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Peter Morris `Re-thinking Grierson: The Ideology of John Grierson'. In T. O'Regan & B. Shoesmith eds.
History on/and/in Film. Perth: History & Film Association of Australia, 1987. 20-30.
RE-THINKING GRIERSON:
THE IDEOLOGY OF JOHN GRIERSON
Peter Morris
John Grierson can be considered a characteristic European intellectual of the 1930s, a member of the
generation born around the turn of the century which grew to maturity during the period of post-war
pessimism, cynicism and disillusionment and came to occupy positions of influence then.(1) This period was
one during which older intellectual ideas lost prestige and new ones took their place. It was a period in the
arts in Britain that gave rise to such radically different approaches as, on the one hand, aestheticism,
formalism, art-for-art's sake and rejection of Victorian sensibility and, on the other, an approach that
emphasised social purpose and the political role of the artist in a way that was almost social-messianic in
spirit. It was also a period that witnessed a major struggle between fascism and communism - two political
philosophies often considered radically oppositional which, in fact, shared many common ideological points of
origin and dogma. One writer has characterized fascism as a special kind of socialism - "a socialism of class
collaboration, not of class conflict" in which the worker was to enjoy a respected, but subordinate role within
a strong nation.
Though the post-war period was one of apparently conflicting extremes, there was a strand of thought
common to all: a central conviction that civilization was in crisis and, if a solution were possible, it would have
to be a total one. That crisis was assumed to have been caused by the ideas of a former generation in the
19th century. So the new intellectuals revolted against those ideas: against positivism, against the world of
matter and reason. They disputed the rationalistic foundation of individualism and of liberal society and
pointed to the muddle in which liberal democracy had become mired. In sometimes identical terms they
deplored the mediocrity and materialism of modern life, especially that of industrial life in the large cities. In
place of claims that human behaviour is governed by rational choice, they argued that sentiment, feeling,
intuition and instinct - the irrational - were of more significance in both politics and aesthetics. Almost
inevitably, it seems, they came to see their role as rescuing society from itself, perhaps even despite itself.
John Grierson's ideology can only be understood within this larger intellectual climate. And I shall try to point
to some of the more specific sources of his thinking in this context. But Grierson also, of course, had his own
personal background and academic training. Some of the influences in his early years - like Calvinism, the
philosophies of Kant, Hegel and Fichte - go back earlier than the late nineteenth century. I shall try to show,
however, that these earlier philosophical influences do relate quite precisely to more narrowly defined
influences of Grierson's own time.
It is possible to distinguish three strands of Grierson's ideology: those that relate to what he himself called
"political philosophy", those that relate to aesthetic issues, and those that relate to organisational and practical
issues. These strands are by no means separate and distinct. Indeed, I want to argue the opposite: that, for
example, Grierson's views on production methods mesh with his political philosophy and aesthetics. And that,
most certainly, his political philosophy necessarily generated a particular organisational vision and a set of
aesthetic criteria.
Political Philosophy
Grierson sometimes referred to himself as primarily a "political philosopher." I'm not inclined to dispute that
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self-appraisal - even though Grierson would often use the term to deflect debate in other directions, such as
film matters. However, the strongest continuing thread in both his published and unpublished writing is political
philosophy.
Grierson, however, never makes his political philosophy explicit and certainly rarely refers to its sources. The
two key exceptions here are the philosopher Kant and the political scientist, Walter Lippmann. When he is
more explicit about his philosophy this is often simply part of an essay about something else - education or
propaganda or the role of the filmmaker as public servant.
I want to approach an analysis of Grierson's political philosophy from two directions, on the one hand from
the perspective of his origins and education and the ideas that appear to have influenced him; and on the other
from the perspective of what Grierson wrote at the peak of his influence and prestige in the mid-thirties to mid
forties.
It is generally well-known that Grierson came from a Calvinist background. In particular, his family had been
members of the very rigid sect known as the "Wee Frees". Calvinist attitudes involve a rigorous sense of
discipline and obligation and a sense of duty to the community combined almost paradoxically with a rebellion
against establishment orthodoxy. Calvinism was bitterly opposed to international capitalism, to banking and
international finance yet, at the same time, saw wealth as a sign of the grace of God and, conversely, that
poverty was deserved. Grierson himself was a lay preacher during his university years.
