John Grierson: From the Poster Movement to the Informational State

Much critical writing on the British 'documentary film movement' has tended to examine Grierson's legacy in terms of issues of 'realism', politics and ideology. In contrast, this chapter focuses on Grierson's career as an art critic during the inter-war period, placing a particular focus on his interest in sculpture, and the ‘new sculpture’ movement. The chapter contrast and compare Grierson’s writings on film with his writings on the new sculpture movement, and, by doing so, emphasise a very different lineage of Grierson's thought to that which is generally held. Thus, rather than reaching back into Grierson's biography over the 1910s-1920s to frame his thinking on film in terms of the School of Social Sciences in Chicago, this chapter reframes Grierson’s thinking on films within the terms in which he evaluated the art of the inter-war years, that is, within the terms of a broadly Ruskinite social mission.