The Making of Goodbye Billy

applies not only to the film as document but as well to the act ofdocumenting through film. It is not only in the image presented but in the creatively arranged cadence ofthe images and sound that the documentary meanings offilm are to be found. The making ofGoodbye Billy was approached in this spirit. * The halfhour film has been created out oforiginal sound and film materials from the period ofthe American involvement in the Great War in an attempt to document the meanings ofthat experience. For what Purpose? The question applies not only to Goodbye Billy but to the activity ofthe historian as film maker in general. It is of little use to remind you that our students are film oriented; nor that there has frequently been failure in the documentary filmmaker to "tell" them history. Goodbye Billy does not attempt to "tell" the story ofAmerican involvement in the war, but it has been created as a discovery oriented film putting together sound and image ofthe period as a document for class discussion. Cross montage and the a-synchronity offilm and sound track take the place in this instance ofa straight chronological narration. A packet of supplementary-materials is currently being prepared for a two-week segment ofa course, which the film will keynote, and which includes a record, documents and interpretative materials on issues raised by the film, and materials on the film which were used in Goodbye Billy. The realities offilm are a challenge to the traditional techniques and interests of the historian. To accept film as a nonlinear means ofexpression is only the beginning of the argument. The very physical indeterminacy and ambiguity ofthe film process demands a freshening ofmethodologies and critical approaches to the traditional treatment ofthe written document, ofdesign and order, and suggests perhaps a reshaping. The situation is comparable to the era ofVoltaire and Vico when the presence of science was used to shape a Scienza Nuova out of the narrative chronicle into an art ofdocumenting "history". * At thispoint in Professor Griffin'spaper he turned to a discussion ofhisfilm, Goodbye Billy a workprint ofwhich was shown to the audience The article on the followingpages prepared by Professor Griffin especially for Film & History discusses theproduction ofthatfilm in more detail...Eds. THE MAKING OF GOODBYE BILLY By Patrick Griffin Goodbye Billy: America Goes to War, 1917-1918 was made by professional historians, under the auspices ofthe American Historical Association History Education Project, as a discovery oriented film document ofthe historical chronology, values, and emotions ofAmerica in World War I. The novel use of archive sound and actuality film 17 in the 23 minute film calls attention to the meanings of " documentary" at a time when historians are increasingly involving themselves directly in the filmmaking process, and when the problems and issues involved with the use offilm in the classroom are at last coming into focus. A film genre ofmuch fullness and variety, the documentary film tradition has invariably developed in directions other than those anticipated and proposed by early film theorists. Critical comment over the years has been directed toward the misuse of film as a visual crutch secondary to a didactic narrative, insensitivity to the authenticity of actuality film and the sound track, and failure to recognize the viewer as a participant in the film process (1). The making ofGoodbye Billy has highlighted the importance of these critical relationships between historical content and film form. Goodbye Billy came out ofmy collaboration with R. C. Raack of California State College at Hayward and W. F. Malloch, musicologist, composer, and sound documentarían. Raack and Malloch have collaborated on several sound documentaries. One oftheir recent efforts is the long playing record "The Stars and Stripes and You" (Pox Productions, 1971), a quick paced, bittergay sound montage which catches the spirit ofAmerica in World War I through original recordings of songs, poems, speeches, and vaudeville sketches ofthe times. A sound track built from parts ofthe record was the starting point ofthe film. The working film stock for Goodbye Billy was 2350 feet of 1 6 mm. film reduced from 35 mm. (65 minutes? which was selected from the Signal Corps holdings in the National Archives. This film footage was...