When Grierson studied at the University of Glasgow, the philosophy department was dominated by neo-
Kantianism and the Scottish school of Hegelianism. If the mixture seems a curious one, it is perhaps best
exemplified in the person of Edward Caird who held the chair in Moral Philosophy at Glasgow for some thirty
years in the late nineteenth century. Caird's philosophy, and that of other Scottish philosophers at the time,
was based on a re-interpretation of Kant using Hegel and German idealism as a guide. Grierson was to refer
to Kant many times in his later essays and one of the last of his writings includes an almost exact paraphrase
of Edward Caird's argument that our knowledge of objects will be imperfect except when we recognize that
they are only partial aspects of the ideal whole towards which reason points. This has relevance especially in
relation to Grierson's aesthetics, most particularly his view that observational cinema, direct cinema, was
incomplete, a "cul-de-sac" that, almost by definition, does not point to "the ideal whole."
However, it was the idealism of Hegel that was to become a more formative influence - not least in terms of
Hegel's analysis of change and his belief in progress, a progress that only comes about through opposition.
One can see the influence most clearly in Hegel's analysis of social ethics. Hegel shows how the family entails
first, civil society and how civil society then entails the state. Individuality has meaning only within the state, so
that the state is the supreme embodiment of freedom. Hegel says states are organisms and that the mature
state has thought and consciousness. States relate to each other like persons. The state is "the march of God
in the world."
This Hegelian notion of the state is central to Grierson's ideology. I now quote from a letter Grierson wrote
after the war, a letter that was, in part, a defence of his activities in Canada during the war:
My personal view is that such total planning by the state is an absolute good and not simply a
relative good ... I do not myself think of the attitude I take as deriving from Marx - though this
undoubtedly will be suggested - but from Fichte and Hegel. My view of the State, as you know,
is that it is only through the State that the person and the will of the person can be greatly
expressed. Here I am in sufficiently good academic company not to have particular qualms
about attack.
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Grierson was also, and perhaps more immediately, influenced by A.D. Lindsay, who held the chair of Moral
Philosophy at Glasgow during Grierson's last two years there. Lindsay was a philosopher with not only a
direct interest in political theory but also in practical politics. He participated - as Grierson did - in the radical
socialist politics of Glasgow at the time. Lindsay was to continue to be active in left-wing politics throughout
his career. But for Grierson the experience was traumatic - he once referred to it as "the smashing of an idyllic
viewpoint." He came to regard practical politics in general and the party political process in particular as futile
and, in fact, themselves seminal elements in creating the chaos and confusion of contemporary democracy.
One of Lindsay's key arguments was also to influence Grierson directly. Lindsay argued that ordinary people,
workers in particular, lacked the education and knowledge to make informed political decisions. Lindsay
himself went on to play an influential role in adult education for workers.
Lindsay was almost certainly instrumental in introducing Grierson to the work of the pioneer British political
scientist, Graham Wallas - an author whose writings would likely have encouraged Grierson's pessimistic
conclusions about the political process. Wallas' book Human Nature in Politics created a major stir when it
was first published in 1908. Wallas (who was one of the original Fabians) argued that there was a basic,
inherent flaw in liberal democracy - the flaw of human nature itself. Humans were not essentially rational
beings as liberal democrats had assumed; they were essentially irrational and acted more by instinct and
feeling than by reason. The irrational masses therefore did not - and inevitably could not - make informed
political judgements. They voted more with their hearts than their heads. One consequence of this had been
the rise of political parties as a kind of simplification of the issues. But political parties themselves had actually
further undermined liberal democracy by distorting it, by introducing symbols and stereotypes. Wallas
suggested, as Lindsay did later, that schemes to increase the knowledge and public spirit of voters were
essential. Wallas also argued that the role of public servants needed re-examination in the light of the more
complex world of technical decision-making. As experts in particular areas, they would inevitably come to
play an increasingly powerful role and thought should be given to their method of appointment and their
responsibility to the public at large.
Grierson's years in the United States did not essentially affect or challenge these initial influences. His
supervisor at the University of Chicago was Charles Edward Merriam, a political scientist who had studied
the rise of the party system in the US and who advocated centralized state planning and the use of
technocrats in government. One of his books, The Making of Citizens (1931) essentially echoes both
Wallas' book and Lippmann's book, Public Opinion (1922).
Grierson often referred to Walter Lippmann in later years and sometimes implies that his book was a
revelation to him. It might be said, more properly, that Lippmann's book crystallised for Grierson many of the
ideas with which he was already familiar. Most of them certainly, are there: Kant on perception, Hegel on the
state, Machiavelli on power; psychologists (especially William James) on instinct, irrationality and the
possibility of reshaping people's attitudes; sociologists on the ills of the modern world; political scientists on
the failures and inherent weaknesses of liberalism. But Lippmann also goes farther than Wallas and other
writers. He not only demonstrates that ordinary people, being irrational, could be manipulated. He analyses
how the process takes place, the process he calls "the manufacture of consent." No one individual, says
Lippmann, could know everything about everything and liberals had misdirected democracy into assuming this
was true. What, in fact, was true throughout history was that leaders, with access to information the public did
not have, necessarily made choices about what the public should know. It followed that every leader was
always, in some sense, both a censor and a propagandist. Lipmann writes that leaders, because they had
access to facts not known to the public, had to be prepared to use their knowledge:
When quick results are imperative, the manipulation of the masses through symbols may be the
only quick way of having a critical thing done. It is often more important to act than to
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understand...there are times...when two conflicting opinions, though one happens to be right, are
more perilous than one opinion which is wrong.
