Coal Face

Made by the acclaimed GPO film unit, Coal Face tells the story of what was then one of the biggest industries in the United Kingdom...MINING!!!

Although it has to be said for eleven minutes I found this to be extremely dreary and not very interesting at all.

4/10

All be it funny short this is a good look into the coal mining industry by the now famous G.P.O Film Unit.

what makes this documentary more worth viewing is the fact that the mining industry in the United Kingdom is pretty much dead now so it's intriguing to get a glimpse of a once dominant industry with in Great Britain.

Directed by Brazilian Albert Cavalcanti this is a good look on a dead occupation

6.9/10

As a photographer who once lived in and took pictures of the last of the south Wales coal communities, I had a special interest in this, which I stumbled on, quite by accident as an unadvertised extra on Sky Arts 2.

That this 11 minute documentary was directed by the Brazilian Alberto Cavalcanti, who went on to direct some of Ealing Film's finest features, it's interesting also to see what he cut his film-making teeth on.

I know little of GPO films but know they were public information films that were shown as extras in the cinemas, these being the main media outlet to the public of moving images.

Yes, the rather crude maps and lists of facts are a little tedious, but it's Cavalcanti's use of patterns and compositions that convey a sense of the enormity and importance of coal. Like the famous - I think - London to Scotland post sorting train one, with the poem - Cavalcanti drums up a real sense of rhythmic power and movement through images that follow each other and blend in, via fast cutting.

The human aspect, however, was rather poorly represented, certainly by today's standards, maybe because so many still worked in the industry in 1935.

I've not seen enough GPO information films to be able to compare this one with and I had a certain interest, therefore I'm probably going to praise it more than those who don't - which are probably the majority.

Here's a documentary about coal produced by the famous General Post Office film unit. It seems a bit off the beam for the people involved. NIGHT MAIL, another famous and excellent documentary makes more sense, seems closer to the GPO remit... or convincing people they were not wasting their money, drawn from the National store, on anything but the mail.

Yes, it does seem a bit odd for the Post Office to produce films telling the public what good jobs they are doing. It's even odder for them to produce films about the coal industry. Still, when you look at the storied talent involved here: W.H. Auden writing and narrating, Benjamin Britten composing, Alberto Cavalcanti directing, with John Grierson producing and Humphrey Jennings credited for 'additional photography', you start to realize the alignment of some very heavyweight talent. You under why, a few years later, the unit could produce some of the greatest propaganda films of all time.

This is no slouch either, with its Academician-influenced editing. It's pretty good, in fact.