J.V. Durden Explained

J.V. Durden
Birthname:Joseph Valentine Durden
Birth Date:20 October 1910
Birth Place:Barnes, Surrey
Death Place:Vale Royal, Cheshire
Education:Royal College of Science
Occupation:Director, cinemicrographer, cinematographer, producer, editor, writer
Yearsactive:1943-1972
Spouse:Kathleen Meredith
Children:son, Christopher and daughter, Janet
Parents:James Durden and Ruby Valentina Ellis

J.V. Durden (October 20, 1910 - February 13, 1998) was a British filmmaker and biologist. He is the person who created the term 'Ciné-biology', or 'the study of life through the medium of the cinema'.[1] He described himself as a 'ciné-biologist', or 'scientist-filmmaker', and spent his life making highly detailed, technically intricate, lab-created films, where photography took place under a microscope. He brought the art of cinemicrography to Canada and became the co-founder of the Science Film Section at the National Film Board of Canada.[2]

Early life

Joseph Valentine Durden was born in Barnes, Surrey (now part of London), on October 20, 1910; he grew up in Kensington. His parents were; mother, Ruby Valentina Ellis (from Cumberland), father was the noted English painter James Durden (from Manchester).[3] He had one sister, the artist Betty Durden Green, who was the subject of a well-known portrait by her father.[4] Joseph earned a degree in Biology and Entomology at the Royal College of Science. He had a life-long interest in photography and, while still in school, became a photographer for the Illustrated London News.[5]

Upon graduation, Durden traveled with his parents to Africa. In Basutoland (now Lesotho) in 1934, he acted as the photographer on a plant-collecting expedition then, in Cape Town, he happened to see films from Secrets of Nature, a 144-film series of natural history films produced from 1922 to 1933 by British Instructional Films and distributed throughout the British Empire. Durden was so taken by these films that he resolved to become a scientific cinematographer.[6]

Career

When he returned to England in 1935, Durden was hired by British Instructional Films which, after its sale, was now Gaumont-British Instructional (GBI). Secrets of Nature was no longer in production, but the series had been enormously popular; it brought the life sciences into popular culture and was so influential, the filmmaker and historian Paul Rotha described it as "the sheet anchor of the British film industry’’.[7] Gaumont-British wanted to continue with scientific films and, in Durden, they had a photographer who was also a biologist. Durden found himself working with his former Royal College tutor H.R. Hewer, with the filmmaker Agnes Mary Field, and with the nature documentary pioneer Percy Smith. Field and Smith had both been the editors of Secrets of Nature; now they were working on Secrets of Life.[8]

Smith had developed innovative techniques in time-lapse photography, microphotography, microcinematography and animation. Learning from him, Durden became an expert in stop-motion photography and cinemicrography, building on Smith's techniques and incorporating new methods, including the use of phase-contrast microscopy and colour cinematography. His work at GBI was mainly on educational films in zoology (supervised by Julian Huxley), but he was instrumental in the development of the first series of Secrets of Life to be released in colour (1939), which were made using Dufaycolor.[9]

Durden, Smith and Field wanted to publish the results of their work and co-wrote the book Ciné-biology, which was published in 1942.[10] The book was not the first attempt to theorize the relationship between cinema and science, but it was the clearest and most public. It describes Ciné-biology as "the study of life through the medium of the cinema". The "revealing eye" of the microscope and the "analytical brain" of the camera are active observers; by portraying the aliveness of the world, technology itself comes to life. Capturing and manipulating movement was Ciné-biology's most critical characteristic: "Movement, despite the advent and firm establishment of sound films, is the essence of the cinema ... And, in the cinema, we have the ideal medium for the study of life.” Ciné-biology treated film as a discipline of its own, complete with tools, practices and methods. Despite its focus on expertise, it also made science more appealing and interlaced the roles of filmmakers, experts, technologies and the wider public in making nature films.[11]

In 1942, Durden was drafted into the British Army. He was initially a gunner but was transferred to the Army Kinematograph Service, where he made training films and was discharged in 1945 with the rank of Lieutenant.[12]

By war's end, Smith had died and Field was making children's films for The Rank Organisation. Durden joined the Shell Film Unit; in 1948, he wrote the script for the film Atomic Physics, which won the 1949 BAFTA Special Award.[13] He and Field finished the sequel to Ciné-biology, See How They Grow: Botany Through the Cinema (1952).[14]

Durden also established his own company, Photomicrography Ltd., to supply specialist science footage to producers. One of these producers was likely the Crown Film Unit and one of the filmmakers at that unit was Stuart Legg, who had also worked for the Shell unit and GBI. Legg had just returned from a seven-year stint as a filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). It is reasonable to assume that the two men knew each other, and that Legg told Durden that the NFB was eager to make more scientific films. In 1952, Durden moved to Ottawa and joined the NFB's Studio B.

Studio B, under the leadership of Tom Daly was responsible for making films on science and the arts, animated films, experimental films, educational films and films sponsored by government departments. At the time, no one person was making science films; Durden, as a photographer and biologist, was a perfect fit, except that he did not want to be like the other NFB filmmakers, who might make a training film one week and an agricultural film the next; he was firm about staying with his specific discipline. Eventually, in 1956, Daly hired Hugh O'Connor to build Studio B's Science Film Section.[15] In the interim, Durden made such films as the award-winning Embryonic Development: The Chick (1953),[16] (which is still distributed worldwide), The Colour of Life (1955),[17] a film about the growth of a maple tree, Man Against a Fungus,[18] which illustrates the life cycle of wheat rust fungus, and The Maple Leaf, which looks at the physiology of leaves.[19] Over the next six years, he made an additional 18 scientific films for the board.[20]

In 1962, Durden was recruited by Boston's Educational Services Inc. (ESI), which had been founded by MIT professor Jerrold R. Zacharias. At the time, the National Science Foundation was heavily investing in science education, and one of its initiatives was the Developmental Biology Film Series, produced by ESI. The series was 75 highly specialized films, and Durden would make them all, always working with expert biologists who wanted to replicate on film what they saw under the microscope. The films had a powerful impact on the American evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, who used them in her teaching. In 2010, she started a campaign to digitize the films and publish them online, calling the effort “the most important contribution I have made to science in my lifetime”.[21] These films now have their own YouTube channel.[22]

In 1972, when the project was completed, Durden retired and returned to England. He died in Cheshire in 1997, survived by his daughter, Janet and son, Christopher.

