"Jenny seems to have lifted the soul of that time in
the islands and left it hanging up on the screen for future generations to see
and feel part of."
Douglas Mackinnon
This film sits amongst better-known works of the thirties showing island life on the
extremes but actually predates both Robert J. Flaherty’s docudrama Man of Aran (1934)
– the Irish island, not Arran – and Michael Powell’s drama The Edge of the
World (1937). Director Jenny Gilbertson (née Brown) had made a number of
short documentaries and was encouraged to make this film by the great Scottish documentary
filmmaker John Grierson, director of Drifters (1929) and the man who coined
the term "documentary" in a review of Flaherty's Moana (1926).
The result is every inch as powerfully evocative as these
other films with Jenny’s previous experience of the island, the documentary A
Crofter’s Life in Shetland (1931), showing a year in the life of the rugged
folk of Hjaltland… more Norse than Gallic and only 30 miles closer to Scotland
than Norway. She was self-trained and this is even more remarkable when you
consider that she not only wrote but filmed and edited her work.
There’s a discussion of Gilbertson’s work on the HippFest at Home/Falkirk Leisure and Culture You Tube channel from academics Dr Shona Main and Dr Sarah Neely, introduced by Alison Strauss, and it’s fascinating to see her journey from middle-class Glasgow beginnings to university, teaching and on to such inventive independent filmmaking. She had a passion for capturing ways of life far removed from the contemporary comforts of her upbringing and she was able to engage the locals in such a way that, as John Grierson said, had “…already broken through the curse of artificiality and is on her way to becoming a real filmmaker, an illuminator of life and movement”.
There was also an introduction from Janet McBain founding Curator, Scottish Screen Archive, who knew Jenny and remembered her as a "pocket dynamo" later in life. She took us through Jenny's career and her documentary shorts made for the GPO including In Sheep's Clothing (1932) screened before the main film with accompaniment from Stephen Horne. She didn't fully appreciate at the time how pioneering Jenny had been until the work of academic like Shona and Sarah. This is not surprising when you consider as Janet says, the films were found rotting in a henhouse but were subsequently restored by the SSA in 1997 and reprinted. Blessed are the Archivists... and the Festival Directors.
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| John Gilbertson and Enga Stout |
The Rugged Island is so intimate it feels like a genuine
intrusion on the lives being portrayed, the irony here being that Gilbertson’s
was sometimes described as an “amateur” and yet clearly she was consummate in
terms of technique and direction with only one professional actor - Enga Stout –
with the rest being her friends and others she’d cast locally. Her editing is
also so precise here in terms of capturing the detail of the performers
including her substantial animal cast – Flora the dog and Caddie the lamb - to
create such a warm narrative whole.
The story involves Enga and her beloved Johnny (John
Gilberston who Jenny went on to marry) who face the choice of emigrating to Australia
or staying to fulfil their duties in looking after their aging parents – something
Jenny’s own mother expected of her. The economy of these islands was changing
and trawling was replacing line fishing and industrialising what had been the
mainstay of Shetlands’ way of life. This is reflected in a detailed way as we
see Johnny and the men catching fish on the line – they have to, as there’s not
much else to eat – then later trawling pulling in hundreds of fish.
The narrative works in so much of the day-to-day lives as
the seasons change and events complicate their choices. Jenny’s camera is right
inside the cramped crofters’ cottages – interiors built by the multi-tasking
John Gilbertson whose parents and sister also provide suitable cast members. His
best pal Andrew, from Stucca, played Andrew who woos John/Johnny’s sister
Maggie and, as Dr Main points out in her HippFest programme notes, only someone
with Jenny’s connection to the locale and the people could make a film that is so
convincing and thoroughly authentic.
The film is a gorgeously evocative postcard from the past
with the location perfectly served by Jenny’s camerawork; seagulls swooping
across Shetland skies, as the young couple walk the cliffs and shore staring
out to the endless sea of possibilities as they do at the beginning and end.
After watch Johnny and the lads fish we see the interiors of the folk at their poached
fish supper with bread and tea… a flashback to a childhood memory of my great
grandmother McIntyre’s parlour in Liverpool, no electric in her kitchen at all.
Her husband was a Glaswegian, and his mother came from a crofter’s cottage on the
Isle of Arran.
Then we see the men tilling the land and the discovery of an
orphaned sheep quickly adopted by Enga who feeds her from a bottle; no life can
be wasted on the isle. There’s potato planting and the whole community working
together to same intensive rhythms of necessity; there’s a time to farm and to
dig up peat to burn in the winter. The women work together on converting wool
into those famous sweaters, making a few shillings to pay for new fishing boots
for Johnny from Peter Mouat’s General Merchants, a dealer in Shetland Hosiery.
This is not quite subsistence living but it leaves very little
time for idle pondering – I’d be sunk – but Gilbertson interweaves the
documentary purpose well with the drama of Inga and Johnny’s dilemma as it
places them under pressure as the fishing season does not go well. It’s hard
not to compare with Man of Aran and this does feel a more realistic and – this word
again – authentic representations. It’s just lovely to look at and cinematically
satisfying especially with the new accompaniment.
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| Everyone knits on Shetland... |
This was provided by Inge Thomson and Catriona Macdonald who
provided an intoxicating air of emotion and location, even for those of us of
Scottish descent watching from home. Catriona is a Shetland fiddle player, Royal
College of Music alumni and academic who combines that rich folk tradition
together with collaborative and compositional expertise. Inge Thomson is from
Fair Isle, Shetlands too, and is a composer, producer, lyricist,
multi-instrumentalist and performer.
Together they infused their music with a vibrancy and authenticity to match the filmmakers own. I hope they get a chance to tour the film and music as Alison Strauss suggests.
The last word from Shona: “People can’t quite believe that
(these films) exist. … she’s still not known enough, I don’t think she’s appreciated
enough…” and, as she says, this is where HippFest comes in. This is peak HippFest,
aiding the rediscovery of significant Scottish artists, especially one as ground-breaking
as Gilbertson, is part of their core mission and achievements. Again, as the
commentators say, the more you see of Jenny G, the more you want to see, the interest
only grows the more you want to learn.
I just wish I’d been in the room to fully appreciate the film,
music and audience… next year HippFest it’s in the diary!
The video discussion of Gilbertson’s with Dr Shona Main and Dr
Sarah Neely is available via this link.
There’s also an excellent summation of Gilbertson’s career
on the Women’s’ Film Pioneer Project here.
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