Third Cinema

The Propaganda Master

“Jennings the propaganda master” (Winston , 1999, pp37). That Jennings was officially a propagandist is an indisputable fact. His key wartime films were all made under the Crown Film Unit (CFU), after its change from the former GPO film unit upon its absorption by the Ministry of Information when they (rather late in the war) acknowledged (or warily trusted?) the power of the propaganda film. Jennings and his colleagues at the C.F.U were all knowingly and professionally producing films for the government. Although not a form of ‘direct’ propaganda, but a form of ‘sociological’/’indirect’ propaganda as outlined by Jacques Elul, Jennings’ films cannot be ignored as substantial works “The ground must be sociologically prepared before one can proceed to direct prompting. Sociological propaganda can be compared to ploughing, direct propaganda to sowing”. The films that Jennings was making, then, hold a contradictory stance. They are clearly made as propaganda, and are, at their most simplistic, powerful evocations of the British (although predominantly English and Welsh) people’s strength during war. For me, however, they are even more powerful as anti-war statements, directly oppositional to the government’s stance, directly oppositional to the politics that commissioned them and therefore a true example of Third Cinema.