The Complete Humphrey Jennings

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MichaelB
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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#51 Post by MichaelB » Mon Oct 03, 2011 3:01 pm

Looks as though I was right - the review has been updated:
The only gripe I originally had was a very visible patterning on the Dufaycolor films, particularly Making Fashion and The Farm, something I wrongly put down to digital enhancement, a supposition that was corrected by Doug Weir of the BFI's Technical Department, who provided this useful and detailed explanation of the cause of this patterning:
In fact no digital enhancement was used on any of the films in this set. The visible patterning is very typical of the films made using the Dufaycolor process. Dufaycolor is an additive lenticular colour process that utilizes the combination of the three additive primary colours, red, green and blue, in a geometric pattern or mosaic applied to the film base which is visible when projected. Dufay colour was primarily a process for creating photographic transparencies/slides but was eventually developed for the motion picture market. It's because of the visible mosaic patterning (even if quite striking) that Dufay never made it as a major colour process (only two British feature films were ever made).
Intriguingly, the patterning is apparently only visible at all due to the increased resolution that Blu-ray allows and is almost invisible on the standard resolution DVD.

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knives
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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#52 Post by knives » Tue Oct 11, 2011 2:09 am

Maybe this is totally selfish on my part and not a possibility ever, but I opened this up finally with the extra films and I'm curious what are the chances of something similar being done with other directors after a bit of a breather? Particularly I'm curious if there's a chance of a Lye set ever happening. The Birth of the Robot was really too good in HD not to have a sliver of hope afterward.

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#53 Post by swo17 » Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:18 am

knives wrote:Particularly I'm curious if there's a chance of a Lye set ever happening.
Seconded.

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#54 Post by MichaelB » Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:26 am

The Len Lye Foundation in New Zealand would be the best bet for something like that - the BFI can get hold of the films he made for Shell and the GPO, but I'm not sure how accessible the others are.

JGA

Len Lye Films on DVD

#55 Post by JGA » Tue Nov 15, 2011 4:23 am

Many of Len Lye’s films are available on a Region-2 DVD Len Lye: Rhythms (2009), published by Re:Voir Video, 23 rue du Buisson St Louis, 75010 Paris, France (info@re-voir.com; www.re-voir.com) in collaboration with The Len Lye Foundation, Le Centre Pompidou (Musée d’art moderne), Les Editions du Centre Pompidou, The Post Office Film & Video Library, Shell Film & Video Unit, Shell Services International, and The British Tourist Authority. The DVD costs €24 and includes a 28-page booklet with texts by David Curtis, Roger Horrocks and Len Lye on his films. The DVD’s contents comprise:
A Colour Box 1935 35mm 4’
Kaleidoscope 1935 35mm 4'
The Birth of the Robot 1936 35mm 7'
Rainbow Dance 1936 35mm 5'
Trade Tattoo 1937 35mm 5'
Colour Flight 1938 35mm 4'
Swinging the Lambeth Walk 1939 35mm 4'
Color Cry 1953 16mm 3'
Rhythm 1957 16mm 1'
Free Radicals 1958, 1979 16mm 4'
Particles in Space 1967-71, 1980 16mm 4'
Tal Farlow 1960, 1980 16mm 2’

Roger Horrocks’s book Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2009) (ISBN 978-1869404222) NZ$59.99 also includes a DVD (probably Region 4) featuring several of Lye’s films.

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#56 Post by MichaelB » Fri Nov 18, 2011 6:51 am

Caught by the River:
On first viewing of the collection I was transported back to school in the 1950s. There we’d sit at our desks, curtains drawn while a rickety projector behind us played out ‘educational documentaries’ on a swaying screen. Films about cocoa production, or rubber tress in Malaya, how cargoes arrived in Britain from around the Empire – Whoops! Commonwealth – cut glass accents and little piles of trivia being swept into mounds. We weren’t watching Humphrey Jennings of course, but we were watching the legendary documentary maker’s ‘children’, the films from the next generation, those who were influenced by Jennings and Co. But somehow they just don’t get it. They lack the breath of human spirit that Jennings was able to breathe into his subjects.

