Our latest blog comes from artist and long-time friend of the museum Kenny Munro. Kenny writes about links he has discovered between two Scottish film-makers: Bill Douglas and Harry Watt, both of whom filmed in Australia. Kenny designed and constructed our sculpure, 'Reflected Vision', in honour of Bill.

 

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2025 will mark the 40th anniversary of the start of production on the troubled but magnificent epic film Comrades by Bill Douglas. With a strong social conscience at its core, and a star studded cast with Imelda Staunton, Vanessa Redgrave, Robin Soans, Alex Norton, Murray Melvin and Michael Clark to name a few; it is deserving to be brought back into focus. Powerful on-location photographs were also taken by David Appleby in Dorset and Australia, as can be seen below. Although re-released by BFI as a DVD and Blu-ray it is time to reappraise this seriously under-viewed filmic-gem, which is now in the process of further appraisal and the value of being re-launched.

 

John Grierson, often credited as one of the early promoters of the Documentary Movement in filmmaking, once said: Art is not a mirror – it is a hammer. It is a weapon in our hands to see and to say what is good and right and beautiful. Harry Watt, (1906-1987) was one of the foremost filmmakers in the documentary movement that Grierson started.  This is a personal review and interpretation of an aspect of the films of Bill Douglas and fellow Scot Harry Watt……….both from Edinburgh. I will explore some links I have discovered between these two filmmakers, both in their life stories and in their approach to film.

 

 

One might argue that Grierson would have championed Comrades, had he lived to see it. And although Watt died in 1987…..he may just have experienced it. With a shared interest in Australia one may ask if Harry made comment on Bill’s last major film?

 

Although their careers commenced forty years apart, they still offer a powerful legacy, sharing a visionary work ethic and belief in enlightenment through a disciplined, visceral struggle, with empowerment via creativity. Their empathy with humanity is reviewed in this appraisal of both artists, focusing on what guided their careers, a form of mutual respect and also Australian colonial influences and connections. Sharing, as I think they did, an enduring passion and need to express universal truths through filming the interpretation of dramatic historic social events.

 

This narrative all came about as a result of finding a ‘dog-eared’ set of compact paperback editions of the Penguin Film Review in a charity shop, published in the 1940s. (Copies of which are held in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum) Pocket sized with a strong series of essays presented by professionals of the day and illustrated with powerful dramatic photographs, they are gems of the period.

Issue nine from 1949 caught my eye with Harry Watt’s essay; ‘You have to start from Scratch in Australia’; which led me on to present historic comparisons plus a link to filmmaking in Australia where I spent some time in 2000-01.

 

Bill’s childhood challenges drove him to escape into the dream-world of local Cinemas; however I doubt if Harry Watt ever used a ‘jam-jar’ as currency to enter a Picture House ! This complex aspect of Bill’s early life is well documented but it’s important to mention that he also took part in community plays, as a youngster, and would have seen, back-green Gala-Day dramas and the smoke and shadow-play games created around bonfires at Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Night. The spectacle of miners in Newcraighall descending the coal-shaft, to work under the Firth of Forth and the robotic animated nature of local steam train traffic gave grist to his fertile mind. Friend Helen Crummy, originator of the Craigmillar Festival Society, once told me Bill continued to keep in touch with her and his Village by investing financially in local creative events/productions realised in the dramatically changing community of Newcraighall, near Edinburgh, despite living hundreds of miles away.

 

Nevertheless both men had always recognised the audio-power of filmic story telling which had been enhanced and given momentum by the rhythm of poetry and music. A much earlier and large screen exploration is well expressed in the 1936 film Night Mail in which Harry Watt had a major production role, with John Grierson’s team.

 

Significantly, later in Harry’s career, he recognised and identified with the unique emerging talent of Bill Douglas, in the early 1970s. 

This is mentioned in Watt’s autobiography Don’t look at the Camera, published in 1974. (Reckoned to be the first major published reference to Bill Douglas by an international filmmaker.)

Harry Watt's autobiography Don't Look at the Camera.

