Film Forum

THE COLORED HARVEST, BLOOD AND FIRE, and EMERGENCY WARD

Terence Macartney-Filgate · 1958 · Canada · 21 min

The Colored Harvest: “America’s Number One Mission Responsibility” U.S., ca. 1946-1952 “This rare film, supervised by the Josephite Fathers is a docu-dramatic recounting the history of the Josephite missionaries and their refocused campaigns towards African Americans in the southern United States. The film deploys dramatic reenactments and layered special effects mixed with documentary footage of Black communities and the novice seminarians. Notably, the film features pioneering African American director William Greaves, in perhaps his first extant film performance as an actor.” – Ina Archer Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Blood and Fire Edited by William Greaves An early episode of the seminal TV documentary series The Candid Eye highlighting the work of the Salvation Army. “Accompanied by Stanley Jackson’s unobtrusive narration, Blood and Fire showcases, in a compact 30 minutes, the work of this religious order. A highlight of the film is the scene in which the Army’s open-air ministry is attended by many curious onlookers and a smattering of sceptical people. Reviewers loved the honest, intimate portraits of these extraordinary people.” – National Film Board of Canada Courtesy National Film Board of Canada Emergency Ward “Documents the events of a typical Sunday night at a Montreal hospital emergency room. Shot over the course of many nights, the film exposes us to the range of people admitted to the hospital: accident victims, people with imagined illness, people abandoned by their families, and others who are just plain lonely. Documentarian John Grierson’s influence on Greaves is evident in this film: Greaves humanizes his subjects and reassures the viewer that the emergency ward at this institution is run as responsibly and as well as the post office in Night Mail (1936). The doctors know their jobs and care; orderlies and nurses are ennobled.” – Adam Knee and Charles Musser, William Greaves, Filmmaking as Mission (Columbia University Press, 2021) Courtesy National Film Board of Canada