Jack Ellitt as Director: Documentary Films of the 1940s

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-359
Author(s):  
Andy Birtwistle
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Experimental Music ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Creative Collaboration ◽  
Film Maker ◽  
Recorded Sound ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Key Aspects

This article examines the work of the film-maker and composer Jack Ellitt (1902–2001) who remains something of an enigmatic and marginal figure in historical accounts of British documentary cinema. Research on Ellitt has so far focused on two key aspects of his life and career: firstly, his association with the New Zealand-born film-maker and artist Len Lye, and secondly, his pioneering work as a composer of electro-acoustic music. However, little research been undertaken on the work that he produced during the three decades he spent working as a documentary director in the British film industry, beginning in the early 1940s and ending with his retirement in the 1970s. He was a member of the remarkable generation of film-makers associated with the British documentary movement, and a composer whose radical experiments with recorded sound might well have secured him a more prominent place in the history of experimental music than is currently the case. Focusing on films made by Ellitt during the 1940s, the primary aim of this article is to offer a chronological appraisal of his early work as documentary director, while also considering what new perspectives this group of films might offer on his earlier creative collaboration with Lye, and the extent to which his radical experiments in electro-acoustic composition may have influenced the use of sound within the films he directed.

scholarly journals “We are not changing it”: A Reassessment of the History of the Flag

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Christoffel
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Flag ◽  
Historical Accounts

According to conventional historical accounts, the New Zealand Ensign Act 1901 changed the national flag from the Union Jack to the current flag. This article shows that the 1901 Act did not change the national flag; it merely reconfirmed that the New Zealand ensign was ‘the recognised flag of the colony’. During 1900 the public became confused when an apparent rival national flag emerged thanks to a bureaucratic bungle. The 1901 Act abolished the rival flag, which was highly unpopular due to its unsightly white disc. 

scholarly journals Families and the 1951 New Zealand waterfront lockout

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Grace Millar
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
The Family ◽  
Material State ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Historical Accounts

<p>From February to July 1951, 8,000 New Zealand watersider workers were locked-out and 7,000 miners, seamen and freezing workers went on strike in support. These workers and those who were dependent on their income, had to survive without wages for five months. The dispute was a family event as well as an industrial event. The men were fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, and their lack of wages affected the family that they lived with and their wider kin networks. The thesis examines families in order to write a gendered social history of the 1951 waterfront dispute.  The discussion starts by exploring the relationship between waterfront work and watersiders' families before the lockout. Then it turns to examine the material support that families received and the survival strategies used during the dispute. It examines the decisions union branches made about relief and other activities through the lens of gender and explores the implications of those decisions for family members. The subsequent chapters examine the dispute's end and long-term costs on families. The study draws on a mixture of union material, state archives and oral sources. The defeat of the union has meant that union material has largely survived in personal collections, but the state's active involvement in the dispute generated significant records. The oral history of 1951 is rich; this thesis draws on over fifty existing oral history interviews with people involved in the dispute, and twenty interviews completed for this project.  The thesis both complicates and confirms existing understandings of 1950s New Zealand. It complicates the idea of a prosperous conformist society, while confirming and deepening our understanding of the role of the family and gender relationships in the period. It argues that union branches put considerable effort into maintaining the gender order during the dispute and set up relief as a simulacrum of the breadwinner wage. Centring workers' families opens the dispute outwards to the communities they were part of. Compared to previous historical accounts, the thesis describes a messier and less contained 1951 waterfront dispute. This study shows that homes were a site of the dispute. The domestic work of ensuring that a family managed without wages was largely women's and was as much part of the dispute as collective union work, which was often organised to exclude women. The thesis argues that homes and families were the sharp edges of the 1951 waterfront dispute, the site of both its costs and crises.</p>

Dangerous Ground or Rich New Research Methods? Using Digital Genealogy to Trace Colonial Mobility

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-125
Author(s):  
Sue McCliskie
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Family Networks ◽  
New Information ◽  
History Of ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
New Research ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Hybrid Methodology

More than 3,000 emigrants took up the New Zealand Company's offer of a free or assisted passage to Nelson, the company's Second Colony of New Zealand, from 1841 to 1844 – but did they stay? This article outlines an academic project that combines genealogy techniques and sources with more conventional research, in order to reveal new information about colonial migrants who are often ‘invisible’ in historical accounts. These were predominantly poor English families (with some Germans, Scots and Irish), and they were part of the earliest stages of British colonisation of New Zealand. Genealogy websites such as Ancestry and FamilySearch proved to be central to this research. They provided a gateway to an astonishing amount of information that could ‘locate’ an individual or family, tying them to a certain place, without the researcher knowing which place to look for. This project highlights some of the limitations and dangers of using genealogy methods and sources in academic research – as well as what might be gained. The results suggest that this kind of hybrid methodology incorporating genealogy research can be used successfully within an academic study. In this project, the intricacies of colonial family networks were illuminated, even though the subjects were poor and continued to move around. Surprisingly high levels of mobility were identified, and this was true of women and children as well as men. These findings suggests that using genealogy to trace patterns of colonial mobility is not only important to gain an understanding of individual lives but may also contribute significantly to a better understanding of the larger processes of migration, colonisation and the history of colonial ‘places’.

scholarly journals Families and the 1951 New Zealand waterfront lockout

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Grace Millar
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
The Family ◽  
Material State ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Historical Accounts