One might think here that Lippmann was both a prophet of modern politics and of TV advertising. But in any
case, Lippmann's term for this "manipulation of the masses through symbols" was "the pictures in our heads."
This comes interestingly close to Hegel's term "picture making" in relation to religion - something Hegel felt
was all the masses were capable of. In suggesting there was a purpose to such manipulation, Lippmann not
only looks back to such uses of "picture making" by the Catholic Church but also anticipates their use by
fascists. When Grierson wrote about propaganda he not infrequently referred back to earlier uses of
propaganda by the Catholic Church.
Lippmann also argued the merits of an increased role for expert advisers, for technocrats, in both government
and industry. Politicians, like the general public, did not have the time to know everything about everything.
They had discovered a need for a "disinterested expert" who "finds and formulates facts for the man of
action." The expert, said Lippmann, will "exercise more power in the future than ever he did before, because
increasingly the relevant facts will elude the voter and the administrator."
In his later book, The Phantom Public (1925), Lippmann took this argument a stage further. He wrote that
he "set no great store" on what could be done "by public opinion and the action of the masses," and argued
that liberalism "remained an incomplete, a disembodied philosophy" primarily because it could not deal with
the fact that people "submit unconsciously to the desires of the mind" instead of acting rationally. In the
decision-making process there is a fundamental difference between what Lippmann calls "insiders" and
"outsiders". Lippmann goes on to argue that education ought to be different for "insiders" and "outsiders":
Education for citizenship, for membership in the public ought to be distinct from education for
public office. Citizenship involves radically different intellectual habits and different methods of
action. The force of public opinion is partisan, spasmodic, simple-minded and external. It needs
for its direction (emphasis mine)... a new intellectual method which shall provide it with its own
usable canons of judgement.
Lippmann's arguments seem to have confirmed for Grierson not only that the public was irrational - and,
therefore, necessarily removed from proper political judgement - but so, also, were politicians themselves.
Only the expert, the technocrat, knew what was going on. Lippmann's writings, of course, have a distinctly
elitist tone, not to say a potentially authoritarian one.
What is also true about Walter Lippmann's writings is that they reflect a body of neo-conservative thought in
Europe that was very influential around the turn of the century. I am referring here to such theorists as Charles
Maurras, Georges Sorel, Giuseppe Mazzini, Pierre Lasserre, Vilfredo Pareto and others whose writings were
later to form a theoretical rationalization for the European fascist parties. I don't intend to explore these ideas
in detail, only to suggest that there are a number of threads common to all of them.
Firstly, an absolute rejection of romanticism, liberalism and individualism. The neo-conservatives argued that
their position was classical. Classical thought considered the state as logically prior to the individual, as the
condition for the fulfillment of the individual's nature and destiny. Necessarily, this carries the implication that
an individual's obligations to the state are more significant than individual rights.
Secondly, a profound distrust of international capitalism and financiers, though not, of course, of private
enterprise capitalism. The neo-conservatives argued that capitalism should be made to serve the state, that
capitalism owed obligations to the state just as the individual did.
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As a corollary to this, the neo-conservatives emphasised the role of the state as a centralized planning agency,
a powerful decision making apparatus that relied predominantly on technocrats, experts and managers. This
was thought necessary to counteract the inherent weaknesses of the parliamentary system. Socialists had
originally developed this idea. And, though the neo-conservatives rejected Marxism (especially the notion of
class struggle) it is interesting to note that some of them - such as Georges Sorel - had once been Marxist
socialists. As indeed, had Walter Lippmann.
The third element brings us back most clearly to Lippmann. Liberalism and Marxism had both argued people
would understand their best interests and act in consequence. The neo-conservatives adopted the new
psychological theories to argue that since the masses were irrational they could not be expected to act in their
own best interests. In essence, this was no more than an elaboration of Thomas Carlyle's definition of
freedom: that freedom is the right of the ignorant man to be governed by the wiser. Curiously enough, this
contempt for the irrational masses was paralleled by an almost mythic faith in the prestige of labour - or, as
the contemporary aphorism put it: "hail the hero worker."