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ellipsis7
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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#57 Post by ellipsis7 » Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:31 am

Wondering again when Volume 2 will surface... Any new update on that one?...

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#58 Post by MichaelB » Fri Jan 27, 2012 7:12 am

Nope, but it should certainly be this year. Since it will cover the bulk of the WWII period, Volume 2 is the big one (by far the obvious one to go for if you're a Jennings beginner or if you're only inclined to buy one), so I imagine they're taking the time to do it properly.

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knives
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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#59 Post by knives » Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:07 pm

Can't wait. That first set was a thing of beauty and I wonder beyond the actual content of the films what they'll do to top themselves.

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ellipsis7
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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#60 Post by ellipsis7 » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:29 am

Volume 2 coming on 23 April...
Widely considered to be one of Britain's greatest filmmakers, Humphrey Jennings has long been celebrated as the director of works which beautifully capture the everyday heroism in times of war and peace.

This, the second of three volumes which collect together Jennings' entire output, gathers 5 films from 1941 -1943 and shows Jennings at the pinnacle of his career. It features his masterpieces Listen to Britain and Fires Were Started and the rousing Words for Battle as well as some previously neglected works and alternative versions, many of which are made available for the first time since their original release.

Specs;

- Region 0
- Contents: Listen To Britain (1941)
- Words for Battle (1941)
- The Heart of Britain (1941)
- Fires Were Started (1943)
- The Silent Village (1943)
- All films presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition
- This Is England (1941): alternate cut of The Heart of Britain
- I Was a Fireman (1943): Jennings' original cut of Fires Were Started
- Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned essays, film notes, and biography
(Up at Play.com)

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#61 Post by MichaelB » Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:47 am

Excellent news - I assumed they'd include both cuts of Fires Were Started/I Was A Fireman (since I knew that both still existed and that there were no rights barriers), but it's good to know for sure.

Which also explains why there are just five core films this time round: the average length has shot up compared with volume 1 (each cut of the fireman film is feature length and The Silent Village is 36 minutes), as indeed has the average quality. As I said above, this set is the one to go for if you're a Jennings beginner and want just one volume.

And of course we can now be reasonably certain of what will be on Volume 3, namely:

The Eighty Days (1944)
The True Story of Lili Marlene (1944)
Myra Hess (1945)
A Defeated People (1946)
A Diary for Timothy (1946)
The Cumberland Story (1947)
The Dim Little Island (1948)
Family Portrait (1950)

plus possibly Town Meeting of the World (1946) and Changing Face of Europe: The Good Life (1950), to which Jennings contributed but did not direct. It's also a pretty safe bet that V.1. (1944), a recut of The Eighty Days, will also feature.

Links are to Screenonline entries, where available. Oh, and here are Screenonline links to vol 2:

Listen To Britain (1941)
• Words for Battle (1941)
Fires Were Started (1943)
The Silent Village (1943)

(there doesn't seem to be one for The Heart of Britain)
Last edited by MichaelB on Thu Feb 16, 2012 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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ellipsis7
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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#62 Post by ellipsis7 » Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:44 pm

3 of these destined for Volume 3 (DIARY FOR TIMOTHY, THE DIM LITTLE ISLAND & FAMILY PORTRAIT) can be found in SD on the BFI LAND OF PROMISE collection, although only serving as interim stopgap for the Jennings completist, no substitute for the full dual format JENNINGS VOL 3 forthcoming in due course, as outlined by Michael...

Worth mentioning also Brian Winston's BFI Classic monograph, 'Fires Were Started', as something to pickup alongside Volume 2...
Last edited by ellipsis7 on Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#63 Post by ellipsis7 » Sat Feb 25, 2012 5:57 am

Nice Guardian piece on Jennings from 2000... Especially relevant to Vol 2...

