Basil Wright

Known for DirectingBorn 1907-06-12Died 1987-10-14Frieth, Buckinghamshire, England

Basil Wright - was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher. During World War II, Wright worked only as a producer, first at John Grierson's Film Centre before joining The Crown Film Unit between 1945 and 1946 as producer-in-charge. Among the best known films he produced for Crown are Humphrey Jennings' A Diary for Timothy (1946) and A Defeated People (1946) and Instruments of the Orchestra (1946) featuring Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.[1] Returning to direction in the early 1950s, his films included Waters of Time (1951) made for the Festival of Britain, World Without End (1953) directed with Paul Rotha for UNESCO and Greece: The Immortal Land (1958) in collaboration with his friend the artist Michael Ayrton. Writing throughout the 30s and 40s, Basil Wright had contributed to the theoretical development of documentary in the movement's journals Cinema Quarterly, World Film News and Documentary Newsletter. He was the film critic for The Spectator after Graham Greene left. Wright was a regular contributor to the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound during the 1940s and '50s. He published a small book: The Uses of Film (1948) and his personal (extensive) history of cinema The Long View (1974). He taught at the University of Southern California (1962 and 1968), The National Film and Television School in London (1971–73) and Temple University in Philadelphia (1977–78). He was Governor of the British Film Institute, a fellow of the British Film Academy and President of the International Association of Documentary Filmmakers. In his films Wright combined an ability to look closely and carefully at a subject with a poetic and often experimental approach to editing and sound. In Britain he is commemorated with a film prize awarded biennially by the Royal Anthropological Institute.Read more

Movies & web series

The Immortal Land

The Green Girdle

One Wish Too Many

Grierson

This Is Colour

The Rape of Czechoslovakia

The Face of Scotland

A Diary for Timothy

Every Day

London Can Take It!

London Scrapbook

A Defeated People

Rainbow Dance

Coal Face

The Song of Ceylon

Night Mail

Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs

Industrial Britain

The Channel Islands 1940-1945

Omnibus - Cuckoo: A Celebration of Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy

The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

World Without End

Waters of Time

It Might Be You

Neuro Psychiatry 1943

Men of Africa

Advance Democracy!

Children at School

Modern Orphans of the Storm: The Story of the Refugee Basque Children

The Country Comes to Town

O'er Hill and Dale

Conquest