Humphrey Jennings: The Man Who Listened to Britain

Respectable, appreciative TV documentary study of Humphrey Jennings, who they call (ominously) "the only poet of British Cinema," determined to relate him to the high art tradition.

Traces his work through dabbling with surrealist painting, the GPO Film Unit turning into the Crown Film Unit ("I'm only slumming it. I'm not really a film maker. I'm interested in art.) He finds himself involved in World War Two morale boosters "London Can take It" and "Listen to Britain", the (pre "It Happened Here") "Forgotten Village" with a British village doubling for Lidice, the destroyed Czech community, "Heart of Britain", "Diary for Timothy" A post war plan to film "Far From the Madding Crowd" doesn't work out. "People respected him but they preferred not to know him."

The film fields old associates and observers like Mike Leigh or Jacob Bronowski, spacing clips with interviews.