Watt expresses regret as he refers to the traditional values within the movie industry as dying, in the 1960s with a view, that despite the raw ambitions of Cinema Verité ; he saw it as being disingenuous.

He confesses that: ‘The truth is that if we had indulged in real social criticism to any extent, we would immediately have been without sponsorship and our whole experiment, which was artistically a fine one, would have been finished.        So we compromised.’

 

When Bill read that statement, he may well have identified with how often the arts are emasculated by funding agencies?

 

But Harry’s recognition of Bill as part of a new breed of filmmakers is refreshingly referred to on page 193 of his autobiography from 1974: (Held in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter).

 

‘There are still glimpses of hope. Quite recently, Ken Loach opened the way again for using amateur actors in films of feature length and shocked that most constipated of bodies, Cinema Exhibitors, when Kes became an unexpected box-office smash.

 

And in 1972 a Scots boy, Bill Douglas, having been given a few quid to experiment with by the British Film Institute, came up with a staggeringly realistic and moving film My Childhood. Using the actual people of his mining village, he combined our old technique of dramatic reconstruction with the modern freedom of shooting to give an unforgettable picture of poverty in our time. He is a boy we must watch and help, because a first success is a heavy burden to bear.’

 

Even now, fifty years later, I find this a very emotional assessment of Bill’s films by a man who had already had a very successful career, working with John Grierson and as part of the Ealing Studios. Clearly Harry strongly identified with Bill……but did he actually try to physically help this ‘Scots Boy’?

 

There are many who wanted to help and tried. Lindsay Anderson (1923-1994) – (who directed the films: This Sporting Life and If ), who also had Scots ancestry, encouraged Bill during the realisation of his autobiographical Trilogy of films around the same time (and is credited on the films). Consistently others, since, have recognised Bill’s strident uncompromising visual language; referred to as one of Scotland’s most powerful filmmakers and the many international awards testify to his achievements.

 

But in this country there are still some critics that seem only to experience unrelenting struggle and oppression exuding from the films rather than a portrayal of the essence of true life. And we might consider qualities of iconography similarly expressed in the integrity of Bresson, John Kay (Scots 18th Century portrait etcher), Courbet and Vermeer. I wonder too if Bill and Harry’s work has been examined in relation to the contrasting novelists Charles Dickens, Tolstoy, Emily Dickinson, Andrew O’Hagan and Irvine Welsh. There is still much to glean from artists who have gone before and fresh discoveries as part of the expanding Douglas film catalogue.

 

And for those requiring more breadth, this will be provided when viewing the often joyous, hilarious and downright inventive charm of Bill’s early pioneering 8mm films, created in the 1960s with Peter and friends. Recently restored and showing this year at Glasgow’s Short Film Festival at the GFT. The new, in depth, documentary ; Bill Douglas - My Best Friend was first screened at The Venice Festival in September 2023 and also presented at Glasgow Film Festival.

 

Despite Harry Watt’s considerable achievements and output which surpasses Bill, there is still a sense that Harry’s films, certainly the early works, were achieved as part of a team with folk like Flaherty, Grierson and Balcon. All films are produced as a form of creative collaboration.

 

Hence the significant renaissance of documentary film production;  but believe more need commissioned to flag up communities and individuals. This has been achieved at times in Scotland with personalities such as Jim Wilson (1923 – 2019) & Murray Grigor as docu/drama filmmaking pioneers with BBC Scotland in the 1960-1970s.

 

 

(Jim Wilson is in fact also featured in the BDCM website, not just for his films, but for his poem dedicated to Bill Douglas.

 

Film was, for all of us,

a new way of seeing;

it was, in truth, a magic lantern.

 

We saw a world that was

both reel and - yes – unreal;

it was dream-like, but a dream we shared.

 

So many strange journeys,

so much to discover;

nature formed us, and we formed nature.

 

In time, of course, we learned

how much is paradox;

screens got bigger, but also smaller.

 

And film could cloud our eyes,

as screens could hide the truth;

that lantern might lead us anywhere.

