best remembered short film is
Listen to Britain (1942). Excerpts are often seen in other documentaries, especially portions of one of the concerts given by
Dame Myra HessDame Myra Hess DBE was a British pianist.She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best-known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the gold medal...
in the
National GalleryThe National Gallery in London, founded in 1824, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 in its home on Trafalgar Square...
while its collection was evacuated for safe-keeping.
He died in
Poros, GreecePoros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel. Its surface is about 31 square kilometres and it has 4,117 inhabitants. The town of Poros has 4,102...
in a fall on the cliffs of the
GreekGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
island while scouting locations for a film on post-war healthcare in Europe. Jennings married Cicely Cooper in 1929; the couple had two daughters.
Reputation
Humphrey Jennings' reputation always remained very high among film makers, but had faded among others. His films appear strikingly different from the 'social critique' approach which typified the documentaries of Grierson and his "school" of the 1930s and the feature films of the 1960s and 70s such as
Lindsay AndersonLindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born English feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
's
This Sporting LifeThis Sporting Life is a 1963 British film based on a novel of the same name by David Storey which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. It tells the story of a rugby league player, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining area of Yorkshire whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life...
(1962) or
Karel ReiszKarel Reisz was a significant filmmaker active in post–war Britain.Reisz was a Jewish refugee, one of the 669 rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton. After attending Leighton Park School, he joined the Royal Air Force towards the end of the war; his parents died at Auschwitz...
's
Saturday Night and Sunday MorningSaturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe wrote the screenplay adaptation and the film was directed by Karel Reisz.-Synopsis:...
(1960).
After 2001 this situation was partly rectified: firstly by the feature-length documentary by
OscarThe Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is...
-winning documentary-maker
Kevin MacdonaldKevin Macdonald is a Scottish two-time BAFTA winning director, most famous for his films The Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void.-Life:...
,
Humphrey Jennings: The Man Who Listened to Britain (made by Figment Films in 2002 for
British televisionBritish television broadcasting started in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are up to 600 channels for consumers as well as on-demand content. There are six main channel owners who are responsible for most...
's
Channel 4Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
); and secondly by Kevin Jackson's 450-page biography
Humphrey Jennings (Picador, 2004). In 2003 two of his films,
Listen to Britain and
Spare Time, were included in the
Tate BritainTate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It was the first gallery to be established within the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the work of J.M.W...
retrospective,
A Century of Artists' Film in Britain which featured the work of over one hundred filmmakers. The Macdonald documentarty is included in the Region 2 DVD of
I Was a Fireman (
Fires Were Started) released by Film First in 2008.
As director
- The Story of the Wheel (1934)
- Locomotives (1934)
- Farewell Topsails (1937)
- Making Fashion (1938)
- The Farm (1938)
- Design for Spring (1938)
- Penny Journey (1938)
- Spare Time (1939)
- The First Days (1939)
- Cargoes (1939)
- London Can Take It!
London Can Take It! is a short documentary film produced by the GPO Film Unit for the Ministry of Information covering less than eighteen hours of the German blitz on London and its people...
(1940)
- Words for Battle (1941)
- Listen to Britain (co-director 1942)
- The True Story of Lilli Marlene (1943)
- Fires Were Started
Fires Were Started is a British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II. The film uses actual firefighters rather than professional actors.The film was also released under the title I Was a...
(aka: I Was A Fireman, 1943)
- The Silent Village (1943)
- V. 1 (1944)
- A Diary for Timothy
A Diary for Timothy is a British documentary film directed by Humphrey Jennings. It was produced by Basil Wright for the Crown Film Unit....
(1945)
- A Defeated People (1946)
- The Cumberland Story (1947)
- The Dim Little Island (1949)
- Family Portrait (1950)
- The Good Life (completed by Graham Wallace 1951)
As producer/creative contributor
- Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs (dir. Alberto Cavalcanti
Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer.-Early life:Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a...
, 1934)
- The Birth of the Robot (dir. Len Lye
Len Lye, born Leonard Charles Huia Lye , was a New Zealand-born artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture...
, 1936)
See also
- Edgar Anstey
Edgar Anstey, , was a leading British documentary film-maker....
- Alberto Cavalcanti
Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer.-Early life:Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a...
- Arthur Elton
- Robert Flaherty
- E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH , was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy and also the attitudes towards gender and homosexuality in early 20th-century British society...
- John Grierson
John Grierson is often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film.-Early life:Grierson was born in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland. His father was the local Protestant preacher, his mother a suffragette and ardent Labour Party activist...
- Tom Harrison
Thomas James Harrison is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He pitched in one game for the Kansas City Athletics in ....
- Stuart Legg
- Charles Madge
Charles Madge , was an English poet, journalist and sociologist, now most remembered as one of the founders of Mass-Observation.As a sociologist, he co-founded Mass-Observation with Tom Harrisson in 1937, an endeavour which would occupy more of his time than literature...
- Stewart McAllister
- I. A. Richards
Ivor Armstrong Richards was an influential English literary critic and rhetorician....
- Paul Rotha
Paul Rotha was a British documentary film-maker, film historian and critic. He was educated at Highgate School....
- Harry Watt
Harry Watt was a British documentary and feature film director, who began his career working for John Grierson and Robert Flaherty.-External links:*...
- Basil Wright
Basil Wright, , was an English documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher.-Biography:...
Further reading
- Aitken, Ian ed. Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Routledge (2005)
- Jackson, Kevin (Ed.). The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader (Carcanet, 1993)
- Jackson, Kevin. Humphrey Jennings (Picador, 2004).
- Winston, Brian. Fires Were Started- (BFI, 1999)
External links