Monday, 23 June 2014
Drifters - John Grierson
One for film students and fishermen alike!
Film synopsis:
Men leave their fishing village and walk down to the harbour. We see a number of trawlers in the harbour and then focus on one ship as it leaves the harbour, interspersed with a number of views from the ship and shots of gulls circling the sea. The men eventually anchor down and cast herring nets. We see them work on board and then go down and sleep. More shots of the sea at night are shown, intercut with some fish chewing into a net in the sea.
The next day the men pull in the nets while a storm rises. We see them battle against the elements as they catch a number of fish. They then journey back to the harbour, where a number of people are selling fish on the market. We see the fish gutted, then packed and eventually shipped. At the end, a ship delivering the fish is seen to leave the harbour, delivering the locally caught fish to an international market.
John Grierson was extremely interested in modernist art, which he thought expressed the energies of a new age. He was attracted to 'city symphony' films - such as Manhatta (USA, d. Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler, 1921) and Berlin: Symphony of a City (Germany, d. Walther Ruttman, 1926) - because of the way they portrayed the modern city in a poetic manner. He was most interested in Soviet films, however, particularly those of Sergei Eisenstein.
Drifters premiered at the Film Society on November 10, 1929, on the same bill as The Battleship Potemkin (USSR, d. Sergei Eisenstein, 1925), which was receiving its British premiere. Grierson had previously helped to title Eisenstein's film for an American showing and its influence is clearly revealed in Drifters. Like Potemkin, Drifters employs montage in an expressive manner, creating dramatic tension in the absence of any psychological characterisation. Both films also use 'types' (non-professional actors) instead of actors in order to create a more 'authentic' reality, and both films make use of extensive location shooting. Grierson, nevertheless, always stressed that he was keen to make a film with distinctively 'British' characteristics, which he saw as moderation and a sense of human importance. Drifters is, therefore, slower paced than Potemkin, and focuses on more mundane, less inherently dramatic events.
The focus on a modern, industrialised Britain is also a feature of Drifters and, in the absence of a strong cause-and-effect narrative, one of the central themes is the tension between tradition and modernity. Thus, at the beginning of the film, titles read: 'The Herring fishing industry has changed. Its story was once an idyll of brown sails and village harbours - its story now is an epic of steel and steam. Fishermen still have their homes in the old time village - But they go down for each season to the labour of a modern industry'. This link is also implied at the end of the film, as the catch is delivered to a modern, international market.
Grierson clearly sides with modernity, hence his constant focus on the machine parts of the trawler's engine. However, the focus on natural elements (sea, birds, fish), and the rather perfunctory attention given to the marketing of the fish at the end of the film, imply that his feelings about modernity are ambivalent. While the film celebrates industrialism as an evolutionary stage in history, it also respects the links between man and nature.
Courtesy of BFI Screenonline.
The power behind Brixham
A quick tour of the wheelhouse and the man at the helm with nearly 1000hp under his feet...
Brixham Trawler Race highlight - great to see the big beamers powering their way round the course!
Full to the gills - a bustling Monday market.
Almost the last of the scallopers makes her way to the gaps after talking ice...
while the trawler Gerry Ann waits for her crew to show...
the Fowey registered scalloper...
Manx Ranger takes ice...
plenty of hake on Monday's market this morning...
signs that the big male lobsters are on the move looking for partners...
packed with top quality Newlyn fish...
and another good selection of 'blues'...
the big Belgian beam trawler made a landing, young Roger will be distinctly unimpressed to see some of his beloved JDs in the landing...
though he didn't have such a bad haul himself...
so much fish that the boxes were stacked three or four high in paces to accommodate them all.
Sunday, 22 June 2014
Tom Nicholson gives hake the photojournalist treatment - superb!
Artistic endeavour inspired by Cornish fish, and the men who go out to sea and catch it knows no bounds - award winning photojournalist Tom Nicholson has just published a stunning collection of images charting the journey of hake from the time it is caught by Newlyn netter Ajax right the way through the supply chain to Billingsgate in the heart of London's east End then on to Michelin star man Nathan Outlaw's London eponymous eatery at the Capital.
‘Cornish Fish’ is a photographic project following the journey of fish from the Celtic sea to the west-end of London, addressing the Cornish fishing industry’s significance on the rest of the country. Focussing specifically on Hake and Ling species, the project starts on the AJAX TO32, a gillnetting boat based in Newlyn Cornwall. Fish from this boat are landed at Newlyn, where they are auctioned at the market and sent to London to be sold in Billingsgate market or to restaurants via fish merchants. Fishmongers such as ‘The Chelsea Fishmonger’ and Michelin star restaurants such as ‘Outlaw’s at the Capital’ sell a large amount of fish from Cornwall, as it is often cited as being the freshest and best quality fish on the market.
Currently being exhibited as part of the Perspective 21 exhibition.
Check out more information about the exhibition by clicking here or on the Facebook event here.
#fishy tales?
Can't include any fishing yarns or it would be Volume I...
on the 'Little Tiger' chipping complete, undercoat on...
while the Aurora regains her original colour scheme, she's looking good skipper...
sometimes it's all just too much...
better known as the "AA"...
west Cornwall's latest standing stones...
and their seagoing inspiration...
it might take more than a bunch of pirates to see the job through...
but the pool is still a source of endless interest...
catch a photographic exhibition at the PZ Gallery...
in comfort...
world famous some of 'em are too...
some even make the front page of the Cornishman...
ther bookshop in Chapel Street always has an eclectic stock of paintings, prints, books and other printed classics...
some might even be familiar.
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