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  • Night Mail — The focus on work


    Konrad Wakolbinger

    "Night Mail" (1936) was commissioned as an image publicity film by the British General Post Office and went down in film history as a ground-breaking documentary. Directors Harry Watt and Basil Wright succeed in creating an ode to workers and modern technology by enriching their naturalistic style within the film with poetic elements and always keeping the human aspect in mind.

    The Postal Special used to run daily from London to Aberdeen via Glasgow and Edinburgh.  Half a million letters were sorted and dis­tri­bu­t­ed by 40 postal workers on board during the nightly journey. Using the example of one journey of this rolling post office, directors Watt and Wright docu­men­ted the orga­ni­sa­tio­nal and technical sophisti­ca­ti­on, as well as the per­for­mance of the postal and railway workers. “Night Mail” was intended to impress the public and thus repair the damaged repu­ta­ti­on of the Royal Mail. 

    Traffic con­trol­lers, signal box operators, track workers, loading of mail bags, coupling of wagons, shot-by-shot, the directors build the picture of complex logistics that run like pro­ver­bi­al clockwork. Speed, timing, the inter­ac­tion of tech­no­lo­gy and people are the sup­por­ting elements of this cho­reo­gra­phy of effi­ci­en­cy. The most modern tech­no­lo­gy of the time was also used for the filming, as in the impres­si­ve flight shots, one of which with the shadow of the plane in the picture. By locating the train in the landscape and involving the people along the track the film avoids por­tray­ing the Postal Special as a self-suf­fi­ci­ent machine.  As Auden’s poem in the final section of “Night Train” makes it clear, this train trans­ports letters for all, in all cir­cum­s­tan­ces. 

    Finally, it seems it was important to the filmma­kers to show the workers not only as staff members, but also in their inter­per­so­nal rela­ti­ons­hips with each other as col­leagues, killing time joking with the wai­tres­ses in the station café, or when they bicker and banter. It is precisely these dialogues that make “Night Train” so lively and give the docu­men­ta­ry feature-film qualities.

    As signi­fi­cant as the show-value of the railway tech­no­lo­gy is, “Night Mail” shows us that only the skills and knowledge of an expe­ri­en­ced and well-rehearsed team make the “Tra­vel­ling Post Office” func­tio­n­al. This can be seen through the precise sorting of letters without postcodes, and in the handing over of mailbags “on the fly”, a method of “loading and unloading” the mail at breakneck speed.

    Through the artifice of training a new employee, the viewer learns how mail pouches are loaded and unloaded at full speed. By means of a device on the railway track with a transfer rack and a catch net and a cor­re­spon­ding device on the wagon, the speeding train throws off the pouch of outbound mail to be delivered and the pouch of inbound mail to be sorted slams into the wagon with great force. Until 1971, this “non-stop exchange” was practised in Great Britain and was also common in other countries, such as the USA. Expe­ri­ence and full attention were literally essential for survival in this job, because injuries, even fatal ones, were a constant danger.

    Charles Hut­ch­craft from Illinois describes his expe­ri­ence on a US mail train:  (Source: Oral Histories The Railway Mail System, National Postal Museum Smithsonian)

    “On the train, the RPO, why, they call what they, they call a catch and throw, you call that, you catch a pouch of mail on the fly when you’re 80 miles an hour, you know, and then you put your hook out the window. Now that was something that was always exciting to me, I’ll never forget the first one, because that’s when we couldn’t even get insurance. If they knew you had a job like that nobody would insure you so you could get hurt awfully easy, so we’d start our own insurance, it still stands to this day.”

    As dangerous and exhaus­ting as work in the postal service could be, in 1936, when Night Mail was filmed, workers were still at the centre of the pro­duc­tion process. As auto­ma­ti­on increased, workers became more and more inept, replaced by technical solutions and sometimes downright degraded to super­fluous — “deplor­ables” (1) in Hillary Clinton’s diction. 

