Wednesday, February 3, 2010

John Grierson and E.H. Anstey

Granton Trawler
still from Granton Trawler
John Griersons Granton Trawler

Granton Trawler (1934) is an early British documentary that is entirely observational, with no narration and subtle location sound of seagulls and fishermen on a North Sea fishing vessel, the Isabella Greig. John Grierson's cinematography and Edgar Anstey's editing were originally done for a silent film; audio was added later. Well-composed shots of the fishing process, you-are-there ocean swells, and clouds of seagulls establish a mood that seems more like a contemporary documentary than one from the 1930s.
Creative Commons License
Documentary Starts Here by Nancy Kalow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.