71 Facts About John Grierson

John Grierson was a Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film.

In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J Flaherty's Moana.

In 1939, Grierson established the all-time Canadian film institutional production and distribution company The National Film Board of Canada controlled by the Government of Canada.

John Grierson was born in the old schoolhouse in Deanston, near Doune, Scotland, to schoolmaster Robert Morrison John Grierson from Boddam, near Peterhead, and Jane Anthony, a teacher from Ayrshire.

The family moved to Cambusbarron, Stirling, in 1900, when the children were still young, after John Grierson's father was appointed headmaster of Cambusbarron school.

John Grierson was enrolled in the High School at Stirling in September 1908, and he played football and rugby for the school.

The results for the bursary examination were not posted until October 1915; John Grierson applied to work at the munitions at Alexandria; the munitions building had been the original home of the Argyll Motor Company which had earlier in the twentieth century built the first complete motor car in Scotland.

John Grierson entered the University of Glasgow in 1916; however, he was unhappy that his efforts to help in World War I were only through his work at the munitions.

Grierson wanted to join the navy; his family on his father's side had long been lighthouse keepers, and John had many memories of visiting lighthouses and being beside the sea.

John Grierson went to the Crystal Palace in London to train with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

On 7 January 1916, John Grierson was sent to the wireless telegraphy station at Aultbea, Cromarty, as an ordinary telegraphist but was promoted to telegraphist on 2 June 1916.

John Grierson returned to university in 1919; he joined the Fabian Society in 1919 and dissolved it in 1921.

John Grierson was particularly interested in the popular appeal and influence of the "yellow" press, and the influence and role of these journals on the education of new American citizens from abroad.

John Grierson's emerging and outspoken film philosophies caught the attention of New York film critics at the time.

John Grierson was asked to write criticism for the New York Sun.

At the Sun, John Grierson wrote articles on film aesthetics and audience reception, and developed broad contacts in the film world.

John Grierson returned to Great Britain in 1927 armed with the sense that film could be enlisted to build national morale and consensus, and to deal with social problems, a theory he would enact especially during the Great Depression.

Less commendable in John Grierson's view was Flaherty's invalidating focus on exotic and faraway cultures.

On his return to England, John Grierson was employed on a temporary basis as an Assistant Films Officer of the Empire Marketing Board, a governmental agency which had been established in 1926 to promote British world trade and British unity throughout the empire.

John Grierson became a tireless organizer and recruiter for the EMB, enlisting a stable of energetic young filmmakers into the film unit between 1930 and 1933.

John Grierson's crew were charged with demonstrating how the Post Office facilitated modern communication and brought the nation together, a task aimed as much at GPO workers as the general public.

In 1934, John Grierson sailed on the Isabella Greig out of Granton to film Granton Trawler on Viking Bank which is between Shetland and the Norwegian coast.

The Private Life of Gannets was filmed on the Isabella Greig; the film was shot on Grassholm with John Grierson shooting the slow-motion sequence of the gannets diving for fish which took only one afternoon to shoot near Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth.

John Grierson eventually grew restless with having to work within the bureaucratic and budgetary confines of government sponsorship.

John Grierson was finally successful in getting the British gas industry to underwrite an annual film program.

In 1938, John Grierson was invited by the Canadian government to study the country's film production.

John Grierson sailed at the end of May in 1938 for Canada and arrived on 17 June.

John Grierson met with the Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King and spoke with many important figures across Canada, they were all in agreement of the importance of film in reducing sectionalism and in promoting the relationship of Canada between home and abroad.

John Grierson delivered his report on government film propaganda and the weaknesses he had found in Canadian film production; his suggestion was to create a national coordinating body for the production of films.

John Grierson returned to Britain but was invited back to Canada on 14 October 1938; he returned in November.

John Grierson was appointed the first Commissioner of the National Film Board in October 1939.

John Grierson grieved the death of his sister Ruby in 1940; she was on the SS City of Benares while it was evacuating one hundred children to Canada.

Ruby John Grierson had managed to enter Lifeboat 8, full with more than thirty people, including eighteen girls and two female escorts, but as it was lowering, a wave crashed into the lifeboat, sending it into a vertical position, and throwing everyone in that boat into the sea.