<p>From February to July 1951, 8,000 New Zealand watersider workers were locked-out and 7,000 miners, seamen and freezing workers went on strike in support. These workers and those who were dependent on their income, had to survive without wages for five months. The dispute was a family event as well as an industrial event. The men were fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, and their lack of wages affected the family that they lived with and their wider kin networks. The thesis examines families in order to write a gendered social history of the 1951 waterfront dispute.  The discussion starts by exploring the relationship between waterfront work and watersiders' families before the lockout. Then it turns to examine the material support that families received and the survival strategies used during the dispute. It examines the decisions union branches made about relief and other activities through the lens of gender and explores the implications of those decisions for family members. The subsequent chapters examine the dispute's end and long-term costs on families. The study draws on a mixture of union material, state archives and oral sources. The defeat of the union has meant that union material has largely survived in personal collections, but the state's active involvement in the dispute generated significant records. The oral history of 1951 is rich; this thesis draws on over fifty existing oral history interviews with people involved in the dispute, and twenty interviews completed for this project.  The thesis both complicates and confirms existing understandings of 1950s New Zealand. It complicates the idea of a prosperous conformist society, while confirming and deepening our understanding of the role of the family and gender relationships in the period. It argues that union branches put considerable effort into maintaining the gender order during the dispute and set up relief as a simulacrum of the breadwinner wage. Centring workers' families opens the dispute outwards to the communities they were part of. Compared to previous historical accounts, the thesis describes a messier and less contained 1951 waterfront dispute. This study shows that homes were a site of the dispute. The domestic work of ensuring that a family managed without wages was largely women's and was as much part of the dispute as collective union work, which was often organised to exclude women. The thesis argues that homes and families were the sharp edges of the 1951 waterfront dispute, the site of both its costs and crises.</p>

American Film Industry in World War I Period

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (5) ◽  
pp. 52-68
Author(s):  
Filipp Kovtonyuk
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Film ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Film Market ◽  
American Film Industry

The paper deals with the history of economic development of the film industry in the United States during the First World War. The beginning of XX century seems to be a very special stage of cinema development, in particular from the point of the history of national economy, since exactly at this time took place a formation of the world film market, and cinema for the first time was used not only as a commodity but also as an instrument of mass propaganda. The purpose of article is to trace the development of the American film business and its key aspects in the early XX century and during the war, based on the analysis of the relevant literature. Film industry is considered as a system of production, distribution and exhibition of audiovisual products. This article contains the conclusions concerning the global expansion of the US film industry in a specified period. Also substantiated the fact that the middle 1900s became an extremely important period in the development of the American film industry, during which the basics of the classical Hollywood business model were established.

scholarly journals The Experience of Solidarity in Poland under Communist Rule and Thereafter

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Solska
Keyword(s):  
Positive Impact ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
Common Enemy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Key Aspects

Although Solidarność was the largest mass movement in the history of after-war Europe, the experience of solidarity during that time in communist Poland has barely been analysed. Drawing on historical accounts of the events in the 1980s and press interviews with Solidarność members, this paper attempts to bridge this gap and identifies key aspects of the experienced solidarity. It argues that the solidarity under communism in Poland derived not only from the common enemy – the communist party state – but was deeply rooted in Catholic social thought and the national identity. It was driven mainly by ideas of protection of human dignity, mutual aid, participation and a demand for “life in truth”. Since 2015, the new social policy has had initially positive impact on income inequality, birth rates and poverty but must be accompanied by further measures to obtain a long-term character.

Challenges facing the farmers of Central Otago

2014 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 25-28
Author(s):  
D.R. Stevens ◽  
J.P. Garden
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Valley Floor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Iconic Status

The Central Otago region, with its cold winters and hot summers, and valley floors with uplift mountains is definitely "a world of difference". At the NZGA conference in Alexandra in 1966 John Hercus stated "Central Otago has a lure which sets it apart from the rest of New Zealand. Its characteristics of geology, topography and climate, its history of occupation and exploitation, its scenery at once forbidding and yet strangely fascinating - these features combine to cast a spell which few who have been exposed, can ever fully escape" (Hercus 1966). The region and its high country have an iconic status epitomised by the "Southern Man" stereotype. This places Central Otago deep in the psyche of the nation. With this goes a unique and significant set of conditions under which farming must take place. Not only does the region have the biophysical challenges of soils, water and climate to contend with, but a wider set of values, often imposed from elsewhere. Fifty years after that first conference we remain challenged. What are the opportunities in front of us and how should we best accommodate the challenge of maintaining a viable enterprise and at the same time, respecting the intense public and customer interest in our use of land and livestock? Central Otago and the associated high country of the Lakes district and McKenzie basin can be divided into three farming types. These are the valley floor irrigable type, the flat and downland dryland regions, and the high country. Each of these has challenges that are at times unique, but often overlap with problems faced in other regions.

The status of Gideon Mantell's “first” Iguanodon tooth in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN C. YALDWYN ◽  
GARRY J. TEE ◽  
ALAN P. MASON
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gideon Mantell

A worn Iguanodon tooth from Cuckfield, Sussex, illustrated by Mantell in 1827, 1839, 1848 and 1851, was labelled by Mantell as the first tooth sent to Baron Cuvier in 1823 and acknowledged as such by Sir Charles Lyell. The labelled tooth was taken to New Zealand by Gideon's son Walter in 1859. It was deposited in a forerunner of the Museum of New Zealand, Wellington in 1865 and is still in the Museum, mounted on a card bearing annotations by both Gideon Mantell and Lyell. The history of the Gideon and Walter Mantell collection in the Museum of New Zealand is outlined, and the Iguanodon tooth and its labels are described and illustrated. This is the very tooth which Baron Cuvier first identified as a rhinoceros incisor on the evening of 28 June 1823.

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