Let me now try to bring all of this back to John Grierson's writings. Certainly, he admired Walter Lippmann
and said so several times. But there is no direct evidence he was familiar with the neo-conservative ideas to
which I've referred - with three, relatively minor exceptions. Firstly, he once said he "got as much from
Gobineau as he did from Marx." Gobineau is the nineteenth century French writer best know for his racist
theories. Secondly, Mazzini is quoted approvingly on the obligations of citizens to the state in a National Film
Board (NFB) documentary. And, thirdly, and perhaps more significantly, two of Grierson's favourite terms -
corporativism and corporate - were crucial conceptions in the neo-conservatism of Charles Maurras and
were adopted by the Fascist movements. One might also add that he referred to Carlyle as "in some ways
one of the greatest exponents of this documentary idea." Taken together, they at least suggest he had some
awareness of neo-conservative ideas.
But, an analysis of Grierson's writings does reveal quite close affinities between his political philosophy and
that of the neo-conservatives. For example, one of the single most important continuing threads in Grierson's
ideology is the argument that Romanticism was in its last phase. Though this occurs on several levels, it is
almost invariably coupled with individualism and with liberalism as a political philosophy:
For three hundred years we have had our focus on the individual. We have distinguished him
from the objective world as the Middle Ages did not think of doing. We have given him the
world and the universe as a playground for exploration and discovery. We have built our State
on the freedom of personal adventure... In fact, the individual outlook becomes less and less
valuable and more and more harmful unless it is transmitted into the corporate outlook.
And this:
The cultivation of sensibility on purely personal lines may, in fact, be the very worst training for a
world where only the corporate and the cooperative will matter... Many have worked in this
field from Machiavelli to Lippmann - some academically like Machiavelli and Lippmann, some
more practically like Lenin. And the upshot of recent study is a sense of the impossibility of
pursuing the old liberal individualist and rational theory on which so much of our educational
planning is based.
One of Grierson's most revealing essays in this connection is one titled "Education and the New Order" (the
term "New Order" was one used by the neo-conservatives). In this essay Grierson tells a story about growing
up in a small Scottish village and about his father who was a school teacher. It is a story Grierson also
recounts in similar terms in other essays and speeches. He recounts how his father had a philosophy that was:
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strictly individualist. Education gave men a chance in the world. It put them in good competitive
standing in a grim competitive world ...(But)... Behind it all was the dream of the 19th century -
the false dream - that if only everyone had the individualist ideals that education taught - free
men in a free society - each in independent and educated judgement - would create a civilization
such as the world had never seen before.
In this essay Grierson goes on to argue why this system failed:
The very effect of the education they were given... was to make men think; and, thinking, they
became less and less satisfied with the miserable pays they received. The life of the village
became more and more affected by strikes and lock-outs. As amalgamations were developed,
the employers stood even further and further away and the battle for wages and safety and
securities became the fiercer as the fight became more abstract - as decisions came to depend
on massed unions and massed corporations.
The implications of this paragraph are obvious: liberal education led people to understanding, but
understanding led only to conflict and pain. Note, too, the reference to "massed unions" and "massed
corporations" - two targets of neo-conservative thought. In fact, Grierson often refers to international finance
and international corporations. As, for example, in a discussion of the romanticism of Robert Flaherty, he
writes in reference to Nanook and the spear Nanook used to catch a walrus:
You may, with some justice, observe that no spear, held however bravely by the individual, will
master the crazy walrus of international finance. Indeed, you may feel that individualism is a
yahoo tradition largely responsible for our present anarchy.
Incidentally, Grierson exhibits a remarkable faith in the possibility of co-opting capitalism into the service of
the state. This is apparent in one direction in terms of his belief that large corporations could be persuaded to
accept a role in sponsoring films that were (as he puts it) "in the national interest." In another direction, it is
reflected in his belief that Hollywood could be co-opted to serve the interests of countries other than the
United States. During the war, he suggested that Hollywood had come to recognize its role as "a public
utility." Indeed, he built what he calls his "Film Policy for Canada" in 1944 precisely out of the notion that
Hollywood could be co-opted into serving the national interests of Canada.
Grierson was not at all afraid, even during the war, to use terms such as "totalitarian" and "authoritarian":
You can be "totalitarian" for evil and you can also be "totalitarian" for good. Some of us came
out of a highly disciplined religion and see no reason to fear discipline and self-denial. Some of
us learned in a school of philosophy which taught that all was for the common good and nothing
for oneself and have never, in any case, regarded the pursuit of happiness as anything other than
an aberration of the human spirit. We were taught, for example, that he who would gain his life
must lose it. Even Rousseau talked of transporting le moi dans l'unite commune, and Calvin of
establishing the holy communion of the citizens. So, the kind of "totalitarianism" I am thinking of,
while it may apply to the new conditions of society, has as deep a root as any in human tradition.
