| Jennings, with his keen eye for the surreal within the framework of the everyday, imbues his films with layers of a British culture that are omnipresent. This is a clear extension from his paint and photography work, and from his poetry writings. His observational technique, so often proclaimed as the key in understanding his work with the 'common man', gives his work the added dimension that the background (be it in human or architectural terms) is so often imbued with added meaning. Jennings shows the level to which our cultural side is part of everything we do subconsciously, and part of what is worth fighting for consciously. Overtly, Jennings used literary quotations from Shakespeare's Macbeth in Fires Were Started; William Blake's Jerusalem (read by Laurence Olivier in Words for Battle) and worked from a commentary written by E.M. Forster (read by Michael Redgrave) for A Diary for Timothy. Less obviously he used popular song as a way of defining character, most notably in Fires Were Started. In the first half of the film, the musical pieces propel the narrative, and unite the characters to the audience. Most memorable is One man went to mow for its direct use in unifying the firemen, and ingratiating the new man, Barrett, but Jennings also underscores these earlier scenes with diegetic use of Please don't talk about me when I'm gone and Ah, sweet mystery of life, both popular songs of the day.
Jennings uses what he sees as defining architectural structures, such as St. Paul's Cathedral, as emblems of the past being "quickened by it's contemporary relevance" (Richards, 1997 pp231). It is as though the war is condensing the layers of history into a simple reference - the past. Jennings uses St. Paul's repeatedly in London Can Take It, Words for Battle and Fires Were Started, each echoing his poem I See London. In the poem he writes "I see the dome of St. Paul's like the forehead of Darwin" (Jennings, M. 1982 pp49). As a progression from this then, the films use St. Paul's as not only the physical that could be lost but also the cerebral, the scientific and the evolutionary. In Darwin, Jennings raises the paradoxes of a building of faith against the nemesis of religion that Darwin became, whilst simultaneously raising the notion that our evolutionary progression is under threat from not only external forces, but from the nature of war itself. Humphrey Jennings believes in an England of culture, but also of an England at peace. His patriotic verve is for an England of layers of culture - cross-cultural (the Chinese man giving directions in Fires Were Started); cross class (the aforementioned concerts in Listen to Britain) and cross ages (the juxtaposition of One Man went to mow with a quotation from Macbeth in Fires Were Started). He sees Britain as a unilateral culture worth being united for. |
Humphrey Jennings and Third Cinema.
Author:Tomas Leach 
Narrative Deconstruction