United Kingdom 1929
no premiere
Language: (none), Silent
Subtitles: (none)
Director: John Grierson
Camera: Basil Emmott
Script: John Grierson
Editor: John Grierson
Music: Markus Aust, Rochus Aust
Producer: John Grierson
Lenght: 60 Min.
Color: sw
Age Limit: <

John Grierson`s work presents the ordinary labour of Scottish fishermen in the North Sea. The film maker documents their hard work through poetic storytelling, cleverly making use of the then up-and-coming art form, montage. Grierson had worked at the English premiere of Sergei Eisenstein`s Battleship Potemkin (1929), and from this he took away Eisenstein`s emphasis on montage. DRIFTERS celebrated its premiere on the 10th of November 1929 at a performance at the London Film Society. The film is regarded as the first work of the British Documentary Movement. Technical progress and its effect on work – one of Drifter`s themes – can also be found in Rochus and Markus Aust`s composition. The music leads the audience away from the past and further and further towards the present. It starts with a classic piano from silent films, which is succeeded by an exuberant film score and accompanied by an impressive sound design until it finally finishes with a DJ-set. DRIFTERS` composition begins in the past, with reduced sound and the supposed standards of silent film, before evolving, piece by piece, into today`s film and music world. This is realised by the use of instruments (from piano to record player), the evolution of composition (from sonata to sound design) through to the musical approach (from a sound device to a device`s sound). The music finally completes the technical progress which DRIFTERS already anticipated. The 1. GERMAN ELECTRIC ORCHESTRA is made up of classical and modern instruments. Objects from the fishing industry will also be used, mixing synthesizers with de-salters, clarinets with carving knifes, Hawaii guitars with ice-crushers and french horns with tin openers in order to embed the images of yesteryear with the sound of today.