In another speech he argues that democratic states had adopted "measures of authoritarianism which, the
moment a country is driven to a common and total effort, prove completely logical and completely
necessary."
I have already referred to Grierson's concept of the state as essentially Hegelian and classical. This concept
runs right through Grierson's writings but here are two very clear examples: "The State is the machinery by
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which the best interests of the people are secured. Since the needs of the State come first, understanding of
these needs comes first in education." And this: "We have a need for a vast new system of education by
which people will be made aware of the needs of the state and of their duties as citizens."
Grierson made clear several times that his view of the state involved what he called "a moving toward each
other of Capitalism and Socialism," a technocratic society that would emphasise centralized planning. Here is
one example:
My view... would be that we are entering upon a new and interim society which is neither
capitalist nor socialist, but in which we can achieve central planning without loss of individual
initiative, by the mere process of absorbing initiative in the function of planning.
Given Grierson's concept of the state, it is perhaps of interest to consider Grierson's recollections in later
years of his feelings about being demobilized from the Navy at the end of the First World War. He wrote: "I
was scared to leave the disciplined, coordinated, harmonious life of the navy, where you knew exactly where
you stood and what you had to do, and for your well-ordered duty received in return a well-ordered
security."
I have already suggested that Grierson referred to the state and to the corporate as though they were linked.
Indeed, the two terms together with "corporativism" constantly recur in his later writings - though the latter is
sometimes linked with "co-operativism."
Corporativism was originally a socialist idea but the term "corporate state" originated with the neo-
conservative Charles Maurras. Both terms were adopted and expanded, by two Italian Idealist philosophers,
Giovanni Gentile and Ugo Spirito and their ideas became central planks in the ideology of Italian Fascism.
Though philosophical discussions of corporativism and its practice became quite complex, the basic principle
is simple: the state run as though it were a large corporation with a board of directors looking after policy and
management and a group of skilled and trained experts or professionals actually handling operations. The
shareholders might get a say from time to time but, in effect, knew nothing and, necessarily, could know
nothing of the actual running of the company. It is a vision that coincides precisely with Grierson's own.
Realizing this helps explain why Grierson would have used what was quite well-known Fascist terminology
during the Second World War. It also explains quite precisely Grierson's approach to education, propaganda
and the documentary film as a tool in relation to them. The approach derives from the vision of a technocratic
elite who could indeed know "everything about everything" and the irrational masses who, of course, could
not. As he said, the State could not afford:
..amateur judgements on matters beyond the general citizen's sphere of understanding ... The
needs of the state in this great period of revolutionary change are urgent; and the citizen has
neither the leisure nor the equipment for the promiscuous exercise of his mental and emotional
interest ... for except the citizen's mind be so predisposed and shaped in its essentials he will find
himself ... utterly at sea.
Grierson also makes plain that he is not talking simply about communicating government policies to the
general public. Consider this:
The oblique paradox of propaganda is that the lie in the throat becomes, by repetition, the truth
in the heart. And, consequently, the art of propaganda or public information becomes one of the
most powerful forms of directive statesmanship (emphasis mine). The place of the educator
and the artist in society changes entirely to one of definite social constructiveness.
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This paragraph makes clear Grierson's views on the role of the public servant, the "expert" in government - a
view he actually spelled out in detail in a letter to a Canadian cabinet minister after the war. The public servant
in Grierson's view, was not merely a follower of policy, an interpreter of policy. The public servant created
and initiated policy. It was this attitude that, almost inevitably, led to Grierson's difficulties with both the British
and Canadian governments.
It also becomes apparent in Grierson's writings that the propagandist's communication with the public was not
to be based on reason. How could it since the masses were irrational? It was to be based on instinct, on what
Grierson often called "giving a pattern of thought and feeling." Or, as he says in the quote I gave earlier,
predisposing and shaping the mind of the citizen.
One final point about Grierson's political philosophy. Class, class struggle and class conflict are concepts
about which Grierson has relatively little to say - except to suggest that class conflict was essentially futile and
that notions of worker management were impracticable. Interestingly enough, the same is true of other
"conflicts" that might tend to disrupt the unity of the state. Such conflicts tended to be dismissed or negated.
For example, when he discussed regional differences in Canada, these were constantly negated as
"sectionalism" which would inevitably disappear as Canadian unity grew. Grierson quotes Paul Valery
approvingly on the question of conflicts:
Political conflicts distort and disturb a people's sense of distinction between matters of
importance and matters of urgency. What is vital is disguised by what is merely a matter of well
being.
