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Shipyard U rating

Paul Rotha’s brilliant film of the building and launch of SS Orion from the shipyards of Barrow-in-Furness.

1935 25 mins

Overview

The shipyards of Barrow-in-Furness are the setting for this enduring classic of 1930s British documentary . Paul Rotha, one of the most precocious and distinctive talents of the documentary movement, takes a familiar subject and format for industrial documentary – something being made, in this case the meticulous assembly of the sea liner Orion – and turns it into a modernist masterpiece.

Inspired by Soviet β€˜montage’ editing, Rotha brilliantly captures the metronomic rhythm of the construction process and the beauty of the resulting grand vessels. Rotha made the film while working for Gaumont-British Instructional (normally known for much more conventional filmmaking), on money from the Orient Shipping Company and shipbuilders Vickers Armstrong, making monthly filmmaking sorties to the shipyard for almost a year (there is sleight-of-hand in the film, in that Rotha actually filmed the construction of two different boats, built three months apart). His choice of final image - shipbuilders departing the quay following the triumphant launch - adds a subtle, socially conscious and melancholy undertone to the otherwise thrusting forward momentum of his memorably vigorous filmmaking. Shipyard is also available on the BFI DVD collection Tales from the Shipyard.