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'''Rosie Violet Nina Millicent Newman''' FRGS (surname at birth '''Neumann''') (1896–1988) was a British amateur director of documentary films. She is best known for ''Britain at War'' of 1945, colour reportage of [[World War II]]. From a wealthy background, she belonged to London society circles, and her connections facilitated her film work.
'''Rosie Violet Nina Millicent Newman''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRGS}} (surname at birth '''Neumann''') (1896–1988)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hockenhull |first1=Stella |title=British Women Film Directors in the New Millennium |date=27 April 2017 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-137-48992-0 |page=24 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hRnEDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 |language=en}}</ref> was a British amateur director of documentary films. She is best known for ''Britain at War'' of 1945, colour reportage of [[World War II]]. From a wealthy background, she belonged to London society circles, and her connections facilitated her film work.


==Early life and family==
==Early life and family==

Revision as of 15:30, 31 October 2022

Rosie Violet Nina Millicent Newman FRGS (surname at birth Neumann) (1896–1988)[1] was a British amateur director of documentary films. She is best known for Britain at War of 1945, colour reportage of World War II. From a wealthy background, she belonged to London society circles, and her connections facilitated her film work.

Early life and family

She was the second daughter of Sigismund Neumann and his Egyptian wife Anna Allegra Hakim.[2] The family home in London was 146 Piccadilly.[3]

Her elder sister Sybil married, secondly, the politician Robert Grimston; The Tatler in 1943 described the sisters as "almost inseparable".[4]

Interwar period filming

In the interwar period Newman shot in 16mm, in Morocco and India.[5] She acquired her first film camera in 1928 for a trip to Morocco, and shot footage of her travels in Egypt and especially in India, where she filmed the life of British high society and tourism. The resulting films were shown to friends, but also publicly at charity events.

Taking up 16mm Kodachrome colour stock shortly after it was introduced by Eastman Kodak, Newman experimented with it in Paris during 1935.[6][7][8] Newman was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, where she had shown her films, and was elected in February 1936.[9] Duke of York and his family lived at 145 Piccadilly, next to the Newman residence; and that year Rosie Newman filmed his children Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom) and Margaret Rose; the colour footage was made public in 2008.[10][11] In 1937 she filmed the inspection tour of the Duke, by then the new King George VI, of the Royal Navy .

World War II

At the beginning of World War II Newman entered the Women's Voluntary Services. She continued to organize film screenings, including in France, as part of troop support events. From her record beginning with the London Blitz, she gradually put together the film Britain at War. It had various working titles, was shown before its completion from 1942, and finalised in 1946. Colour stock was not easy to obtain in wartime conditions, and official films were black-and-white. Newman was able to continue to shoot in colour, using stock found for her through American and Canadian diplomatic contacts.[8] She took a few risks with these recordings. She compared herself to a soldier who, instead of a machine gun, dares to shoot into the fire with a camera. Accordingly, she also spoke of the film material as her "ammunition". When the family's Piccadilly town house was badly damaged by air raids, she moved to the Dorchester Hotel. It was to be her home for over 30 years; and she was nicknamed the "Duchess of Dorchester".

Women's presence as film makers in Britain during WWII was very restricted. A comparable role to Newman's was that of Jessie Matthews in Victory Wedding (1944).[12] Jill Craigie made the art documentary Out of Chaos (1944) for Two Cities Films.[13] Muriel Box became active only after the war was over.[12]

Later life

Newman continued documenting her travels on film into the early 1960s. She died in 1988 at the age of 91.

Works

Most of Newman's cinematic legacy is held in the Imperial War Museum.

  • Scenes At Croydon Aerodrome And Earl Haig's Funeral, Croydon and Piccadilly (1928)[14]
  • Morocco 1928[15]
  • Glimpses of India (1935). It was filmed while Newman and her mother were guests of Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy. It was shown at a number of charity fundraising events in London.[15][7]
  • Further Glimpses of India (1935)[15]
  • Across the Border [Scotland] (1936)[15]
  • To the Land of the Pharaohs (1937).[15] It was first shown in 1939 at the Connaught Place house of Geoffrey Hope-Morley, 2nd Baron Hollenden and his wife, to an audience of about 200.[16]
  • The France I Knew (1940)[15]
  • Britain at War (1946).[17] An early version, England at War, was screened privately on 7 May 1942 at the Dorchester Hotel, to guests including the Lord Mayor of London and Lord Willingdon.[18]
  • By Air to Cyprus and Athens (1953)[19]
  • Morocco 1928+1966[20]

