Retro

A DIARY FOR TIMOTHY

Humphrey Jennings
GBR 1944
39 min
V'07

Lindsay Anderson once described Humphrey Jennings as \"the only true poet of the English cinema\", and though Jennings has never enjoyed a high profile (he died in 1950) the documentaries he made for the Crown Film Unit during WWII rank among the most affecting and imaginative factual films ever made in Britain. <![CDATA[<i>]]>A Diary For Timothy<![CDATA[</i>]]> is Jennings' most accomplished and arguably his greatest film. It's a poignant yet resolutely unsentimental portrait of the battle-weary home front in 1944-5 that, like so much of the director's work, casts a sensitive eye over the lives of ordinary people, while celebrating their dignity and determination. Jennings assembles his material with great tenderness and wit, intercutting news reports of the Russian offensive with footage of John Gielgud performing in “Hamlet”, and Londoners bedding down in the Underground. What, the film wonders, will the future hold for a child born into a period of such extreme transition? \"Things are chancy,\" runs Forster's erudite essay. \"The bad so mixed with the good that you never know what's coming.\" (Jon Fortgang)

Will be screened together with <filmlink id=\"2585\">The Passerby</filmlink>.

Credits
  • John Gielgud - Mr. Beddoes
  • Myra Hess
  • Frederick Allen
  • George Woodbridge
Crown Film Unit, Basil Wright
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