Filmography

Gaumont-British Instructional[23]

Shell Film Unit[26]

National Film Board of Canada

Education Development Center - Developmental Biology Film Series[29]

Awards

Embryonic Development: The Chick (1953)[30]

The Changing Forest (1958)[31]

Above the Timberline: The Alpine Tundra Zone (1960)[32]

Microscopic Fungi - documentary short, 1960[33]

The Embryonic Development of Fish (1961)[34]

The Development of a Fish Embryo (1962)[35]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Secrets of Nature: J.V. Durden . secrets-of-nature.co.uk . 8 October 2020 . Secrets of Nature . 2 March 2023.
  2. Web site: Evans . Gary . In the national interest : a chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989 pp 33 . archive.org . 30 November 1991 . 9 March 2023.
  3. Web site: James Durden 1878–1964 . artuk.org . Art UK . 2 March 2023.
  4. Web site: Exhibition: Betty's Back!: The work of James and Betty Durden . northernsoul.me.uk . Northern Soul . 2 March 2023.
  5. Web site: London News and Views No 1 (1931) . https://web.archive.org/web/20230302205150/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b85490af8 . dead . 2 March 2023 . bfi.org.uk . British Film Institute . 2 March 2023.
  6. Web site: Secrets of Nature: J.V. Durden . secrets-of-nature.co.uk . 8 October 2020 . Secrets of Nature . 2 March 2023.
  7. Web site: Secrets of Nature: J.V. Durden . secrets-of-nature.co.uk . 8 October 2020 . Secrets of Nature . 2 March 2023.
  8. Web site: Secrets of Nature: J.V. Durden . secrets-of-nature.co.uk . 8 October 2020 . Secrets of Nature . 2 March 2023.
  9. Web site: Secrets of Nature: J.V. Durden . secrets-of-nature.co.uk . 8 October 2020 . Secrets of Nature . 2 March 2023.
  10. Book: Cine-biology . 9780827441996 . 2 March 2023. Durden . Joseph Valentine . Field . Mary . Percy Smith . F. . 1941 . Penguin Books .
  11. Web site: Long . Max . The Ciné-Biologists: Natural History Film and the Co-Production of Knowledge in Interwar Britain pp 12 . researchgate.net . 2 March 2023.
  12. Web site: SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 2 JUNE, 1942 . thegazette.co.uk . London Gazette . 2 March 2023.
  13. Web site: Film in 1949 . awards.bafta.org . BAFTA Awards Archive . 2 March 2023.
  14. Web site: See How They Grow. Botany Through the Cinema . amazon.co.uk . January 1952 . Amazon . 2 March 2023.
  15. Web site: Evans . Gary . In the national interest : a chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989 pp 33 . archive.org . 30 November 1991 . 9 March 2023.
  16. Web site: Embryonic Development: The Chick . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada.
  17. Web site: The Colour of Life . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 2 March 2023.
  18. Web site: Man Against a Fungus . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 2 March 2023.
  19. Web site: The Maple Leaf . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 2 March 2023.
  20. Web site: Director: J.V. Durden . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 9 March 2023.
  21. Web site: Secrets of Nature: J.V. Durden . secrets-of-nature.co.uk . 8 October 2020 . Secrets of Nature . 2 March 2023.
  22. Web site: Developmental Biology Film Series . youtube.com . YouTube . 2 March 2023.
  23. Web site: J.V. Durden . https://web.archive.org/web/20211017023732/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9eeac1d7 . dead . 17 October 2021 . bfi.org.uk . British Film Institute . 9 March 2023.
  24. Web site: Heredity in Man . collections.nlm.nih.gov . NIH National Library of Medicine . 2 March 2023.
  25. Web site: Coelenterata (1937) . https://web.archive.org/web/20230302210533/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b69d03cbf . dead . 2 March 2023 . bfi.org.uk . British Film Institute . 2 March 2023.
  26. Web site: J.V. Durden . https://web.archive.org/web/20211017023732/https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9eeac1d7 . dead . 17 October 2021 . bfi.org.uk . British Film Institute . 9 March 2023.
  27. Web site: Atomic Physics, Part II: Rays from Atoms . youtube.com . 16 July 2017 . YouTube . 2 March 2023.
  28. Web site: Maddison . John . Sight & Sound 1951-02 - Films and Science: ALL WARDOUR STREET TO A LIVER FLUKE . archive.org . February 1951 . 9 March 2023.
  29. Web site: Developmental Biology Film Series . youtube.com . YouTube . 2 March 2023.
  30. Web site: Embryonic Development: The Chick . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada.
  31. Web site: The Changing Forest . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 9 March 2023.
  32. Web site: Above the Timberline: The Alpine Tundra Zone . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 9 March 2023.
  33. Web site: Microscopic Fungi . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 9 March 2023.
  34. Web site: The Embryonic Development of Fish . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 9 March 2023.
  35. Web site: The Development of a Fish Embryo . onf-nfb.gc.ca . National Film Board of Canada . 9 March 2023.

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