Commentary

Newman's films were the subject of the first part of The Thirties in Colour, a four-part BBC television series by Christina Lowry from 2008. Some of the commentary related to the details of the documentary content:

  • The Indian coverage, including tiger hunts and elephant rides, documented a colonial world that was already dying at the time.
  • Newman had the picturesque in mind, avoiding the everyday, the depiction of poverty and misery.
  • Sometimes she didn't understand what she was seeing, as in the subtitle "A picturesque alley of houses with barred windows". In fact, it showed a brothel district with and prostitutes.[21]
  • On Girgaon Chowpatty, a beach in Mumbai, she filmed a crowd, apparently unaware that it was a political gathering for the Indian independence movement.[22]

Books

Newman's writings related mostly to her films.

  • To the land of the pharaohs. The story of the film. Athenaeum Press, London [c. 1940]
  • England at War. Chiswick Press, London 1942 (black-and-white illustrations)
  • Impressions of liberated Belgium after V.E. day 1945. London 1945, self-published
  • Britain at War: Narrative of a Film Record. MaxLove Publishing, London, 1948 (2nd edition)

Notes

  1. ^ Hockenhull, Stella (27 April 2017). British Women Film Directors in the New Millennium. Springer. p. 24. ISBN 978-1-137-48992-0.
  2. ^ Dod's peerage, baronetage and knightage of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Simkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent. 1916. p. 576.
  3. ^ "The top of the staircase at 146 Piccadilly showing the glazed roof and artwork (BL15515) Archive Item - The Bedford Lemere Collection, Historic England". historicengland.org.uk.
  4. ^ "Wedding at Christ Church, Down Street". The Tatler. 6 January 1943. p. 11.
  5. ^ Duckworth, Jack (1981). "The International Congress of the International Association for Audio-Visual Media in Historical Research". Teaching History (29): 37. ISSN 0040-0610.
  6. ^ Brown, Simon; Street, Sarah; Watkins, Liz (28 October 2013). Color and the Moving Image: History, Theory, Aesthetics, Archive. Routledge. p. 145. ISBN 978-1-136-30789-8.
  7. ^ a b Sandon, Emma (2010). "Women, Empire, and British Cinema History". Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. 51 (2): 329. ISSN 0306-7661.
  8. ^ a b Ballantyne, James (1993). Researcher's Guide to British Film & Television Collections. British Universities Film & Video Council. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-901299-64-2.
  9. ^ Imperial War Museum Review. The Museum. 1997. p. 28.
  10. ^ Martin, Nicole (17 July 2008). "Unseen footage of the Queen as a young girl in new BBC documentary". www.telegraph.co.uk.
  11. ^ "MY "HUMAN INTEREST" FILM [Main Title]". IWM Film.
  12. ^ a b Lant, Antonia Caroline (14 July 2014). Blackout: Reinventing Women for Wartime British Cinema. Princeton University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-4008-6219-1.
  13. ^ Price, Hollie. "Craigie [married names Begbie-Clench, Dell, Foot], Noreen Jean [Jill] (1911–1999)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73459. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  14. ^ "Scenes At Croydon Aerodrome And Earl Haig's Funeral, Croydon and Piccadilly (1928)". London's Screen Archives.
  15. ^ a b c d e f "Private Papers of Miss R V N M Newman". Imperial War Museums.
  16. ^ Great Britain and the East. Great Britain and the East, Ltd. 1939. p. 155.
  17. ^ "BRITAIN AT WAR [Main Title]". Imperial War Museums.
  18. ^ Imperial War Museum Review. The Museum. 1997. p. 33.
  19. ^ "BY AIR TO CYPRUS AND ATHENS [Main Title]". Imperial War Museums.
  20. ^ "MOROCCO 1928 + 1966 [Main Title]". Imperial War Museums.
  21. ^ The Thirties in Colour Part 1, 9:20
  22. ^ The Thirties in Colour Part 1, 6:40-7:10

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rosie_Newman&oldid=1119265837"