Aesthetics
If we turn now to the question of aesthetics, some similar patterns of thought emerge. Grierson tended to
avoid aesthetic debates, preferring to push the issues into what appear to be higher philosophical realms - as,
for example, his statement that, "The penalty of realism is that it is about reality and has to bother for ever not
about being `beautiful' but about being right." The catch here is that we have to know what Grierson meant by
`realism.' And here, again, we have to bear in mind his origins and the origin of his political philosophy.
Realism aside, for the moment, though he was careful to make clear that he was not anti-art, that what he was
doing was indeed art. An example is when he discusses what he calls his "affection for the medium ... but I
was always scared I might be found out, so I was careful to say the Hell with Art. The more I pursued it, the
more I was careful to denounce my own pursuit of it." Though in later years, he was more explicit about the
basis of his aesthetic, in general he tends to prefer such vague generalities as "the creative treatment of
actuality" or "the documentary of work and workers." It is, however, possible to disentangle the threads of a
consistent aesthetic approach. Consider, for example, his dislike for what he usually called the `merely
observational' kind of film alongside his well-known definition of documentary as "the creative treatment of
actuality" together with the quote I mentioned earlier about "the penalty of realism." Compare them with this
statement by Hegel on art:
True reality lies beyond immediate sensation and the objects we see every day. Only what exists
in itself is real ... Art digs an abyss between the appearance and illusion of this bad and
perishable world on the one hand, and the true content of events on the other, to re-clothe these
events and phenomena with a higher reality, born of the mind ... Far from being simple
appearances and illustrations of ordinary reality, the manifestations of art possess a higher reality
and a truer existence.
Or consider Grierson's several attacks on formalism, his rejection of the notion that the artist has "a personal
right ... to express himself as he pleases." One clear example of this is his appraisal of the Soviet cinema of the
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twenties:
The Russian directors are too bound up - too aesthetically vain - in what they call their `play
films' to contribute to Russia's instructional cinema. They have indeed suffered greatly from the
freedom given to artists in the first uncritical moment of revolutionary enthusiasm, for they have
tended to isolate themselves more and more in private impression and private performance ...
For the future, one may safely leave them to the consideration of the Central Committee. One's
impression is that when some of the art and all of the Bohemian self-indulgence have been
knocked out of them, the Russian cinema will fulfill its high promise ... The revolutionary will
almost certainly "liquidate" as they put it, this romantic perspective.
In a later essay that also used the Soviets as examples, Grierson was at pains to point out that he did not
disregard the significance of form as such:
The degree of fresh and dynamic and progressive attitudes may be measured in terms of lines
and masses as well as the choice of subject matter ... The Russian attack was not an attack on
this significant aspect of form. It attacked a theory of significant form, which suggested that form
was at its best when it was significant of nothing on earth; and in fact it attacked the pretention of
the artist that he had no immediate obligation to society and the system under which it operated.
That this is not an entirely fair appraisal of what occurred in the Soviet Union is not particularly relevant here.
What these passages make clear are Grierson's attitudes on formalism and form.
It should be noted, too, that Grierson was not at all opposed to modernist art, to abstract, non-
representational art. None of the modern art forms, he points out, had been initially accepted by the dominant
aesthetic of their times.
Such manifestations I account as representing the creative leadership of the new forces of
thought and appreciation which attend changes in technological pattern and therefore of the
pattern of human relationships in society.
There is an implication in this essay that Grierson counted himself among "the creative leadership of the new
forces of thought." This is something I'll return to in a moment.
Given Grierson's disapproval of formalism, it might be assumed there could be no more obvious disjunction
than that between Grierson and the Aestheticism of the Bloomsbury Group in the twenties and thirties. This
extraordinarily heady group included Virginia Woolf, Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, and,
not least, the aestheticians of the group, Roger Fry and Clive Bell. I want to suggest that the differences are
more apparent than real, that the ideologies mesh quite closely in many ways and, indeed, stem from the same
sources.
I want to begin with two quotations, the first by John Grierson - in fact, one of his most famous ones:
They tell us that art is a mirror - a mirror held up to nature. I think this is a false image ... In a
society like ours, art is not a mirror but a hammer. It is a weapon in our hands to see and say
what is right and good and beautiful, and hammer it out as the mould and pattern of men's
actions.
The second is a statement by Clive Bell, a statement that has been described as "nearly a pure Aestheticist
view of art":
To pronounce anything a work of art... is to credit an object with being so powerful a means to
good that we need not trouble ourselves about any other of its possible consequences.
If those two statements appear to head in different directions consider replacing "work of art" in the second
by "documentary film". Or consider another statement by Clive Bell, from his book Civilization (1927):
To be civilized society must be permeated and, what is more, continually nourished by the
unconscious influence of this civilizing elite ... The majority must be told that the world of thought
and feeling exists ... To point the road is the task of the few.
