Coal Face was one of the most overtly modernist films made within the British documentary film movement, comparing only to Drifters (d. John Grierson, 1929) in its use of formalist montage techniques. In addition to a montage editing style largely derived from the Soviet cinema of the 1920s, however, Coal Face also experiments extensively with a variety of sound/image relationships.
The film's narrative is relatively conventional, providing details on the structure of the coal industry, and the processes used for extracting and treating coal. However, one of the strategies adopted by the documentary movement was to explore the creative possibilities of filmmaking within the framework of such conventional narratives, and here this takes the form of a non-naturalistic deployment of sound, language and music, so that natural sounds, dialogue, speech, music and choral singing are integrated in a dramatic, often strident manner.
Coal Face was an important film both for its innovative aesthetic style and for its ability to express critical social comment (noting, for example, the accident rates in the mines) in a film which was, in effect, made for a government department and sponsored by a commercial industry.
(Ian Aitken)
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