 

Yet – set in the midst

of so much confusion –

you found your place and led us to it.

 

You were both scout and guide,

taking us home again;

you found a path that we could follow.

 

 

 

The essay about Jim Wilson: Explorer and Teller of Celluloid Tales can be found on The Edinburgh University Press website.

 

 

But there are also Scots women filmmakers; Margaret Tait, Helen Biggar and Ruby Grierson, to name only a few, who should be considered as forerunners to Bill’s work. Within this sphere, I feel there is an expression of Filmic Folk –Art, melded within an expression of Social Politics? Interesting that Margaret Tait (1918-1999), although she was trained in Rome, also struggled to keep her production company viable, in Edinburgh, despite inventive determination. Her last major work being a feature film entitled Blue-Black Permanent -1992. Another individualist production which is often over-looked.

 

Sculptor/Filmmaker Helen Biggar (1909-1953) evolved as a multi-talented artist who was fortunate to collaborate with Norman MacLaren to produce early anti-war films, most notably, Hell Unlimited – 1936 which railed against the immoral profiteering of war-mongers. This film can be viewed on You Tube and I would be surprised if Peter and Bill hadn’t seen it at the cinema. Helen then worked with socialist theatre groups in Glasgow and London – another critical commentator on capitalism. Did she ever meet Joan Littlewood ?

 

Ruby Grierson (1903-1940) She and her sister Marion reveal their skills as pioneers who were often overshadowed by their strident brother John Grierson. But Ruby blazed a documentary trail through the 1930s; an ideologically driven artist who was tragically killed in 1940 when the ship in which she was travelling to Canada was torpedoed. Also Jenny Gilbertson (1902-1990) and Isabel Wylie Hutcheson, also from Edinburgh (1889 – 1982).

 

So I sense these artists formed the ground-swell of innovative filmmaking in which Harry contributed and also formed a cornucopia of evocative material for Bill to experience; this was often driven by the impact of world conflict, economic avarice and often violent exploitation. Colonial Empire building was also at the heart of sordid foreign policy and the promotion of this utilised film to a great extent.  And, I believe, this filmic melting pot influenced Watt, and then Douglas, when they shone an intense light on the local and international communities and their challenging situations.

 

 

However, what do Bill and Harry’s film-poems mean to us now in the 21st century?

 

Much of their work presents visceral cinema, social realism, documentary humanism with an ability to transcend and communicate across national boundaries. Often exciting and at times emotionally distressing; but forcing us to identify with the complex struggle of existence, for some, and what it means to be human?

 

The new documentary, My Best Friend, about Bill Douglas examines early forms of inspiration and explores his profoundly unique relationship with Peter Jewell, friend and creative collaborator for over forty years; their international cultural awareness revealing a multifaceted life influenced with a passion for sharing and experiencing the magic of cinema as portrayed in the films.

 

We are now overloaded with endless streaming of films, with no quality control of digital sensations right across the social media network. So it is refreshing to be reminded dynamically of tactile objects, representing a recognisable visual history, which is reinforced in Bill & Peter’s passion for collecting cinematic artefacts; physical, functional tools, toys and equipment which can be seen to illustrate the history of the moving image in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at The University of Exeter.

 

The first chapter in the Penguin Film Review drew me to Harry Watt’s detailed account of making his epic film; The Overlanders in 1946.  Sir Michael Balcon (Ealing Studios) had funded Harry Watt’s recce trip to Australia for scoping out the potential to make a film towards the end of WW2. Watt’s essay in Film Review entitled ‘You start from Scratch in Australia’ about the making of this film is visceral and entertaining in equal measure, which reminds me that the documentation of creating a film is so important, exciting, full of challenges, warts and all; often the equal in interest, as part of the process, to experiencing the completed film which is often heavily edited. Hence the documentaries often seen about the making of a film are often fascinating.

Reviewing this piece of research I’ve attempted to reveal how ‘creative free thinking’ enables artists and in particular these two Edinburgh born Scots filmmakers; Harry, and in Bill’s case through extreme struggle, to successfully complete films. Both worked in Australia, albeit 40 years apart. Their experiences down-under reveals some unexpected details.

