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Basil Wright

Directing

Biography

Basil Wright - was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher. During World War II, Wright worked only as a producer, first at John Grierson's Film Centre before joining The Crown Film Unit between 1945 and 1946 as producer-in-charge. Among the best known films he produced for Crown are Humphrey Jennings' A Diary for Timothy (1946) and A Defeated People (1946) and Instruments of the Orchestra (1946) featuring Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.[1] Returning to direction in the early 1950s, his films included Waters of Time (1951) made for the Festival of Britain, World Without End (1953) directed with Paul Rotha for UNESCO and Greece: The Immortal Land (1958) in collaboration with his friend the artist Michael Ayrton. Writing throughout the 30s and 40s, Basil Wright had contributed to the theoretical development of documentary in the movement's journals Cinema Quarterly, World Film News and Documentary Newsletter. He was the film critic for The Spectator after Graham Greene left. Wright was a regular contributor to the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound during the 1940s and '50s. He published a small book: The Uses of Film (1948) and his personal (extensive) history of cinema The Long View (1974). He taught at the University of Southern California (1962 and 1968), The National Film and Television School in London (1971–73) and Temple University in Philadelphia (1977–78). He was Governor of the British Film Institute, a fellow of the British Film Academy and President of the International Association of Documentary Filmmakers. In his films Wright combined an ability to look closely and carefully at a subject with a poetic and often experimental approach to editing and sound. In Britain he is commemorated with a film prize awarded biennially by the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Filmography Movies

Acting

MOVIE

Every Day

6.9(0.0K)

Experimental documentary focusing on a day in the life of city workers, featuring montage sequences and repetition to emphasise the monotony of routine office work.

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Every Day

Omnibus - Cuckoo: A Celebration of Mr. Laurel and Mr. HardyMOVIE

MOVIE

Omnibus - Cuckoo: A Celebration of Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy

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Narrated by Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, this documentary is about "Laurel and Hardy", one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema. It features interviews with Jerry Lewis, Dick Van Dyke, Babe London, Marcel Marceau, Lucille Hardy (Ollie's wife), Bob Monkhouse, Hal Roach, Marvin T Hatley, Jack McCabe and many more.

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Omnibus - Cuckoo: A Celebration of Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy

Self

Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the SuburbsMOVIE

MOVIE

Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs

5.8(0.0K)

The film, made to advertise domestic telephone sets, is based around two very different families. The Petts are conventional, happy and have children; the Potts are unconventional and unhappy, without children.

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Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs

Vicar (uncredited)

MOVIE

Grierson

7.3(0.0K)

A portrait of John Grierson, the first Canadian Government Film Commissioner and founder of the National Film Board in 1939. Interweaving archival footage, interviews with people who knew him and footage of Grierson himself, this film is a sensitive and informative portrait of a dynamic man of vision. Grierson believed that the filmmaker had a social responsibility, and that film could help a society realize democratic ideals. His absolute faith in the value of capturing the drama of everyday life was to influence generations of filmmakers all over the world. In fact, he coined the term 'documentary film'.

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Grierson

Self

Production

MOVIE

Men of Africa

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A 1940 black and white film, production sponsored by the Colonial Empire Marketing Board. 'The East African colonies are introduced as representative examples of the Colonial Empire. A tribal dance hints at the "life of fear and uncertainty" replaced by British rule, a village's "squalor" the need for continued war on "ignorance, poverty and disease." "Much can be achieved by money and the initiative of the White Man:" film hints at hydro-electric schemes, modern harbours (Mombasa), roads, bridges etc and illustrates in more detail hospital expansion; tsetse fly research and control; relieving malnutrition; agricultural improvement; education (primary school; Makerere College)." - Abridged version of synopsis on colonialfilm.org

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Men of Africa

Producer

The Drawings of Leonardo da VinciMOVIE

MOVIE

The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

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A BAFTA award nominated documentary looking at an exhibition of Da Vinci's drawings at Burlington House in London, marking the quincentenary of his birth.

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The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

Producer

MOVIE

The Song of Ceylon

6.3(0.0K)

Ambitious documentary chronicling the cultural life and religious customs of the Sinhalese and the effects of advanced industrialism on such customs.

A Diary for Timothy

6.8(0.0K)

A narrator recounts the state of Great Britain near the end of WWII via a visual diary for the titular baby boy born in September 1944.

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A Diary for Timothy

Producer

O'er Hill and DaleMOVIE

MOVIE

O'er Hill and Dale

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An overview of the shepherd's life during the lambing season.

The Face of Scotland

7.0(0.0K)

The history of Scotland and the factors that have shaped the character of its people.

Industrial Britain

5.6(0.0K)

Grierson set out to make "propaganda," and this film--with it's voice-over proclaiming the great value of the British industrial worker, without a hint of ambiguity or doubt--fits that category well. The authoritatarian narrator feels out-of-date and unsophisticated, but the footage is well shot and interesting, and the transparency of the propaganda aspect is almost a reflief at a time when so many films have hidden agendas.

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Industrial Britain

Additional Photography

MOVIE

The Rape of Czechoslovakia

7.0(0.0K)

Weiss’s classic B&W agitprop short made after his escape to London just ahead of the Nazis. He carried with him three reels of material for his unrealized film ‘Dvacet Let Svobody’ (‘Twenty Years of Freedom’) i.e. 20 years of the existence of independent Czechoslovakia from its 1918 founding to 1938 when the Munich Agreement dissolved it. In English with poetic narration written by C. Day-Lewis (father of Daniel Day-Lewis).

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The Rape of Czechoslovakia

Writer