Fires Were Started

Seems strange that this movie is being listed as a documentary, fore this movie is made as a real movie, with scripted dialog and situations. Nevertheless it still can be seen as a docudrama, which concentrates on the London civilian fire brigade during the bombings of WW II.

The movie gives a real insightful look in this little unknown piece of history. It shows under what circumstances the men and women involved with the fire brigades had to work. It shows the whole organization behind it all and how things got communicated. It of course also shows how the actual fires were being fought by the brave men. Just like most British young men were fighting elsewhere in Europe, these men fought they own wars against the fires in the big cities.

What surprised me was that this movie was not a typical British war time propaganda piece. This is a bit odd, since the production company Crown Film Unit, was a movie-making propaganda arm of the Ministry of Information at its time. It doesn't try to glorify anything and just show things as they are. The movie also doesn't have an annoying all knowing voice-over, who comments and the 'brave' actions and all. The movie is actually pretty straightforward and raw shot. Although everything in this movie is being scripted it still feels all very real. It's a true engaging- and therefore also really powerful and effective movie.

Yes, it's truly being shot as a movie. I was actually quite impressed by some of its camera-work and editing at times, which seemed to be decades ahead of its time in certain sequences! Not that I have ever seen anything else by Humphrey Jennings but I'm definitely interested now to see more by him. Unfortunately he died very young in 1950, when he fell of a cliff while he was scouting for locations in Greece for his new movie. Still a total of 33 directed movies are behind his name, so more than enough stuff to still check out!

A real unique classic within its genre!

9/10

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I'd been trying to track this movie down for a while so I had high expectations of it, and on some counts it disappointed and on others it actually excelled. I was expecting a propaganda film with a plummy BBC voice-over intoning: 'Here we see the lads of Heavy Unit one, sector c 14, enjoying a pint of bitter and a sing song before their shift.' Instead, I was presented with a proper film with characters and a plot and everything! This struck me as particularly extraordinary having seen the first film on the DVD which was a motley collection of clips of Britain at work for the War Effort, inter-spliced with a lunchtime concert (blitz spirit etc.) featuring Myra Hess wearing what looked like a lab-coat playing piano rather animatedly.

To make a film with such high production values in wartime, with everything seriously rationed is quite extraordinary. Okay, it portrays the firemen as heroes, but it presents them in a light that is far from uplifting. They are men who work tirelessly and they take great risks, and then they go and do it all over again the next night – none of this wandering off into the sunset with a girl on your arm. By 1943, when the film was made, the blitz was pretty much over, but the horror and uncertainty of the V1s and V2s was yet to come and although the tide seemed to have turned, there was no end in sight at this point. Jennings' stroke of genius was to create a film that identified with its audience and was honest with them, while actually having the humour to keep morale up.

The use of actual firemen for the characters has its pros and cons – some of them are decent actors, others are very poor, but I should imagine that in 1943 people in possession of an equity card were rather few and far between. There is obviously some stock footage used in the long shots of the burning warehouses, giving a broader picture of what the crew of one pump were up against, which is no bad thing. The stock footage is actually pretty important as it gives a reality that would otherwise be lacking (see also Malta Story).

All in all this is a triumph of realistic, humanist film-making from the darkest days of our darkest hours.

This film is a remarkable document. Jennings extracts actor-quality performances - plus that bit extra from using actual firemen and firewomen - from the cast. Add a good story, quality editing and Jennings' eye for a scene or situation and you have a real masterpiece.

Most of the East End of London has now been more successfully bombed by Hitler's successors - the planners and developers - but, miracle of miracles, the fire station at Wellclose Square is still there, back as a school again. Go there!

With respect to other reviews, stock footage IS used - but it doesn't detract. As for the reviewer from New York. I wonder if he can see this film in a more charitable light since 9-11?

"Just alright", "very boring"!!! One wonders a little at the jaded appetites of some viewer and reviewers.

Part of the problem is the way British films have tended to sell themselves - as modest "social documents" akin to home movies. And this has obscured the fact that the documentary movement in Britain launched in the twenties by John Grierson was central to the development of the European neo-realist style during the thirties and forties. Not even the most obtuse reviewer would approach the work of De Sica or Rosselini with the same disrespect (their reputation would oblige them to watch with a little more care) but the work of Jennings is just as important and just as worthy of proper attention.

While the 1936 Night Mail (Basil Wright, Harry Watt and Cavalcanti) does receive something of its due (the virtuosity of the sound can hardly be ignored) as do the experimental animations of Len Ly (at the more avant-garde end of the GPO Unit repertoire), the same respect is rarely extended to the other work of the GPO Unit (later the Crown Film Unit). Yet as a corpus of work it is absolutely outstanding.

Jennings began his work as a film-maker with Dufay Chromex making short films to advertise the heart-stoppingly beautiful Dufaycolor process and his first short film for Dufay, Farewell to Topsails, is already a fine film. After joining the GPO Unit, he took some time to find his feet with films whose intention was to some extent promotional and ditto from 1940 when the Ministry of Information takes over and the emphasis is on war propaganda. One of the limiting factors for the British documentary movement was Grierson's insistence that it should, as it were, earn its living and not flirt (à la Flaherty) with sensational drama.

This - his only full-length feature - is nothing short of a masterpiece. Th use of non-professional actors and elements of impromptu dialogue (as with De Sica's Bicycle Thieves) is significant but should (as again with De Sica) blind one to the fact that this is a very carefully composed film - the "one man went to mo" sequence is superb - beautifully filmed and expertly edited.

Most remarkable perhaps is the orchestration of dialogue. This was a particular strength of the British movement and would remain an enduring strength of British film (in the films of Ken Loach and in the scenarios for instance of Harold Pinter - arguably a more important body of work than his dramas).

British neo-realism runs parallel with the Italian variety but always remains distinct from it; it remains socially committed and does not flirt in the same way with melodrama or with flamboyant "humanism". It may be less exciting on the surface but, watched with the respect and attention they deserve, the best of these films are both important and, to my mind enthralling.

Although I do watch a terrible load of rubbish at times, I do also make a bit of effort to make sure my viewing has a bit of rounding and significance to it. It was for this reason that I searched out a film by Humphrey Jennings. The first I found was the documentary drama looking at the service of the civilian firemen who defended London during the Blitz. The film is a mix of drama and documentary, with the story essentially being a typical day and night in the life of the crew but it is delivered with the civilians themselves rather than professional actors. The risk of this is clear but, aside from some very wooden performances, mostly it works because the majority of them are quite natural and convincing in how they are.

Jennings' approach to the telling was also a bit of a risk because the film is not just a glowing presentation of these people as flawless heroes so much as quite a realistic presentation of them and their role. The risks they take and the price some of them pay is clear from the film and it is well presented as such, even though it could have been seen as demoralising in the way that Jennings didn't glamorise them or put much more of a patriotic gloss on them. It does work really well though and I was impressed by how professional and well made the film was. The images are sharp and even the recreations of the fires look convincing.

I don't know enough to say where Fires Were Started sits in regards Jennings work but from my limited point of view it is an impressive film. By modern standards it isn't great of course but this is one of those films that can be viewed in context because it was made for a certain time and reason. This doesn't mean that if it were a bad film that I would be blind to those weaknesses though because it is still effective in what it sets out to do and is worth watching today.