(1) "We believe that the cinema's capacity to view its surroundings, to observe and select episodes from real life can create a new and vital art form..."(2) "We believe that an original and real actor and an original and real scene are the best guide to a cinematic interpretation of the modern world..."(3) We believe that materials and subjects found "in situ" are more beautiful, more "real", in a philosophical sense, that anything born from acting. The documentary can go deeper into reality and achieve effects that the artificiality of the theatre and the precious interpretations of crafty actors can not even dream of..."(John Grierson)These are the main points from Grierson's Manifesto on the poetics of filmmaking. He had been teaching a group of aspiring filmmakers which included people like Basil Wright, Edgar Anstey, Arthur Elton, Paul Rotha, Stuart Legg, all of whom went on to make some incredibly great documentaries. Flaherty's films turned up among those Grierson analized during those lectures. Grierson himself, with reference to Moana, used the term "documentary" in its most original sense - a way to spread information, document human life, without neglecting sociological aspects; based on a crisp, clean style that is not in any way hampered by dramatics, lacking any trappings of the spectacular. It is not surprising then, that Grierson proposed the Empire Marketing Board's Film Unit project to Flaherty - that is, to make a film on the Midland factories. And Industrial Britain, a 22-minute documentary produced by Grierson, was born. It presents a myriad of factories and their activities, with concentration on the various production phases. Flaherty's eye, however, turns to the workers themselves and their struggle to persevere; he even touches upon the sense of alienation created by factory work. Grierson gave his approval for a documentary with a decidedly sociological slant, at the expense of a more ethnological stance in previous works. His unencumbered vision refuses all premeditated organization of the reality that becomes the scene; it's an unmasked meeting with a slice of reality none too thin. As Grierson remarked upon completion of the film, Flaherty brought a more humane component to English documentary making.