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#64 Post by MichaelB » Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:42 pm

Few people could bear to work with Jennings. Joe Mendoza says: "He used to get through two assistant directors a film. I was 19 when they asked me to work with him and I wept. I said 'I can't, everyone's terrified of him'." Why did people refuse to work with him? "He would lose his temper," says Mendoza, "because eveyone worked on the assumption that he was mad and unreasonable. And it's a fact of life that if you treat people like that they become mad and unreasonable don't they?"
This is true, so it's interesting that the article doesn't mention or even allude to editor Stewart McAllister, who could bear to work with Jennings (they both amply fitted the "mad and unreasonable" tag), and did so throughout his greatest period. It's pretty much impossible to determine who made what decision in the editing room, of course, but it's very noticeable that the quality of editing in Jennings' films improved substantially when McAllister came on board in 1941, and you can see equally striking cutting in the films that McAllister worked on just before he became Jennings' regular editor (for an excellent example, look at the scene in Men of the Lightship when the Germans first attack).

And despite the article referring to it as "one of his great films", Listen to Britain is jointly credited to Jennings and McAllister, presumably as an acknowledgement that the latter's creative input was so essential that a mere editor credit was insufficient.

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#65 Post by antnield » Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:26 am

Image

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MichaelB
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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#66 Post by MichaelB » Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:52 pm

Full specs announce for volume 2:
The Complete Humphrey Jennings Volume Two: Fires Were Started

‘The only real poet that British cinema has produced’
Lindsay Anderson

For the first time, all of Humphrey Jennings’ remarkable films are being newly remastered to HD and released by the BFI on three volumes in Dual Format Editions. Volume Two gathers together five films from 1941 to 1943, including the iconic Words for Battle and Listen to Britain, that show Jennings at the peak of his tragically short but outstanding career.

From the rousing call to arms of The Heart of Britain and Words for Battle to the poetic evocation of daily life during wartime in Listen to Britain and the powerfully resonating drama of Fires Were Started and The Silent Village, the films included in this volume offer a lyrical portrait of the nation at war and a moving celebration of Britishness.

Widely considered to be one of Britain’s greatest filmmakers, Humphrey Jennings (1907– 1950) is best known for films which beautifully evoke everyday heroism in times of war and peace. Combining poetic observation and humanism with a subtle yet intense national feeling that is also very personal, Jennings was a visionary and progressive patriot.

The Heart of Britain (1941)
Words for Battle (1941)
Listen to Britain (1941)
Fires Were Started (1943)
The Silent Village (1943)

Special features

* Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition;
* This is England (1941, 10 mins): alternative cut of The Heart of Britain;
* I Was a Fireman (1943, 74 mins): Jennings’ original cut of Fires Were Started;
* 40-page illustrated booklet with essays, film notes and biographies.

Release date: 23 April 2012
RRP: £19.99 / cat. no. BFIB1120 / Cert E
UK / 1941-1943 / black & white / English language with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles / 138 mins / Original aspect ratio 1.33:1 / Disc 1: BD50 / 1080p / 24fps / PCM mono 2.0 audio (48k/24-bit) / Disc 2: DVD9 / PAL / Dolby Digital mono 2.0 audio (320kbps)

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Re: Complete Humphrey Jennings

#67 Post by whaleallright » Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:42 pm

‘The only real poet that British cinema has produced’
Lindsay Anderson
This is a great quote, but I imagine it also comes from the moment when Michael Powell was distinctly out of fashion in his native land.

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zedz
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Re: The Complete Humphrey Jennings

#68 Post by zedz » Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:15 pm

My memory is very rusty, but I believe the Anderson quote is from the 50s. I know that Powell / Pressburger were perceived very differently at the time than they were in retrospect, but I think the key factor here is that Anderson, during his Free Cinema phase, was approaching film from a completely different direction, and Jennings was in many important respects his spiritual guide. Anderson's conception of 'Britishness' was very much in the Jennings tradition, and Powell / Pressburger's was radically different (and much more romantic), even though from a modern perspective it's easy to see the points of commonality between, say, A Canterbury Tale and A Diary for Timothy.

