Spare Time
{{Short description|1939 British film}}
{{For|the concept of spare time|Leisure}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox film
| name = Spare Time
| image = Spare Time titles.jpg
| alt =
| caption =
| native_name =
| director = Humphrey Jennings
| producer = Alberto Cavalcanti
| writer =
| screenplay =
| story =
| based_on =
| starring =
| narrator = Laurie Lee
| music =
| cinematography = H.E. Fowle
| editing =
| studio = GPO Film Unit
| distributor =
| released = {{Film date|1939}}
| runtime = 15 minutes
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| budget =
| gross =
}}
Spare Time is a 1939 British film directed by Humphrey Jennings for the GPO Film Unit, and made for the 1939 New York World's Fair. It is 15 minutes long and documents the leisure activities of workers in the coal, steel, and cotton industries in Sheffield, Bolton, Manchester and Pontypridd. Commentary is provided by Laurie Lee.
Time Out calls it "A touching, troubling encapsulation of 1930s Britain." Spare Time was the subject of one of a set of ten postage stamps produced by the Royal Mail in 2015 to commemorate British cinema classics, including four from the GPO Film Unit.
Production
Spare Time is a 1939 British film directed by Humphrey Jennings for the GPO Film Unit, and made for the 1939 New York World's Fair,{{cite web |title=Spare Time (1939) |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/443890/index.html |website=BFI |access-date=18 February 2021}} to show how the working class in Britain spent their leisure time in the 1930s. It runs for a duration of 15 minutes.{{cite web |title=Spare Time |url=https://www.timeout.com/movies/spare-time |website=Time Out |access-date=18 February 2021}}
Synopsis
It documents the leisure activities of workers in the coal, steel and cotton industries in Sheffield, Bolton, Manchester and Pontypridd. It depicts in short clips activities like wrestling, ballroom dancing, card games and pigeon fanciers. Strung together in startling combinations to the sounds of brass bands, choirs, and jazz.{{cite web |last1=Westad |first1=Jan |title=Why Humphrey Jennings' Blitz docs are the films you should be watching now |url=https://lwlies.com/articles/humphrey-jennings-blitz-documentaries/ |website=LWLies |access-date=18 February 2021}} Commentary is provided by Laurie Lee.
Reception
File:Spare Time Royal Mail stamp 2014.jpg
Paul Swann has described Spare Time as an "early example of Jennings's aural and visual poetry on film" that showed the direction in which his film-making would go after the Second World War.Swann, Paul. (1989) The British Documentary Film Movement, 1926–1946. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 89. {{ISBN|0521334799}} The film does not analyse social or economic problems, and is almost free of narrative commentary. Basil Wright felt that the film portrayed a "patronising, sometimes almost sneering attitude towards the efforts of low-income groups". The art historian David Mellor felt that Spare Time was the work most emblematic of a 'pop iconography' until the 1950s work of Tom Phillips and the Independent Group.
Time Out has called the film "A touching, troubling encapsulation of 1930s Britain." Scott Anthony, in a profile of the film for the British Film Institute's Screenonline describes Spare Time as "an incredible portrait of the prewar working class and an early illustration of Humphrey Jennings' genius". Anthony felt the film possessed a "a similar cinematic catalogue" to Jennings's book Pandaemonium and that the film was "an obvious extension" of Jennings's work with the British amateur anthropological Mass-Observation organisation.
In 2015, Spare Time was the subject of one of a set of ten postage stamps produced by Royal Mail to commemorate British cinema classics, including four from the GPO Film Unit.{{cite news |title=Great British films celebrated on new Royal Mail stamps |url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/great-british-films-celebrated-new-royal-mail-stamps |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=BFI |date=3 March 2015}}{{Cite web|title=British stamps honor films and GPO documentaries|url=https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/2014/april/british-stamps-honor-films-and-gpo-documentaries.html|access-date=21 February 2021|website=Linns Stamp News|language=en}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{commons category|Spare Time}}
{{Italic title}}
External links
- {{IMDb title}}
Category:1939 short documentary films
Category:British black-and-white films
Category:British short documentary films
Category:1930s English-language films
Category:Films directed by Humphrey Jennings
Category:Films set in Sheffield
Category:Working-class culture in the United Kingdom