What gives this account an interesting dimension, I think, is that these men were from extremely different social family backgrounds; and yet they were both fascinated by portraying the essence of human relationships. Especially the social spirit of folk, working with non-actors, and their struggle in society throughout history; the gradual challenge of minority groups demanding their democratic rights and the lengthy conflicts with State Control undertaken to seek equal rights and universal liberation.

 

Bill Douglas survived, with difficulty, in a dysfunctional family which was bonded to the feudal control of a coal mining community and overlord in Newcraighall. National Service with the RAF in 1952 took him physically and mentally to another place – Egypt - and it was his fortunate meeting with Peter where he realised a form of reinvention and discovery of a unique creative future. Albeit with very hard-won filmic commissions and desperately poor financial support for his individualistic projects. Like many creative Scots their work, sixty years ago, gained more appreciation, recognition and acclaim outwith Britain.

 

So was going to that arid continent of Australia like Bill returning, in a way, to Egypt ? Away from ‘introverted’ Britain to a non–urbanised environment; to some extent liberated by sunshine and the fantastic and yet also troubled imagined world of that 19th century colony of Britannia? However….. some of Bill’s family actually lived there. We know that when filming Comrades he had a short meeting with his father and spent some quality time with his sister Helen in Perth, Australia. The picture at the beginning of this article of Bill was taken by his sister Helen while he visited Australia to make Comrades.

 

The following anecdote by David Appleby reveals his introduction to Bill to undertake the role of ‘on location stills photographer’, in Dorset and Australia, for the epic film Comrades in 1985.

 ‘When Simon Relph asked me if I was free to work on a low budget British movie, shooting for 8 weeks in Dorset, in 1985, I jumped at the chance. I had not long returned from a gruelling 4 months in Colombia + Argentina on the film The Mission. So with this new project I would be close to home for the next two months. Then they were going to Australia for 4 weeks and at the last minute I got the chance to travel with the crew.

 ‘From day one I could tell that there was something very special about Bill. The way he constructed the scenes was very different from the other directors I had worked with. Normally a scene started with shooting a wide master shot. Then gradually the set-ups of the actors. ‘

 ‘Very often Bill would do the opposite and start with the camera focused on a very powerful image that he had in his head; such as a human eye or a close up of a door handle. Something he felt was a key image of the scene.

He would then work backwards and the final shot would be the establishing wide shot. Quite often a challenge for the director of photography, Gale Tattersall.

 ‘However he had worked with Bill before on the autobiographical Trilogy of films which arguably launched Bill’s career with crucial support from the British Film Institute.’

 

Picture by David Appleby of Bill Douglas filming Comrades in Australia with Jerry Flynn ( playing Tolpuddle martyr James Brine).

Harry Watt (1906 - 1987)

Without doubt Harry Watt received more of a head-start, than Bill, in Edinburgh engaging, but not completing, some university education paid for by an affluent family; his father was a Liberal MP. In 1932 Watt joined the Empire Marketing Board’s film production team under the direction of John Grierson. Shortly after Watt would support John Taylor in the, often improvised, film production of Robert Flaherty’s epic drama/documentary Man of Aran.

 

Harry Watt also learned by necessity to be a film-making multi-tasker when working with the pre-eminent master of film; Robert Flaherty. This developed his abilities as a diplomat, which may have been inherited from his father’s role as a politician. He was also head-hunted by Scotland’s filmic titan and some would say inventor of the term Documentary – John Grierson.

 

In fairness, his sisters Ruby and Marion were also at the heart of social filmmaking – working with often impoverished, exploited working class families, non actors with a story to tell; notably remembered in the epic documentary Housing Problems 1935 revealing the squalor of regular folk experiencing desperate living conditions in the slums of London. (Conditions were equally as morbid in most areas of Britain). The films captured emotional responses of tight communities , driven by desperation, and often portraying a feudal journey through life – families trying to earn a living and survive against extreme environmental and social adversity; often against the back-drop of desperate, exploitative, private land-lords. Ruby Grierson identified with these human issues and was very productive during her short life – poignantly, and with some prediction, another of her filmic achievements is entitled – Today We Live (1937). In this there is an echo of the challenges of Bill’s experience of community life in pre-WW2 Newcraighall –Edinburgh. ?

