Last night I did my homework and viewed yet one more documentary in my list of 'musts'. "Night Train" is a 1936, 25min documentary by Harry Watt and Basil Wright. The film was made to promote the Post Office services in England. Its about a 'traveling post office' in a train that made a 365 nights-a-year journey, from London to Scotland in the 1930s, to deliver the mail from either side.
For more information: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028030/
Why should someone watch this particular film?
It’s one of the greatest British Documentaries.
The cinematography by Chick Fowle and Jonah Jones is superb. The entire film was shot mostly at night which gives the film a ‘noirish’ look.
The sound problems, especially those of the traveling train, were extremely well managed. In the book by Dave Saunders “Documentary” there is mention that those sounds were dubbed by the use of a toy train.
The film includes a poem by the now famous poet W.H.Auden who was then romantically involved with Benjamin Britten (who wrote the music).
Geoffrey Macnab mentions that purists might be amazed to learn that the scenes of postal workers sorting envelopes on the train were shot in a studio!! To simulate movement, a piece of string was dangled and the men sorting the mail (the real Post Office workers) swayed backwards and forwards to give the illusion of movement.
So, “Night Mail” is partially a recreation (or dramatization) and partially a realistic, truthful presentations of the events that took place every day in that train, using real workers but ‘directing’ them as to what they will do and what they will say.
For me the question is: Do I like recreations and reconstructions, or am I really deep down a purist film-maker? It’s really all about the truth. Recording the facts and presenting them as they are. No tricks, not interference with reality. But some would argue, “What is truth?” Some argue that it’s not necessarily fact related.
According to Geoffrey Macnab, Veteran British director Leslie Woodhead (whose credits include Children of Beslan) disdains those who "fake" it. "I am immensely troubled by the blurry overlap between documentary and recreation," he says. "You need to let the audience know what they are doing so they can apply scepticism."
In my own research for my upcoming documentary I am slowly developing a treatment through which I will be able to tell a story with no trace of manipulation of events. At the end of the day my wish is to ‘follow’ exactly that, which I will encounter upon arriving on location. As Iranian film-maker Maziar Bahari said, 'I do not want to break the unwritten contract between the documentary-maker and the viewer'.
The research continues...