Told about a "world of thought and feeling" is almost exactly Griersonian - as in, "It is a question of giving
people a pattern of thought and feeling ..."
Is "art is a hammer" in essence very different from what the Bloomsbury Group argued? Art, if you like, as a
means to improve the soul, art to rescue society from itself. They differed in means perhaps but not in their
underlying assumptions. The roots are in fact the same - the reaction to dominant nineteenth century ideas.
I have already argued that Grierson's ideology can best be understood as part of a larger reaction to
dominant ideas of the nineteenth century - ideas about rationalism, positivism and so on. One aspect of this
nineteenth century world-view was the art style known as Realism. Without going into this in any detail, it is
fair to say it was based on observation, empirical formulations of direct experience and the assumption of a
transparent style, or even a style-free style. From Realism, and its notions of a transparent style, comes the
corollary that art is a mirror image of visual reality. This is, of course, a kind of mystification itself since
Realism was no more a mere mirror image of reality than any other style. But it is this commonplace notion
about Realism that Grierson is reacting to in "his art is a hammer" piece - just as he had reacted to other
dominant nineteenth century ideologies. It is in this sense, it seems to me, that Grierson thought of himself
among the "creative leadership of the new forces of thought and appreciation" - thought of himself as, indeed
a member of the avant-garde.
The Bloomsbury Group were also reacting to the dominant Realism of the nineteenth century and to such
Victorian ideas on art as those of John Ruskin and William Morris who had attempted to create links
between art and the general public. The common point of contact between Grierson and the Bloomsbury
Group is not only this but Hegelian Idealism. And if I were to locate a specific point of common reference it
would be the aesthetics of Benedetto Croce - the only aesthetician to whom Grierson makes direct reference
and whose theories, especially on intuition, also form the basis of the Bloomsbury Group's approach.
It would be possible to examine in detail Grierson's various uses of such terms as `real', `reality' and `realism'.
I don't intend to do that here. But I would suggest that any such analysis would lead to the conclusion that
Grierson was not a Realist (as is often, unthinkingly, assumed) but an Idealist - as much in aesthetics as he
was in political philosophy.
I have also not attempted to analyse here Grierson's choice of subject matter for the films produced under his
direction. An examination of this has already begun elsewhere by others. There are, though, a few general
points worth noting. Firstly, although Grierson speaks of a "documentary of work and workers," it is clear he
is only speaking of some work and some workers. Indeed, the list of those not included seems more
remarkable in retrospect than those who were included. I give just one example: absent is any depiction of the
group of workers to which Grierson himself belonged - the technocrat in government. One would have
thought that in Canada during the war, giving "a pattern of thought and feeling" to Canadians about the war
effort would have included at least some analysis of the contribution of public servants. But the Canadian films
- and the British films before them - are dominated by images of industrial workers. These images are
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invariably those of industrial workers contributing their share towards a larger collectivity. One is reminded,
inevitably, of the notion of "hail the hero workers." It is perhaps not insignificant to recall, here, that one of
Grierson's early essays was titled "The Worker as Hero."
Secondly, the vision is always optimistic. Problems exist but are always solvable - usually by the state but
sometimes by some abstract notion of the "collectivity" as a metaphor for the state. It is in this sense that we
can understand Grierson's opposition to the film, Housing Problems. This was not solely in terms of its
essentially observational approach but also because it presents a problem that is not clearly solved. As Edgar
Anstey said in a recent interview: "Grierson thought that social criticism... could be dangerously negative. He
believed that the documentary was at its best when it was being constructive and not critical." It is also in this
same sense that we can, I think, understand Grierson's initial successes and later difficulties in both Britain and
Canada. And this brings us to the third aspect of Grierson's ideology - the organisational.
Organization
It is probably obvious from some of the points I've already made why Grierson would adopt the state as the
primary sponsor of documentary films. His Hegelian conception of the state was the determining factor in his
vision of the role and purpose of the documentary film. So it was logical, indeed necessary, for the state to
support its production and dissemination. But note that it was an Idealist conception of the state, not the state
of political parties, practical politics and Cabinet government. Inevitably, this Idealist vision was bound to
clash with the world of practical politics - as, indeed, it did in both Britain and Canada. Inevitably, Grierson's
vision of himself as one of the leaders "of the new forces of thought and appreciation" would clash with the
policies of his political masters - cabinet ministers who did not agree with Grierson's view that technocrats,
not politicians, created policy. On the one hand, the Griersonian documentary was initially welcomed because
it celebrated the state and encouraged identification with the collectivity. On the other, it was rejected when it
came too close to the political process. That Grierson indeed saw himself as a visionary leader is clear from
an interview he gave late in life:
If you think I do not feel I have been in the business of conditioning the imagination of mankind,
you're crazy. But then every goddam rabbi, every prophet, every priest before me has been in
the business of conditioning the imagination of mankind. I derive my authority from Moses.
