Learning on ScreenForgotten Futures: Q&A with Elisabeth Lebas
There is no such thing as mere propaganda …
Some will view these kinds of films as mere propaganda – is this fair do you think?
There is no such thing as mere propaganda in the sense that propaganda is a term whose importance, political meanings and intents have varied greatly during the twentieth century. Today it tends to be associated negatively with an interfering state bureaucracy and with audiences as passive recipients of its messages, but besides being a questionable generalisation, it was not always the case. For example, in the 1920s Bermondsey Borough Council was very happy to have what it called a ‘Propaganda Department’ to co-ordinate its anti-tubercular campaign and did so with the active consent of its citizens. To assume that municipal films are merely propaganda films is in my view to ignore a visual legacy of social democracy and past civic life.
Health of a City (1965), produced by Templar Film Studios (Scottish Screen Archive).
What led to the demise of this kind of film?
A number of things led to the demise of municipal films. From the mid 1960s onwards, beginning with the reconfiguration of the London County Council into the Greater London Council, smaller municipalities like Bermondsey were merged into larger entities such as Southwark. This process continued with the Thatcher government when Glasgow Corporation was effectively dissolved and merged into Strathclyde Regional Council in the late 1970s. In short a whole tier of government and local civil society was abolished and reconfigured in part or in whole. This process had begun for local authorities in the post war period with the establishment of the National Health Service that took away municipal duties regarding the health of the public. One kind of film local authorities (which were not allowed to compete with commercial cinema) could make were those concerning public health. Finally, video replaced film and that implied a whole new and more personal and private way of making moving images and viewing them. By then national and regional television had taken over much of the educational and ‘propaganda’ role of local authorities.
Are these films still relevant today?
It is difficult here not to overinvest in the significance of municipal films but to me they have great relevance for today’s current political discussions in understanding a past when there was a sense of the possibility of a collective future shared by many. A future that was local and based on a democratically elected institution.
Forgotten Futures: British Municipal Cinema 1920-1980
by Elizabeth Lebas
(2011, Black Dog Publishing)
192 pages. ISBN: 978-1906155940 (hardback)
http://blackdogonline.com/
