 Kevin Brownlow's activities as a film historian and television documentary-maker have tended to erase both memory and recognition of the two extraordinary features he made in collaboration withAndrew Mollo. Both films reached the screen after considerable effort.It Happened Here, a 'what if' drama exploring an England under Nazi occupation, began production in 1956, concluded in 1963, and entered distribution throughUnited Artists in 1966.Winstanley found an audience more speedily in 1976, but the 17th century Civil War story still took eight years to reach fruition. The films were the work of mavericks, shooting largely at weekends in between paid work as a film editor and historian (Brownlow) or a military and costume specialist (Mollo). Kevin Brownlow was born in Crowborough, Sussex, on 2 June 1938. His passion for cinema struck early. He collected films from the age of eleven, and at the age of fourteen, with a 9.5mm camera, began makingThe Capture, an adaptation of ade Maupassant story, with its action updated from the Franco-Prussian war to 1940s France. The fascination with the Second World War continued in the much more ambitiousIt Happened Here, based onBrownlow's own story idea. The need for authentic details in costumes brought him in contact withAndrew Mollo (born London, 15 May, 1940), the son of a Russian émigré who had fought on both sides in the Russian Revolution. Serving as co-director,Mollo considerably strengthened the film's chilling realism. During its long gestation (documented in his bookHow It Happened Here),Brownlow worked on documentaries, mostly forWorld Wide Pictures.It Happened Here emerged through its piecemeal production remarkably intact, with sharp editing, canny camera placements, evocative locations, and persuasively understated performances by the largely non-professional cast. Censor cuts were enforced in one sequence showing British fascists in full vocal flight; though the suggested ease in which Britain fell under Nazi control remained disturbing enough. With its quiet urgency and novel subject-matter,It Happened Here became a critical and public success, but within the industryBrownlow andMollo were speedily tagged 'uncommercial'. Eventually backed by theBFI Production Board, they soldiered on with their new project, based onDavid Caute's novelComrade Jacob, with the Civil War's failed Leveller and Digger movements as the background.Mollo, meanwhile, served as a film consultant onDoctor Zhivago (d. David Lean, 1965), whileBrownlow editedThe Charge of the Light Brigade (d. Tony Richardson, 1968) and enjoyed considerable success with the bookThe Parade's Gone By... (1968), an influential celebration through interviews of Hollywood's silent era. Other projects championing silent cinema followed, notably the painstaking restoration ofAbel Gance'sNapoléon, first unveiled in 1980, and theHollywood series (1980) produced withDavid Gill forThames Television. Not simply through hindsight doesWinstanley appear as a silent filmmanqué. The film's strength lies in its images; its weakness lies in part in the earnest quantities of words, whether issuing from characters' mouths or placed in the commentary. Through editing, composition, rushing, hand-held camerawork, andProkofiev's music fromAlexander Nevsky (USSR, d. Sergei Eisenstein, 1938), the opening battle directly acknowledgesEisenstein andGance. Other influences includeDreyer's play of faces and space, and the stark lyricism ofArthur von Gerlach's little-known classicZur Chronik von Grieshuus (1925).Ernest Vincze's black-and-white camerawork creates eloquently mournful beauty from the Diggers' struggles with the land and authority: though static dialogue exchanges and elliptical plotting keep the overall dramatic impact muted. On release in 1976,Winstanley demonstratedBrownlow andMollo's estrangement from both Britain's mainstream and independent cinemas. The film did not fit the costume drama pigeonhole, nor did it pursue theGreenaway path towards elaborate games with form and content. Industry disinterest and the film's general reception pushed the filmmakers decisively towards other endeavours: forMollo, chiefly production design (most strikingly onMike Newell'sDance with a Stranger, 1984); forBrownlow, silent film presentations, aDavid Lean biography, and television portraits ofChaplin,Keaton,Griffith, and other giants from the parade gone by. Bibliography
Brownlow, Kevin,How It Happened Here (London: Secker and Warburg, 1969)
Brownlow, Kevin, 'Filming the Diggers', inMonthly Film Bulletin, April 1976, p. 92
Mival, Eric,It Happened Here Again (documentary, 1976)
Tibbetts, John C., 'Kevin Brownlow's Historical Films: It Happened Here (1965) and Winstanley (1975)', inHistorical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, v. 20 n. 2, 2000, pp. 227-251 Geoff Brown, Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors  |
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