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John Grierson Biography

John Grierson CBE (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) was a pioneering 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 Flaherty's Moana.

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John Grierson Quotes

When quick results are imperative, the manipulation of the masses through symbols may be the only quick way of having a critical thing done.

Done, Manipulation, May, Results, Way

I look on cinema as a pulpit, and use it as a propagandist.

Cinema, Looks, Propagandist, Pulpit, Use

My view. . . would be that we are entering upon a new and interim society which is neither capitalist nor socialist, but in which we can achieve central planning without loss of individual initiative, by the mere process of absorbing initiative in the function of planning.

Entering, Individual, Loss, Mere, Views, Would Be

Beware the ends of the earth and the exotic: the drama is on your doorstep wherever the slums; are, wherever there is malnutrition, wherever there is exploitation and cruelty.

Doorstep, Drama, Earth, Exotic, Wherever

We believe that the cinema's capacity for getting around, for observing and selecting from life itself can be exploited in a new and vital art form

Art, Believe, Capacity, Cinema, Exploited

It is often more important to act than to understand. . . there are times. . . when two conflicting opinions, though one happens to be right, are more perilous than one opinion which is wrong.

Happens, Important, Opinion, Though, Times, Two

Art is not a mirror but a hammer.

Art, Hammer, Hammers, Mirror, Mirrors

Some of us learned in a school of philosophy which taught that all was for the common good and nothing for oneself and have never, in any case, regarded the pursuit of happiness as anything other than an aberration of the human spirit.

Aberration, Nothing, Oneself, Philosophy, Pursuit Of Happiness, School

We believe that the materials and the stories taken from the raw can be finer (more real in the philosophic sense) than the acted article.

Believe, Finer, Real, Stories, Taken

In fact, the individual outlook becomes less and less valuable and more and more harmful unless it is transmitted into the corporate outlook.

Becomes, Fact, Facts, Individual, Outlook, Transmitted

Political conflicts distort and disturb a people's sense of distinction between matters of importance and matters of urgency. What is vital is disguised by what is merely a matter of well being.

Matter, Merely, People, Political, Sense

And, consequently, the art of propaganda or public information becomes one of the most powerful forms of directive statesmanship.

Art, Forms, Information, Powerful, Public

In documentary we deal with the actual, and in one sense with the real. But the really real, if I may use that phrase, is something deeper than that. The only reality which counts in the end is the interpretation which is profound

Counts, Phrases, Profound, Real, Reality

The oblique paradox of propaganda is that the lie in the throat becomes, by repetition, the truth in the heart.

Heart, Lying, Oblique, Paradox, Propaganda, Throat

Such manifestations I account as representing the creative leadership of the new forces of thought and appreciation which attend changes in technological pattern and therefore of the pattern of human relationships in society.

Appreciation, Creative, Leadership, Manifestations, Thought

We have built our State on the freedom of personal adventure.

Adventure, Personal, State, States, Travel

The cultivation of sensibility on purely personal lines may, in fact, be the very worst training for a world where only the corporate and the cooperative will matter.

Cultivation, Lines, Matter, Training, World, Worst