Film, from its beginning, was considered a realist medium because its mechanical reproduction by a photo-chemical process appears to "catch reality on the wing". Although it is also the "dream factory", "the camera never lies", so it is an eyewitness whose evidence holds up in the court of history, an image sustained by such conventions as "don’t look at the camera". It is the "cinema eye" as objective observer, scientific and male. Both amateur and mainstream films reflect this.

Amateur films provide the visual equivalent of ‘oral history’ as eyewitness evidence and Nation On Film provides excellent examples. Amateur filmmakers quickly adopted the new technology, but this was mostly limited to the prosperous who could afford it for their home movies - like the predominantly middle-class London Film Society. But other voices did enter the scene such as trade unions in the 30s, with the communist Federation of Workers Film Societies attempts to counter the official ideology of the National Government, or the Labour Party’s Masses Stage and Film Guild, shooting on 16mm and thus avoiding official censorship rules.

Much of the amateur movement arose from the oppositional counter-culture of the 60s. Amber Films captured working class life in the North East while other groups appeared like The London Film-Makers Co-operative, as well as co-ops with more specific agendas, for example, the London Women's Film Co-op and black and Asian workshops such as Sankofa. Many of these have disappeared but there still remains the Lux. Many mainstream directors emerged from these, and while some, such as Derek Jarman, stuck to Super 8, more recent newcomers like Shane Meadows have developed into more mainstream feature films.

Within British cinema there has been a documentary realist tradition which has won critical acclaim and is the form celebrated for its quality when compared with the other strand of fantasy. Of course, we are no longer so innocent and with CGI and special effects we no longer trust the camera, although fantasy had been there right from the very beginning in trick photography and animation. And within British cinema there had always been genres that steered away from realism, such as comedies (Carry On) and horror (Hammer) but these were seen as "mere entertainment" for the lower classes.

The ethos of the documentary tradition was very much present within the paternalist Reithian BBC, with its public service remit to "educate, inform and entertain". Although not a public corporation like the BBC, British cinema got government protection in 1927 as both an industry and as a bulwark of British culture. As cinema was also regulated by the British Board of Film Censors, it's not surprising that 1930s films while not jingoistic were patriotic, consensual and reinforcing of the social and cultural values of the day. As such, they are highly revealing as social documents of their time. For example, the issue of unemployment is tackled in a ‘happy-go-lucky’ musical comedy Sing as We Go (1934) with Gracie Fields in a factory that gets closed down but miraculously reopens after a new scientific invention (by, naturally, a middle class man) and all ends happily - with the Union Jack flying. The official message for the working class is clear and in an entertaining format.

Conversely, the adaptation of one of the most famous novels about the depression, Walter Greenwood’s Love On The Dole got vetoed by the BBFC as liable to incite insurrections and only finally got made and released in 1941 - when, with the war industries running, unemployment was no longer a problem. The story, though, got an interesting twist with the message that such conditions would not be tolerated after the war, predicting the reforms of the 1945 Labour government with the Welfare State and a commitment to full employment. Here, then, some propaganda for the war was inserted in a realist depiction of social conditions.

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