Recommendations for the future running were made for the National Film Board, and John Grierson was persuaded to stay for a further six months to oversee the changes.

John Grierson remained on the National Film Board and managed to complete his duties to Wartime Information Board as well through his deputies that aided him in the task.

John Grierson was asked to keep his dual role until January 1944 he resigned in 1943 as the job he had been asked to complete had been finished as far as he was concerned.

On 26 February 1942, John Grierson attended the Academy Awards and received the award on behalf of the National Film Board for Churchill's Island.

John Grierson presented the award for the best documentary, the first time that this award was given by the Academy.

John Grierson proposed that the Film Board show how the German prisoners of war were being treated in Canada through a film.

John Grierson was to learn at a later date that Hitler had indeed watched the film and ordered that the Canadian prisoners of war released from their manacles.

In December 1943 John Grierson was elected by the Permanent Film Committee of the National Council for Canadian-Soviet Friendship to become honorary chairman.

One of the tasks at the National Film Board that John Grierson strongly pushed for the films being produced to be in French as well as English.

John Grierson pushed for a French unit in the National Film Board.

John Grierson concentrated on documentary film production in New York after resigning his post following in August 1945; his resignation was to take effect in November 1945.

In 1946 John Grierson was asked to testify as part of the investigation of the Gouzenko Affair regarding communist spies in the National Film Board and the Wartime Information Board, rumours spread that he had been a leader of a spy ring during his offices with the Canadian government, a rumour he denied.

John Grierson was appointed as a foreign adviser to the Commission on Freedom of the Press in December 1943, which had been set up by the University of Chicago.

John Grierson was offered the position of head of information at UNESCO at the end of 1946; he attended the first General Conference of UNESCO from 26 November until 10 December in Paris.

John Grierson had the idea for the Unesco Courier which was published in several languages across the world, first as a tabloid and later as a magazine.

John Grierson was invited to open the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1947, from 31 August to 7 September.

In February 1948, John Grierson was appointed the controller of the Central Office of Information's film operations to co-ordinate the work of the Crown Film Unit and Films Division, and to take overall charge of the planning, production and distribution of government films.

John Grierson left in 1950 due to financial restrictions on the documentaries that he wished to make.

John Grierson was appointed to the position of executive producer of Group 3 at the end of 1950; it was a film production enterprise that received loans of government money through the National Film Finance Corporation.

John Grierson spent much of his time corresponding with the directors at Group 3, as well as commenting on scripts and story ideas.

John Grierson had recovered enough to attend the Cannes Film Festival in April 1954, taking the production of Man of Africa.

John Grierson joined the newly revived Films of Scotland Committee in 1955.

In 1956, John Grierson was the president of the Venice Film Festival's jury; he was jury president at the Cork Film Festival and the South American Film Festival in 1958.

John Grierson wrote the script for, Seawards the Great Ships, which was directed by Hilary Harris and awarded an Academy Award in 1961, a feat for the Films of Scotland Committee.

In 1961, John Grierson was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

In 1965, John Grierson was the patron of the Commonwealth Film Festival which took place in Cardiff in that year.

In 1967, after returning from the Oberhausen Film Festival where he had been the President of Honour of the jury, John Grierson suffered a bout of bronchitis which lasted eight days.

John Grierson decided to give up smoking and drinking to benefit his health.

John Grierson opened the new primary school at Cambusbarron on 10 October 1967; his sister Dorothy attended the day with him.

John Grierson was made an honorary member of the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians; he pressed for the ceremony to be held in Glasgow.

John Grierson received the Golden Thistle Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Art of Cinema at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

In January 1969, John Grierson left for Canada to lecture at McGill University; enrollment for his classes grew to around seven hundred students.

At Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh on 8 July 1969, John Grierson received an Honorary Doctorate of Literature.

John Grierson was a member of the jury for the Canadian Film Awards in 1970.

John Grierson spent a few months in 1971, travelling around India instilling the importance of having small production units throughout the country.

John Grierson returned to the UK in December 1971 and was meant to travel back to India; however, his trip was delayed by the Indo-Pakistani War.

John Grierson went into hospital for a health check-up in January 1972; he was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer and was given months to live.

The Grierson Documentary Film Awards were established in 1972 to commemorate John Grierson and are currently supervised by The Grierson Trust.