John Grierson (1898–1972): The Father of the Documentary

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

Grierson was a brilliant self-publicist and many later accounts repeat his own framing of the documentary movement. Others, such as Alberto Cavalcanti and Basil Wright, did much of the creative work on films he produced. This card separates what Grierson made himself from what he produced, championed or organised.

A schoolhouse in Perthshire

established John Grierson was born in 1898 in the schoolhouse at Deanston, a cotton-mill village near Doune in Perthshire, where his father was the headmaster. The family moved to Cambusbarron near Stirling, and Grierson grew up in a household shaped by Presbyterian earnestness and radical politics. After naval service in the First World War, he won a bursary to the University of Glasgow, graduating MA in English and moral philosophy in 1923, and then took a research fellowship in the United States, studying how propaganda and mass media shaped public opinion.

Naming the documentary

shared In February 1926, reviewing Robert Flaherty's film of Samoan life, Moana, in the New York Sun, Grierson wrote that it had "documentary value". The French had used documentaire for travel films, and the English adjective already existed, but Grierson made "documentary" the name of a whole kind of film and later defined it as "the creative treatment of actuality". He is fairly called the person who gave the word its modern meaning, rather than its literal inventor.

Drifters and the movement

established In 1927 Grierson joined the Empire Marketing Board, a government body promoting trade within the Empire, and persuaded it to fund films. His first and only full film as director, Drifters (1929), followed the herring fleet into the North Sea. It premiered in London in November 1929 alongside Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, and its dramatic editing of ordinary work at sea is credited with launching the British documentary movement.

established Grierson then became a producer and organiser, gathering young filmmakers such as Basil Wright, Arthur Elton, Edgar Anstey and Paul Rotha. When the EMB was wound up in 1933, the unit moved to the General Post Office. The GPO Film Unit produced Granton Trawler (1934), which Grierson filmed himself on a North Sea trawler, Housing Problems (1935), which let slum residents speak to camera, and Night Mail (1936), following the Postal Special from London to Scotland, with a narrating poem by W. H. Auden and music by Benjamin Britten.

shared Night Mail is often described as "Grierson's film". He produced it and contributed to the script, but it was directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and the sound work was led by Alberto Cavalcanti.

Canada

established In 1938 the Canadian government invited Grierson to report on its film needs, and in 1939 he became the first Government Film Commissioner of the new National Film Board of Canada. During the Second World War the board grew into one of the world's largest film producers, making propaganda, newsreels and educational films, and later became famous for documentary and animation.

established Grierson left Canada in 1945 after the Gouzenko affair, in which a Soviet defector exposed a spy ring; a secretary at the Film Board was implicated, and Grierson's left-wing sympathies brought him under suspicion. He was never charged, but the affair damaged his career in North America.

Back in Scotland

established After working for UNESCO and the Central Office of Information, Grierson returned to Scotland. From 1957 to 1967 he presented This Wonderful World on Scottish Television, introducing the best documentary and short films from around the world to a mass audience. He died in Bath on 19 February 1972.

Legacy

established The Grierson Awards, Britain's leading documentary prizes, were founded in his memory in 1972, and the John Grierson Archive is held at the University of Stirling. His idea that film should serve public education and democratic citizenship shaped public service broadcasting, educational film and the whole tradition of social documentary.

shared Critics have pointed out that Grierson's documentaries were sponsored by government and business, and that his idea of film as public education sat close to propaganda; he openly described himself as a propagandist. That tension is part of his legacy too.

• Grierson was born in a schoolhouse, where his father was headmaster.
• Drifters premiered on the same bill as Battleship Potemkin.
• Drifters was the only full film he directed himself.
• Night Mail has a poem by W. H. Auden timed to the rhythm of the train.
• He was the first head of the National Film Board of Canada.
• He spent ten years presenting films on Scottish television.

• Myth: Grierson invented the word "documentary". The adjective already existed, and the French used documentaire for travel films. In his 1926 review of Moana he made it the name of a whole kind of film, giving it its modern meaning.
• Myth: Night Mail is Grierson's film. He produced it and contributed to the script, but it was directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and the sound work was led by Alberto Cavalcanti.
• Myth: the documentary movement was Grierson's work alone. He directed only Drifters himself, and then led a team of young filmmakers including Basil Wright, Arthur Elton, Edgar Anstey and Paul Rotha.
• Myth: Grierson was charged in the Gouzenko affair. His left-wing sympathies brought him under suspicion after a Film Board secretary was implicated, but he was never charged.