    There is a separate article on the poetic final part of the film, for which W.H. Auden and Benjamin Britten are respon­si­ble.  Night Mail — The Poetic Gaze

    1) Hillary Clinton refers to a portion of Donald Trump’s sup­por­ters as a “basket of deplor­ables” in a speech during a fund-raising event in New York on 9 September 2016.

    Night Mail (1936) : GPO Film Unit / Crown Film Unit : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive 

    https://youtu.be/stIh4RweYns 

    Travelling Post Office Drop-Off Demonstration 

    Library of Congress collection: 1903 demonstration of catching a mail bag "on the fly" 

    Tags

    Night Mail — The focus on work

    Konrad Wakolbinger

    "Night Mail" (1936) was commissioned as an image publicity film by the British General Post Office and went down in film history as a ground-breaking documentary. Directors Harry Watt and Basil Wright succeed in creating an ode to workers and modern technology by enriching their naturalistic style within the film with poetic elements and always keeping the human aspect in mind.

    The Postal Special used to run daily from London to Aberdeen via Glasgow and Edinburgh.  Half a million letters were sorted and dis­tri­bu­t­ed by 40 postal workers on board during the nightly journey. Using the example of one journey of this rolling post office, directors Watt and Wright docu­men­ted the orga­ni­sa­tio­nal and technical sophisti­ca­ti­on, as well as the per­for­mance of the postal and railway workers. “Night Mail” was intended to impress the public and thus repair the damaged repu­ta­ti­on of the Royal Mail. 

    Traffic con­trol­lers, signal box operators, track workers, loading of mail bags, coupling of wagons, shot-by-shot, the directors build the picture of complex logistics that run like pro­ver­bi­al clockwork. Speed, timing, the inter­ac­tion of tech­no­lo­gy and people are the sup­por­ting elements of this cho­reo­gra­phy of effi­ci­en­cy. The most modern tech­no­lo­gy of the time was also used for the filming, as in the impres­si­ve flight shots, one of which with the shadow of the plane in the picture. By locating the train in the landscape and involving the people along the track the film avoids por­tray­ing the Postal Special as a self-suf­fi­ci­ent machine.  As Auden’s poem in the final section of “Night Train” makes it clear, this train trans­ports letters for all, in all cir­cum­s­tan­ces. 

    Finally, it seems it was important to the filmma­kers to show the workers not only as staff members, but also in their inter­per­so­nal rela­ti­ons­hips with each other as col­leagues, killing time joking with the wai­tres­ses in the station café, or when they bicker and banter. It is precisely these dialogues that make “Night Train” so lively and give the docu­men­ta­ry feature-film qualities.

    As signi­fi­cant as the show-value of the railway tech­no­lo­gy is, “Night Mail” shows us that only the skills and knowledge of an expe­ri­en­ced and well-rehearsed team make the “Tra­vel­ling Post Office” func­tio­n­al. This can be seen through the precise sorting of letters without postcodes, and in the handing over of mailbags “on the fly”, a method of “loading and unloading” the mail at breakneck speed.

    Through the artifice of training a new employee, the viewer learns how mail pouches are loaded and unloaded at full speed. By means of a device on the railway track with a transfer rack and a catch net and a cor­re­spon­ding device on the wagon, the speeding train throws off the pouch of outbound mail to be delivered and the pouch of inbound mail to be sorted slams into the wagon with great force. Until 1971, this “non-stop exchange” was practised in Great Britain and was also common in other countries, such as the USA. Expe­ri­ence and full attention were literally essential for survival in this job, because injuries, even fatal ones, were a constant danger.

    Charles Hut­ch­craft from Illinois describes his expe­ri­ence on a US mail train:  (Source: Oral Histories The Railway Mail System, National Postal Museum Smithsonian)

    “On the train, the RPO, why, they call what they, they call a catch and throw, you call that, you catch a pouch of mail on the fly when you’re 80 miles an hour, you know, and then you put your hook out the window. Now that was something that was always exciting to me, I’ll never forget the first one, because that’s when we couldn’t even get insurance. If they knew you had a job like that nobody would insure you so you could get hurt awfully easy, so we’d start our own insurance, it still stands to this day.”

