Assess the importance of the British Documentary Movement and its influence on 'realism' within British Cinema.

John Grierson spoke of 'an unknown England beyond the West End' and of a desire to 'travel dangerously into the jungles of Middlesbrough and the Clyde'. This has been a feature of British realist films through Ealing and 'new wave' to the 'underclass films' of the 1990s such as The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997) and Brassed Off (Mark Herman, 1996) - the use of northern landscapes and shots of 'our town from that hill'. This was …

…group and British 'new wave' filmmakers such as Lindsay Anderson and Karel Reisz. John Hill notes that for Lindsay Anderson, the key term in Grierson's definition of documentary ('the creative treatment of actuality') was 'creative'. A Diary for Timothy (Humphrey Jennings, 1945) and Fires Were Started (Humphrey Jennings, 1943) employ more of a poetic-realist style which touches the conscience of the audience, and it is this aesthetic which has inspired British filmmakers to such a great extent.