 

Watt’s future career was sealed by joining Grierson and the GPO film unit in the 1930s and contributing to one of the most successfully creative film-poem collaborations entitled Night Mail in 1936 with core input from W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten and a crew of cutting edge film producers, including Watt.

 

That film-poem proved how multi-dimensional and innovative audio-visual story telling could expand our perception. His work then was a preamble into a series of Ministry of Information propaganda film projects leading up to and during WW.2. But during that period of international conflict Sir Michael Balcon, the head of Ealing Studios, had great confidence in Watt and sent him on a mission to the antipodes.

 

The following anecdotes are quotes from Watt’s account describing his introduction to working in Australia as published in the Penguin Film Review journal published in 1949.

 'You start from Scratch in Australia' – Harry Watt

 

‘ The Overlanders(1944) was an experiment. I was sent out to Australia by Sir Michael Balcon purely on ‘spec’ to see if it was possible to make films there and, if so, to make one.

 

‘I was constantly called upon to advise Government Departments on their documentary films. I was finally summoned to the Ministry of Food and wearily trudged there, expecting to hear endless statistics about dried peas and dehydrated potatoes. The Minister had a way with him, however, and I soon got interested. He finally said: ‘You see, we do everything here. Why, in 1942 we even brought 100,000 head of cattle across half Australia.’

I suddenly did a ‘double-take’, got him back onto the cattle theme, and the film was born; 

‘…I tore off to the Northern Territory with a photographer, and in three weeks surveyed the whole route and established basic locations. We spent four days in the saddle with a travelling mob of cattle, and returned drunk with exhaustion. But mountains of hard work had to be done. We investigated all equipment in Australia and found two Mitchell cameras, one tucked away in a business man’s safe. The script was written at odd moments between 8am and midnight.

As it was war time I decided to look for young enthusiastic amateur technicians. The (film) unit  consisted of artists, scientists, young documentary workers, an ex-impresario, circus hands, writers, cattle men and a waiter.’

 

The Eureka Stockade  made in 1949:  The gold ‘diggers’ in Australia (1854) revolt against indifferent Govt. officials and ruthless law enforcement

(Curiously this period in history nearly synchronises with the chronology of the early 19th C. agricultural social revolt portrayed in Bill’s epic feature Comrades.

 

Quote by Harry Watt: regarding Eureka: 

‘This was one of the subjects I’d found when investigating the Australian scene. We documentary people had never tackled history, and here was an important historical moment that fell so perfectly into film shape that there was no need to distort events or create false situations. It could be treated completely realistically.So, as The Overlanders seemed to be popular, it was decided to have a crack at Eureka.’

 

Quotes from Harry Watt’s essay in the 1949 edition of Penguin’s Film Review magazine.

 

Watt also explains in his article that the Australian film industry, in the 1940s, was emerging slowly with initially poor indoor studio facilities…..hence his particular interest in working in the great outdoors.

 

So I’ve tried to give the work of Douglas and Watt, in Australia, context if we consider the impact of just a few personal favourite films from down-under created over the years.

 

Another local boy’s experience:

To put this personal account into perspective I need to explain why I became interested.

I grew up in Musselburgh in the 1950s, (where Bill often visited the Picture Houses in the 40s), near Newcraighall and experienced the intense social atmosphere within the mix of Industrial, Agricultural & Sea Fishing communities.

 

Then, many years later I trained as a public artist and after periods of time working in France, India and Australia I returned to help promote empowerment via the arts’. I became inspired by the Social Reformer & Ecologist Patrick Geddes and Theosophist Annie Besant; adopting creativity as a catalyst. So with my passion and creed I embarked on much educational work, locally and internationally. With this awareness I befriended like-minded folk, some involved with Craigmillar Community Arts.

