Underplayed Gems

Drifters (1929)

Drifters poster
Directed by
John Grierson
Genre
documentary film, silent film
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
50 min
Rating
5.9 of 10 from 17 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

This silent film follows the work of herring fishermen in the North Sea. It shows their daily tasks on the boats and the processing of the catch onshore.

observationalrhythmicearnestmethodicalmatter-of-factausterequietly absorbing

What happens

Drifters is a 1929 silent documentary film by John Grierson, his first and only "personal" film. It tells the story of Britain's North Sea herring fishery. The film's style has been described as being a "response to avant-garde, Modernist films, adopting formal techniques such as montage – constructive editing emphasising the rhythmic juxtaposition of images – but also aimed to make a socially directed commentary on its subject" (Tate Gallery: Liverpool 2006). The film was successful both critically and commercially and helped kick off Grierson's documentary film movement. This film also showed that Grierson was not afraid to alter reality slightly in order to have his vision shown. For example, when the boat he was on returned without a catch he bought another boat's catch and tried to fake it. He ended up scrapping that film as it was not authentic enough. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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