Humphrey Jennings, (August 19, 1907 Walberswick, Suffolk - September 24, 1950 Greece), was a British film-maker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organization. Jennings was described by film maker Lindsay Anderson as: "the only real poet that British cinema has yet produced." August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Walberswick is a village on the Suffolk coast, across the River Blyth from Southwold and close to Orford Ness. ... September 24 is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years). ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Mass-Observation was a United Kingdom social research organisation founded in 1937. ... Lindsay Anderson (April 17, 1923 - August 30, 1994), English film and documentary director. ... A poet is some one who writes poetry. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

He was the son of an architect father, and a painter mother. He studied at Cambridge where, when not studying, he created advanged stage designs and was the founder-editor of Experiment in collaboration with William Empson and Jacob Bronowski. After graduating with a starred First Class degree in English from Pembroke College, Cambridge, Jennings did a number of jobs - including photographer, painter and theatre designer. In 1929, he married Cicely Cooper. He evenually found his niche in John Grierson's GPO Film Unit in 1934. Architect at his drawing board, 1893 An architect is a person involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a buildings construction. ... Sir William Empson (27 September 1906 – 15 April 1984) was an English poet and literary critic, sometimes reckoned the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt and fitting heir to their mode of witty, fiercely heterodox and imaginatively rich criticism. ... Jacob Bronowski (January 18, 1908, Lódź, Poland - August 22, 1974, East Hampton, New York, USA) was the presenter of the BBC television documentary series, The Ascent of Man which inspired Carl Sagans Cosmos series. ... The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian. ... Full name Pembroke College Motto - Named after Countess of Pembroke, Mary de St Pol Previous names Marie Valence Hall (1347), Pembroke Hall (?), Pembroke College (1856) Established 1347 Sister College(s) Queens College Master Sir Richard Dearlove Location Trumpington Street Undergraduates ~420 Postgraduates 194 Homepage Boatclub Pembroke College is a... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... John Grierson (April 26, 1898 - February 19, 1972) is often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. ... The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In 1936 Jennings helped with the organisation of the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London, in association with Herbert Read and André Breton. It was at about this time that Jennings became involved in the start-up stages of Mass Observation, and was to make the film May the Twelfth as a montage of the 1937 coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth for Mass Observation. 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London. ... Sir Herbert Edward Read, MC, DSO (1893–1968) was an English poet and critic of literature and art. ... André Breton (February 18, 1896 – September 28, 1966) was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist. ... Mass-Observation was a United Kingdom social research organisation founded in 1937. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor) (14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was the third British monarch of the House of Windsor, reigning from 11 December 1936 until his death. ...

With the outbreak of World War II, the GPO Film Unit became the Crown Film Unit, a movie-making propaganda arm of the Ministry of Information, and Jennings joined the new organisation. Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... It has been suggested that Propaganda in the United States be merged into this article or section. ... The term Ministry of Information may refer to the following: Minister of Information - A British government position during the First and Second World War. ...

Jennings made only one feature length film, the 70-minute Fires Were Started (1943), also known as I Was A Fireman, a wartime propaganda movie detailing the work of the Auxiliary Fire Service, which blurred the lines between fiction and documentary. This film, which uses techniques such as montage is considered one of the classics of the genre. Fires Were Started (1943) is a British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings. ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... MONTAGE MONTAGE [1] American pop group (1991-current) consisting of singer/songwriter Chris Jones, drummer/songwriter Andrew Doss and various guitarists. ... A genre is a division of a particular form of art according to criteria particular to that form. ...

He made a number of notable short films, inclusively patriotic in sentiment and very English in their sensibility, such as: Spare Time; Our Country, The Dim Little Island, A Diary for Timothy (written by E.M. Forster), Words for Battle, London Can Take It!, and Family Portrait (his last film, which tells of the Festival of Britain). Co-directed with Stewart McAllister, Jennings' best remembered short film, made 1942, is Listen to Britain. Excerpts are often seen in other in documentaries, especially portions of one of the concerts given by Dame Myra Hess in the National Gallery while its collection was evacuated for safe-keeping. Edward Morgan Forster (January 1, 1879 - June 7, 1970) was an English novelist. ... The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition which opened in May 1951 in London. ... Myra Hess Dame Myra Hess (February 25, 1890 – November 25, 1965) was a British pianist. ... The National Gallery from Trafalgar Square The National Gallery is an art gallery in London, located on the north side of Trafalgar Square. ...

He died in a fall on the cliffs of the Greek island of Poros, while scouting locations for a future film on post-war healthcare in Europe. He is buried near T.H. White in the Protestant Cemetery at Athens. This Poros is an island pair. ... Terence Hanbury White (May 29, 1906 - January 17, 1964) was a writer. ... Athens (Greek: Αθήνα, Athína (IPA: )) is the capital of Greece and one of the most famous cities in the world, named after goddess Athena. ...

Humphrey Jennings' reputation always remained very high among film makers, but had faded among others. His films appear strikingly different from the 'social critique' approach which typified the documentaries of Grierson and his "school" of the 1930s and the feature films of the 1960s and 70s such as Lindsay Anderson'sThis Sporting Life (1962) or Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... Lindsay Anderson (April 17, 1923 - August 30, 1994), English film and documentary director. ... This Sporting Life is also a radio program in Australia. ... Karel Reisz (born 1926, Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, died London, United Kingdom, 2002) was a Jewish refugee who became one of the most important film-makers in post war Britain. ... Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a British novel by Alan Sillitoe (his second, in 1958), a film starring Albert Finney, directed by Karel Reisz, adapted from the novel by its author, and later, in 1964, a success as a stage play, adapted by David Brett for the Nottingham Playhouse...

After 2001 this situation was partly rectified: firstly by the feature-length documentary by Oscar-winning documentary-maker Kevin Macdonald, Humphrey Jennings: The Man Who Listened to Britain (made by Figment Films in 2002 for British television's Channel 4); and secondly by Kevin Jackson's monumental 450-page biography Humphrey Jennings (Picador, 2004). In 2003 two of his films, Listen to Britain and Spare Time, were included in the Tate Britain retrospective, A Century of Artists' Film in Britain which featured the work of over one hundred filmmakers. 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... Academy Awards The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent film awards in the United States and most watched awards ceremony in the world. ... Kevin Macdonald (October 28, 1967) is a Scottish documentary film director, best known for Touching the Void (2003). ... British television broadcasting has a range of different broadcasters, broadcasting multiple channels over a variety of distribution media. ... Channel 4 is a public service television broadcaster in the United Kingdom (see British television). ... Tate Britain is a part of the Tate Gallery in Britain, along with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. ...

As of 2005, nearly all the films of Humphrey Jennings are available on DVDs. DVD-R writing/reading side DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...

Further reading

• Jackson, Kevin (Ed.). The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader (Carcanet, 1993)
• Jackson, Kevin. Humphrey Jennings (Picador, 2004).

External links

• Channel 4 site about Jennings
• the BFI's "screenonline" site about Jennings
• Humphrey Jennings on Find-A-Grave