 

In 2010 I was made aware that the famous pedestrian rail-bridge featured in Bill’s Newcraighall film My Childhood was under threat and to be demolished due to encroaching property development.

 

So with artist friend Mike Greenlaw, the then, manager of the Craigmillar Art Centre we embarked on a collaborative project to try to save the bridge – which sadly failed.

 

This took the form of a schools and community project, supported by Sustrans,(a transport charity). To assist raising awareness we organised the delivery of a Bill Douglas Film Weekend at the church art centre, showing Bill’s films.

 

Coincidentally, a conference was held in the University of Exeter in September 2011. As a result I was introduced to Peter Jewell and Phil Wickham curator of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum - Exeter and Simon Relph, producer of Comrades.

 

Peter generously helped fund the Bill Weekend in Scotland which he also attended a month later, at the old Church Art Centre on the outskirts of Edinburgh. I created a video diary of the Exeter conference and also a short film made covering the local community & school of Newcraighall.

Many folk contributed and the video-diary includes their recorded responses to Bill Douglas and their own memories of childhood in the local area.

 

Scot Rail innovatively also printed large posters, with many school pupils designs, which were displayed on the rail platform at Newcraighall Railway Station.

 

However we achieved a broader legacy by re-engaging with Bill’s old community.

The evolving friendship and continuing interaction with Peter Jewell, Phil Wickham and the BDCM has been marvellous, plus the great opportunity for me to design two stainless steel sculptures commemorating Bill’s work.

 

One sculpture; A Place of Dreams installed at Newcraighall Railway Station in 2012(now part of Craigmillar Art Trail) and a second, Reflected Vision, outside the BDCM in 2015 at Exeter.

 

So I feel that a unique cultural bond has been re-ignited and continues to be galvanised between Edinburgh and Exeter with Bill Douglas being the creative catalyst that connects the two geographic places hundreds of miles apart. With Bill’s passion for trains, expressed in My Childhood, it’s interesting also to think of the contemporary railway-line as a creative conduit between the two major cities ! It’s exciting to feel that there is a resurgence of interest in Bill’s work.

 

The creation of a new book about Bill Douglas, Bill Douglas; A Film Artist by Exeter University Press reinforces the interest and through attending the book launch, in 2022, I was introduced to photographer, David Appleby ( who worked with Bill during the filming of Comrades) and David’s wife Juliana Malucelli; both of whom have renewed friendships. In relation to this we have been developing a portrait card print project inspired by Peter’s relationship with Bill and the Museum they both helped establish.

 

We are reminded with David’s work of the importance of photographic documentation of the struggles of making films, on international locations, which can be as interesting and stimulating as the completed movie, which can often be heavily edited.

 

So, I see this piece of research as a beginning rather than an end to promote further enquiry into the work of all these teams of filmic practitioners within a complex, but essential, process and often under-valued aspect of recording within the British film history.

 

And hence this piece raises more questions than answers.

 

I hope this comparative sketch will stimulate feedback during this year when Bill Douglas films are getting more exposure than ever and that the recent book about Douglas will encourage others to write and read about these fascinating creatives.

 

For me this study has formed a stimulating quest for a response examining associations, real and imagined, over some years, considering links between two international filmmakers: Harry Watt and Bill Douglas, who were aware and I suggest have been inspired by one another’s work.

Finding that book was the particular trigger which brought Watt back into focus and helped reveal to me observed links with Douglas and the genuine relationship between both original  filmmakers who were ‘visual thinkers’ (as Scots social reformer Patrick Geddes would have said) and the important position they all have earned as part of a cultural Scottish Renaissance.

 

And all conceived by a fruitful visit to the Oxfam bookshop in Stockbridge, Edinburgh in December 2023. !

 

A special charity shop with a stimulating cabinet of curiosities - certainly worth revisiting.!

 

Kenny Munro  Summer 2024………………[email protected]

 

 

 

 

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