There is a hint here - and in Grierson's ideology in general - of a possible explanation of why the British did
not want Grierson back during the War. It is evident from Grierson's correspondence at the time that he fully
expected to be offered a senior position in British information. Certainly, on the surface, one would have
expected the British to make full use of the democratic world's most famous expert on propaganda and
information. However, Grierson was not offered any position in Britain and many of his letters to his former
colleagues during the war are full of bitterness about alleged weaknesses of British information in general and
British documentaries in particular.
It is generally well-known that in Britain before the war there were many people in positions of power who
favoured British accommodation with Germany, if not full collaboration. When Churchill became Prime
Minister none of these people were prosecuted. They were simply moved to less sensitive positions. Among
them were some members of the Imperial Relations Trust for whom Grierson was working on contract. I do
not know whether there is any direct evidence that Grierson was suspected of being a collaborationist. But his
views on the state and on liberal democracy were well known. This, together with his contempt for politicians
and his reputation for interfering with the political process, could well have been enough to leave a suspicious
question mark regarding his loyalty.
Curiously enough, all this also helps explain why he was initially so successful in Canada. Grierson wrote
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during the war that he had turned Prime Minister Mackenzie King "from a liberal into a totalitarian." I think he
was fooling himself. Mackenzie King already had, at least, tendencies in this direction.
Canada was then going through a massive phase of centralization under the guidance of a cadre of key civil
servants. This group believed in state intervention in the economy, in central planning and a diminution of the
power of the provinces. Grierson's term "sectionalism" that I referred to earlier was, in fact, a term used by
this group. As one historian has written: "Power had to be concentrated in the hands of the only government
that could achieve these ends - and at the disposal of the only civil servants in the nation with the vision and
skills to make Canada the kind of country it could and should be." It is apparent that Grierson's ideology
would mesh quite closely with those of this group. And, indeed, much of his rhetoric during the war echoes
the rhetoric of those other technocrats.
If we look at Grierson's organization of production, there is a similar reflection of his ideology. Grierson did
not organize production in the various units he headed in the usual hierarchical pattern, the usual vertical
structure with a chain of command. Production was organized in a manner very close to that associated with
Max Weber's charismatic leadership structure: essentially a lateral or horizontal system with virtually everyone
reporting directly to the head of the unit. Virtually everything went through Grierson.
Further, almost everyone hired initially in Britain and Canada was young and inexperienced. Most of them
had little knowledge of films, let alone film making itself. There were, perhaps, some valid practical reasons
why it was necessary for at least some of these people to be hired. But in both Britain and Canada, there
were experienced directors, writers and cinematographers around who could have immediately brought a
level of professionalism to government film production - and avoided all those numerous anecdotes we've all
heard about the amusing side of learning on the job.
But Grierson preferred to hire young people, inexperienced in film. And in all the dozens of later interviews
with those film makers one constant image recurs: the image of a Messianic father figure gathering his children
around him and teaching the laws of the land. "I derive my authority from Moses."
It's impossible, now, to attach a particular political label to John Grierson. Fascism has become reduced to a
simple term of abuse, divorced from its original political philosophic context, from its neo-conservative
ideology. And fascism never developed a common basic dogma, as communism did. Though measuring
against dogma has, of course, its own traps. I have, though, tried to show that Grierson's ideology shares, at
least, common points of origin with neo-conservative thinking of the late nineteenth century.
In any case, I prefer to apply to Grierson a story that took place in the Canadian House of Commons in
relation to a Cabinet Minister, C.D. Howe. Mr. Howe had the reputation of always wanting to get his own
way. An opposition MP one day accused Mr. Howe of being a fascist. When the Speaker insisted the phrase
be withdrawn, the MP replied: "Well, if Mr. Howe objects to being called a fascist then, of course, I
withdraw the remark. I will simply call him an authoritarian with totalitarian tendencies." And, that, I think is
not an unfair summary of the ideology of John Grierson.
Notes
1. Peter Morris provided us with his conference paper as delivered - unfortunately it was without references.
As the paper attracted the most controversy at the conference we were anxious to publish it - even if it meant
that many of its tantalising quotations were not sourced. We took the position that it was important that the
issues about Grierson the paper raises be aired before an Australian audience through an Australian
publication; and that the work of Peter Morris, this important film scholar be given an Australian hearing.
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Those interested in the paper's sources should keep an eye out for Morris' forthcoming book on Grierson.
This is a characteristic Griersonian argumentative ploy: asked a question on aesthetics he would respond he
was a propagandist.