When Britain declared war in August 1914, the newsreels were more than ready to to document the conflict, but they soon came up against censorship and obstruction. Cameramen filmed behind the lines in Belgium with some freedom in the early months of the war, but the war minister, Lord Kitchener, banned all journalists and cameras from operating at the Front, and by early 1915 Topical Budget and the other newsreels were obliged to report the war largely from home.
The British film industry lobbied the War Office, and eventually a system of official war cameramen was instigated in November 1915, but none of the material was released to the newsreels. However, when the British war propaganda films failed to match the success of the 1916 documentary feature The Battle of the Somme, the War Office Cinematograph Committee (WOCC) decided that the best means of distributing their war footage would be through the regular outlet of a newsreel. In May 1917 the WOCC came to an agreement with the Topical Film Company, and the newsreel became the War Office Official Topical Budget, essentially the same newsreel as before, but now with exclusive access to film taken by British official cameramen on the Western and other Fronts.
The arrangement soon brought up problems, with disagreements between the WOCC and Topical as to how to manage the newsreel, and in November 1917 the WOCC bought up the company and controlled the newsreel directly. From this point on the newsreel became progressively more successful commercially and as a propaganda medium.
In February 1918 it changed its name to Pictorial News (Official), and the following month came under the control of the new Ministry of Information, under Lord Beaverbrook. The newsreel became the main outlet for official war film to the end of the war, and continued to February 1919, when it was purchased by the newspaper proprietor Edward Hulton, and eventually reverted to its old name of Topical Budget.
The Topical Budget stories for the First World War therefore divide into the August 1914-April 1917 period, when the newsreel was privately owned; and May 1917-February 1919, when it operated as a propaganda outlet. The first period is characterised by reports from the home front, particularly scenes of recruiting, anti-German protests, military exercises, and scenes of women workers. Film of the war itself comes in the earliest months, when cameramen operated with a degree of freedom in Belgium and France, and Topical issued a series of longer films alongside the newsreel to exploit the comparative abundance of footage. Thereafter, scenes of British troops are rare, but a source of footage from Serbia gives Topical some interesting records of the Eastern Front through 1916. The style of the newsreel is relatively low-key, with little use of intertitles as commentary, but Topical makes clear use of popular issues from the home front such as food shortages, and films people displaying banners with slogans in noticeable frequency.
The official period is naturally marked by access to footage from the war fronts, as well as privileged access to public events and figures. But it is also a period when the newsreel develops a distinctive style of its own, where the intertitles become more frequent and intercut the action to a greater degree, and where a greater sophistication in editing techniques results in some striking compressions of actions, or even of whole battles, within the short time-frame of the newsreel story. The lesson learned by the propagandists, in placing their newsreel on the marketplace in competition with other newsreels, was that exclusive access to the official war footage was not enough. The newsreel had to include popular, general items, even at times had to appear not to be a war newsreel at all, if it was to gain a wider acceptance, which would in turn allow it to get its messages across. By the end of the war, Topical Budget has discovered a new form and a new vitality which it would successfully transport into the 1920s.
Luke McKernan
|
