Listen to Britain

A depiction of life in wartime England during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.

The title is literal -- the director is asking us to "listen" to "Britain". Not necessarily its people, and not the narration of someone telling us how to feel. Just the sound of the radio, the airplane, and anything else going on in daily life during the war. They even dance to "Roll Out the Barrel", though in some weird circular slow dance style rather than the polka version I know and love.

This is probably considered Humphrey Jennings' masterpiece. That may be a fair assessment.

There's something about the communality here that's quite striking. From masses of people eating in the work's canteen whilst listening to Flanagan and Allen through to a more demure concert in the National Gallery in the presence of HM The Queen, people of all shapes and sizes, classes and ranks gather together to eat, to dance, to sing and to work - and with no narration, we watch and listen for a twenty minutes that is quite poignant. From the land army, the spotters, the fire wardens and those working on the railways and in heavy engineering, we see women of all ages carrying out the crucial work of feeding and arming the country whilst all try to carry on regardless. What we don't really see is any actual warfare. There are plenty of signs of it's devastation, but this isn't a film that shows a people cowering underground in air raid shelters or racing to put out endless fires; indeed it's its very obvious attempt to convey an industrious normality that works well here. Sure, there is the odd bit of rousing patriotism but for the most part I think this displays a remarkable lack of wartime propaganda and showcases, instead, a variety of archive that shows us more the ordinary people who would win this war.

Jennings makes an interesting experiment. He films a number of scenes representative of wartime Britain, but does not include a spoken commentary or an anonymous musical backing.

Instead, the sound alone (often amplified and remixed)conveys mood, emphasis, and narrative climax.

A recital given by Dame Myra Hess in the National Gallery provides the background of a stirring climax.