"WORLD OF PLENTY"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 286, 15 December 1944, Page 14

"WORLD OF PLENTY"

A Filema About Food

[T was recently reported that commercial picture theatres in Sydney had refused to show the British Ministry of Information documentary film, ‘""World of Plenty.’ In Britain the authorities insisted on its release. Several copies of this film have been in New Zealand for some months, and it has been shown to a good many special groups, though not to the general public. Here is something about it (the captions to the illustrations are from the commentary written by the late Eric Knight):

‘THE present indications are | that World of Plenty is unlikely to be shown in the ordinary way at theatres in New Zealand. I have heard it

suggested that this is because it runs ior about, 50 minutes, and would therefore occupy almost the entire first half of the programme. Yet there are signs that many picturegoers are fed up with the 10-minute dance-band-and-crooner items, the fatuous cartoons and comedies, which conventionally comprise the major part of the average supporting programme, and that they would welcome something longer and more intelligent for an occasional change. It has also been suggested that World of Plenty is too radical in its political im-

plications. Yet it was produced by the British Ministry of Information, and introduces in support of its argument such reputable figures as President Roosevelt, Lord Woolton, Sir John Orr, Sir John Russell, Lord Horder and Dr. Wellington Koo. The Times insisted editorially that it should be shown in British theatres. And it provides probably the ideal medium for giving our people a background of understanding as to the responsibilities which New Zealand has assumed under the UNRRA programme. For these reasons, one is fully entitled to ask questions about the future of World of Plenty. But there is another and entirely non-political reason: this is an outstanding example of the documentary film — a type of film which audiences in this country have too often been denied the right of seeing. It was produced by Paul Rotha, one of the great pioneers of the documentary movement, and it gives a good idea of what the cinema can accomplish as a means of enlightenment as well as of entertainment when it is directed with intelligence towards constructive ends. * * bo {00D is the subject of the film-the world strategy of food, how it is grown, how it is harvested, how it is marketed, how it is eaten. In peace or war, says the commentator, food is man’s Security No, 1. The price of food may change, but its worth in human needs is always the same. "One acre of wheat fills only just so many hungry bellies, whether the price be high or low. Put all the money you can earn on the counter — it can’t buy more than the soil can give." That central theme and its. implications’ are developed by all the arts of (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) the expert documentalist-by diagrams, by humorous and witty asides, by excerpts from newsreels and the speeches of national leaders, by bringing world authorities on farming and nutrition before the microphone to state their case while the camera presents it graphically and pictorially, end best of all by the apparently casual device of having the cameraman accost ordinary men, women and children in order to bring the discussion down out of the clouds of international finance and trade to the level of simple human needs. The sequence in which a British housewife is interviewed during a wartime shopping expedition is an excellent example of the last-mentioned technique. Throughout, emotional effect is gained by the juxtaposition of scenes of poverty and plenty: of people unemployed and starving during the depression while in other places food is destroyed to keep the price of it up. Contrast, indeed, is the favourite method used to thrust home the argument of World of Plenty, and for this purpose it is divided into three parts. "We looked at peace and the whole food plan was crazy," says the commentator, introducing the third section on "food as it might be." "Then the world goes mad and people start being sensible about food. What’ll happen when the war is over? I wonder if they’ll begin destroying food again?" Not, he continues, if we remember what we have learned: "To go back to the old scramble for markets, where every nation tried to export as much and to import as little as possiblethis will lead to still another world war and eventual world suicide. International trade doesn’t make sense unless it is based on supplying human needs by making the resources of the whole world available to all the peoples of the world. Commonsense demands internationai control of world products for the common man. A world food plan will be necessary." * % b VEN put down baldly like that the argument is powerful: when expounded by Eric Knight and by Paul

Rotha and his camera wizards it is unanswerable. Propagandist? Yes, of course World of Plenty is propagandist. But so are more than half the features now dished up by Hollywood and Elstree under the guise of entertainment. The chief difference is that the propaganda in World of Plenty is imaginative and constructive as well as _ entertaining, making some demands on the intelligence of audiences instead of treating them as congenital half-wits who cannot be trusted with both sides of a story. This is super-salesmanship: Paul Rotha, one feels, could easily sell refrigerators to Eskimos. It may be more difficult for him to sell the idea of true international co-operation to the rugged individualists who aspire to control food cartels and combines in the post-war world, but that would not matter much if the common man everywhere could be given the opportunity to see this film in defence

of his stomach.

G.

M.