One of the things this project should clarify is just how central Jennings is to the history of British cinema. His influence on the Free Cinema filmmakers is very direct (as it is on the vast array of fine documentary filmmakers that are only just now being appreciated), and only slightly diluted when you get to the directors of the sixties. He's also one of the strongest reference points for the great generation of 60s / 70s television directors (such as Loach, Frears, Clarke). Even directors as temperamentally and stylistically different as Russell, Greenaway and Jarman have got Jennings in their bloodlines. I think its possible to argue that his influence on British cinema is more pervasive than Hitchcock's - and certainly more than Powell's (whose films stand out so strongly today partly because they've never been particularly well imitated / integrated).

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Re: The Complete Humphrey Jennings

#69 Post by ellipsis7 » Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:30 pm

1954, apparently, for the quote, as you suspected, Zedz, also what you say seems IMHO very fair commentary... Jennings had a huge influence on earlier British TV drama & documentary (as well as Free Cinema) and the directors who grew out of it into cinema... A seminal figure, whereas Powell still stands somewhat in isolation influencewise in these islands (while reaching Scorsese across the pond)...

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Re: The Complete Humphrey Jennings

#70 Post by whaleallright » Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:49 pm

I would add that in 1954--if that's when Lindsay Anderson wrote that--Powell and Pressburger were in critical (and arguably artistic) decline, having not made a film in a few years, and the recent ones being the not-always-well-reeived Tales of Hoffmann, Elusive Pimpernel, and Gone to Earth.

In any event, Lindsay's statement is a bit of hyperbole that is very historically telling as you both point out.

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Re: The Complete Humphrey Jennings

#71 Post by Wu.Qinghua » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:24 pm

It's the slightly modified end of the, as far as I remember, second paragraph of Anderson's essay 'Only connect. Some aspects of the work of Humphrey Jennings' which was published in April 1953 in Sight & Sound. Here's the full sentence: "In fact it might reasonably be contended that Humphrey Jennings is the only real poet the British cinema has yet produced."

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Re: The Complete Humphrey Jennings

#72 Post by Documaniaque » Tue Mar 27, 2012 7:16 pm

I also read he was a big influence on Alain Resnais (his documentary period before Hiroshima)

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Re: The Complete Humphrey Jennings

#73 Post by MichaelB » Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:46 am

Wu.Qinghua wrote:It's the slightly modified end of the, as far as I remember, second paragraph of Anderson's essay 'Only connect. Some aspects of the work of Humphrey Jennings' which was published in April 1953 in Sight & Sound. Here's the full sentence: "In fact it might reasonably be contended that Humphrey Jennings is the only real poet the British cinema has yet produced."
For the record, the complete article (whose publication date is actually given as Spring 1954 - more plausible as S&S was a quarterly back then) is included in the booklet for Volume 2.

The rest of the booklet contains an account of Jennings' relationship with the Crown Film Unit (by the BFI's Senior Non-Fiction Curator Patrick Russell), detailed notes on individual films by Russell, Jennings' biographer Kevin Jackson, historians Adrian Smith and Wendy Webster and Illuminations producer John Wyver, plus biographies of Jennings (Julian Petley), Stewart McAllister (me) and Ian Dalrymple (Martin Stollery). Essentially, it's the usual solid BFI effort.

As for the 1080p transfers, I've only just dipped into my copy but they look comfortably up to expected standards. As with volume 1, it's unrealistic to expect a pristine picture with material like this (especially when the films often contain extensive third-party footage that was clearly in less than optimum condition to begin with), but I doubt anyone's going to be minded to complain.

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antnield
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Re: The Complete Humphrey Jennings

#74 Post by antnield » Thu Apr 19, 2012 7:28 am

Graeme Hobbs' latest MovieMail podcast takes a look at Volume Two.

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antnield
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Re: The Complete Humphrey Jennings

#75 Post by antnield » Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:44 pm

The Digital Fix catches up with volume one as volume two's release gets ever closer.

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