'The Image Speaks’: to what extent did Free Cinema break away from the propagandist tradition of the Documentary Film Movement?

The filmmakers of Free Cinema documentary movement sought to revolt against the propagandist traditions that the Documentary Film Movement established. However, Ellis and McLane have claimed that the films of Free Cinema were equally propagandist. This dissertation analyses this claim arguing that this is too broad a description of Free Cinema’s filmography. Instead it is argued that Free Cinema films, with the exception of the admittedly propagandist O Dreamland, were purely ‘persuasive’ films. To reach this conclusion this project accounts for the cultural, political, intellectual and cinematic influences of both the Documentary Film Movement and Free Cinema. By accounting for these, this dissertation displays the way that Free Cinema’s film philosophy was formed in direct opposition to that of the ‘Giersonian’ cinema of the documentary movement. This dissertation presents a clear definition of ‘propaganda’ and the difference between propagandist films and those of ‘persuasion’. This project also benefits from its use of textual analysis when studying the films of both movements. This study reaches its conclusion by coupling the definitions of both ‘propaganda’ and ‘persuasion’ that the project establishes and an analysis of the Free Cinema films.