    As dangerous and exhaus­ting as work in the postal service could be, in 1936, when Night Mail was filmed, workers were still at the centre of the pro­duc­tion process. As auto­ma­ti­on increased, workers became more and more inept, replaced by technical solutions and sometimes downright degraded to super­fluous — “deplor­ables” (1) in Hillary Clinton’s diction. 

    There is a separate article on the poetic final part of the film, for which W.H. Auden and Benjamin Britten are respon­si­ble.  Night Mail — The Poetic Gaze

    1) Hillary Clinton refers to a portion of Donald Trump’s sup­por­ters as a “basket of deplor­ables” in a speech during a fund-raising event in New York on 9 September 2016.

    Night Mail (1936) : GPO Film Unit / Crown Film Unit : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

    https://youtu.be/stIh4RweYns

    Travelling Post Office Drop-Off Demonstration

    Library of Congress collection: 1903 demonstration of catching a mail bag "on the fly"

    Tags


    Night Mail - The Poetic Gaze

    Night Mail — The Poetic Gaze

    When the eminent film scholar Amos Vogel was forced to flee Vienna to the United States in 1938, the 17-year-old had already made the decision to devote his life to film. One experience that would define his future was a screening of "Night Mail" (1936) and this film still doesn’t fail to impress today.

    Bossnapping à la Cantona

    Boss­nap­ping à la Cantona

    In the last two decades in particular, disputes between management and workers in France have become increasingly intense. The so-called "bossnapping", the hostage taking of management, masterfully staged by Éric Cantona in the Netflix series ‘Inhuman Resources’ (2020), provides a telling example.

    Eastern German Women. Self-realisation through employment

    Eastern German Women. Self-rea­li­sa­ti­on through employment

    As a woman you always have to be better than the best man in the team. That's the minimum for a successful woman, where patriarchy works." This is how Maria Gross, a cook and restaurateur from Thuringia, sums up the situation of East German Women (2019) in a MDR-documentary by Lutz Pehnert.

    Between enlightenment and ‘plugging’.  A history of vocational guidance films on nursing

    Between enligh­ten­ment and ‘plugging’. A history of voca­tio­nal guidance films on nursing

    Combating nursing shortages through film has a history. A W-o-W film evening explored the changing nature of the nursing profession through vocational guidance films over the last 80 years.

    Capturing ‘Each and Every Moment" of nurses in training

    Capturing ‘Each and Every Moment” of nurses in training

    A W-o-W film evening contrasted vocational guidance films with "Each and Every Moment", a heartfelt documentary by Nicolas Philibert on training of nurses at the La Croix Saint-Simon hospital in the suburbs of Paris.

    Hikikomori - depression as rebellion?

    Hiki­ko­m­ori — depres­si­on as rebellion?

    What can Europe learn from Japan's experience dealing with NEET youth, those who are neither in employment nor training?

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    About this blog

    By selecting a film or an image, this blog literally illus­tra­tes the vast sphere of work, employ­ment & education in an open collec­tion of academic, artistic and also anecdotal findings.

    About us

    Konrad Wakol­bin­ger makes docu­men­ta­ry films about work and life. Jörg Mar­ko­witsch does research on education and work. They are both based in Vienna. Infor­ma­ti­on on guest authors can be found in their cor­re­spon­ding articles.

    More about

    Inte­res­ted in more? Find recom­men­da­ti­ons on relevant festivals, film collec­tions and lite­ra­tu­re here.

    About this blog

    With picking a film or an image, this blog literally illus­tra­tes the vast sphere of work, employ­ment & education in an open collec­tion of academic, artistic and also anecdotal findings.

    About us

    Konrad Wakol­bin­ger makes docu­men­ta­ry films about work and life. Jörg Mar­ko­witsch does research on education and work. We both work in Vienna. Infor­ma­ti­on on guest authors can be found in their respec­ti­ve articles.

    More about

    Inte­res­ted in more? Find recom­men­da­ti­ons on relevant festivals, film collec­tions and lite­ra­tu­re here.