John Griersons Scotland

John Grierson’s Scotland (1979) by Forsyth Hardy

Before television documentaries became an endless parade of celebrities wandering around places while pretending to discover them, there was John Grierson: stern, purposeful, Scottish, and possessed of the radical idea that documentary film might actually be about something.

John Grierson’s Scotland, written by Forsyth Hardy and published by The Ramsay Head Press in 1979, looks at Grierson’s relationship with Scotland and the documentary tradition he helped to shape. Grierson is generally credited with doing more than almost anyone to establish documentary film as a serious form of communication, education and social observation, rather than merely pointing a camera at something interesting and hoping for the best.

Born in Scotland in 1898, Grierson became one of the great pioneers of documentary cinema, famously helping to develop the British documentary movement during the inter-war years. His films and productions frequently concerned ordinary working people, industry, public institutions and national life—the sort of subjects that could easily have been desperately dull in less capable hands, but which Grierson believed were worthy of being recorded with seriousness and dignity.

Forsyth Hardy was particularly well placed to write about him. A Scottish film critic, writer and cultural figure in his own right, Hardy knew Grierson and had previously written extensively about his life and work. This volume therefore isn’t simply somebody arriving decades later with a notebook and several library cards; it comes from a writer closely connected with the world Grierson inhabited.

As the title suggests, the emphasis here is specifically Scottish. The book explores the landscapes, communities, industries and people that helped shape Grierson’s outlook, along with his contribution to Scottish film and cultural life. Expect fishing boats, factories, working communities, public service and considerably fewer romantic Highlanders standing moodily beside lochs than conventional representations of Scotland might lead you to expect.

There is something distinctly Griersonian about the whole enterprise. Scotland here is not presented merely as scenery to be admired through a coach window but as a functioning society populated by people who actually work, build things, catch things, make things and occasionally have opinions about how the country ought to be run. In other words, rather inconveniently, real people.

For anyone interested in documentary cinema, Scottish cultural history, British film, broadcasting or the development of twentieth-century visual journalism, this is a particularly appealing volume. It also provides a reminder of an era when documentary makers apparently believed their job was to explain the world rather than spend twenty minutes telling viewers what they were about to explain after the adverts.

This copy is in Good condition, with the ordinary signs of age and previous ownership expected of a book published in 1979. It remains a solid, presentable copy of an interesting and comparatively specialised work from The Ramsay Head Press.

A worthwhile addition to any collection concerned with John Grierson, documentary filmmaking, Scottish cinema or twentieth-century cultural history—and considerably cheaper than establishing your own national film movement from scratch.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where Scotland is documented thoroughly, although occasionally without dramatic aerial footage and melancholy fiddle music.

Keep browsing: See more History books Other books by Forsyth Hardy