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| Class Criticism |
| These questions about Jennings can be extended to consider whether he could be accused of having a touch of upper-middle class superiority. In his evocations of the greatness of Britain and of its 'ordinary' people, Jennings could be accused of placing himself above his subjects. "His socialism was paternalist; it assumed that it knew what was best for others ... He believed dogmatically that the kind of humanism represented by the music of Beethoven and Sibelius was both central to human experience and beneficial. For instance, E.M. Forster's commentary to A Diary for Timothy worries over the fact that Beethoven was a German but in every other way proposes a universal value in its middle-class interpretation of culture." (Rhode, 1976 pp377) This strong adverse reaction to Jennings' use of 'high' culture is one of few negative deconstructions of his work. To me, the insufficient quality in the negative criticism of his films devalues the current critical evaluation of Jennings. This is not to say that it directly affects one's reading of Jennings rather that it informs one that his work has not been adequately studied, or adequately critiqued. Instead, it establishes a need for further re-working of not only each theme and film within his oeuvre, but also the critical framework for evaluating the whole: Jennings as filmmaker. |
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Documentary and Propaganda
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Introduction to Humphrey Jennings
Author:Tomas Leach 