Narratives of actuality in early twentieth century film and literature

Abstract

The inquiry about the present and its representation was one of the issues that concerned artists and writers at the beginning of the twentieth-century from either side of the Atlantic in the English-speaking world. This article intends to examine films and texts depicting their present time. Thematically, they allude to central topics of the period, such as international commerce and war in a rapidly changing global scheme. The corpus selection aims to provide some variety regarding the different material each writer and filmmaker considered appropriate for a relevant depiction of the present depending on their dreams, intentions, and worldview. Djuna Barnes in "The Hem of Manhattan" narrates a boat trip around the island while longing for Europe; Virginia Woolf walks through the docks of London to observe a piece of land that has drastically changed with modern global commerce; Paul Rotha and Humphrey Jennings in their films Shipyard (1935) and Farewell Topsails (1937), respectively, construct two perhaps complementary maritime views and stories.