FREEZE FRAMES
Granddaughter celebrates pioneer who captured the lives of Shetlanders and Canadian Inuits on camera as her work gets set for a fresh viewing
IT’S a bone-numbing -50C and film-maker Jenny Gilbertson is wearing seven pairs of socks and three pairs of sealskin mitts. In the documentary from the 70s, the 75-year-old has just trekked for eight hours across the frozen sea by dog sled, 900 miles north of the Arctic Circle with a group of Inuit hunting musk ox to capture scenes for her latest documentary.
“It was endurable... just,” she said of the bitter cold, in the film’s voiceover.
The clothes, with their caribou fur-lined layers which bulk her tiny figure up into balloon-like proportions, aren’t exactly “elegant”, she added.
But then superficial elegance was something this widowed pensioner from a well-to-do Glasgow family had been quite happy to ditch for a life rather less ordinary.
Her films about crofting in the 30s in Shetland – one of which is enjoying a rare showing as part of a film festival in Scotland next week – made her a leading early female film-making pioneer.
But it was only after she retired as a teacher in Shetland after a 20-plus year career in a small school, and the death of her husband Johnny, that she took up her camera again, becoming a solo documentary maker in the frozen lands of the Canadian north.
Her adventures while documenting the Inuit way of life – sleeping in igloos, eating raw caribou, laughing off ice blocks collapsing on her head, changing a nappy in -30C, driving a skidoo and joining a seal hunt on a rickety open boat with a polar bear swimming alongside – were broadcast by the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Company.
It was a very different life to the one envisaged for Jenny Brown when she was born in 1902, the daughter of rich Glasgow iron merchant William Brown and his wife Mary.
But from early on it was clear a comfortable but dull life wasn’t going to satisfy her.
Her granddaughter Heather Tulloch said: “Her mother wanted her to polish the legs on the dining room table and have ladies to lunch. That was not Grandma, that was never Grandma, right from early on she was a very determined person.”
Shona Main, a Shetland-based filmmaker and researcher into Jenny’s life, added: “I think she found middle-class Glasgow stifling. All those balls, and bridge and golf. She wanted connection and friendship – and that’s what she got, both in Shetland then later in the Canadian Arctic.”
The young Jenny pleaded with her parents to be allowed to go to university, an idea which “mortified” her mum, said Heather.
But with the backing of her dad, she completed her MA in teaching at Glasgow University, then headed to London for a secretarial and journalism course.
Typing took a back seat, though, after she saw a screening of an amateur film on Loch Lomond. Inspired, she bought a 16mm camera, headed to Shetland where the family had taken holidays, and made a first film, 1931’s A Crofter’s Life in Shetland, a documentary of a year in the life of the islanders.
“She spent a lot of time with people, getting to know them and really getting into the rhythm of their lives. Her filming was very natural. That’s what makes it so exquisite,” said Shona.
On its premiere in Edinburgh, it caught the eye of the dad of British and Canadian documentary-making John Grierson, who said she had “broken through the curse of artificiality” and was “an illuminator of life and movement”.
As important as his encouragement was the fact he bought several of her Shetland short films for the General Post Office Film Unit in London.
Inspired by his mentorship, she upgraded her camera to a 35mm model and headed back up to Shetland to make 1933’s The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric.
Her only drama film, it is being shown tomorrow as part of the HippFest silent film festival at the Bo’ness Hippodrome, and livestreamed worldwide with a new score.
Jenny wrote, shot and edited the 56-minute movie with a cast of mainly locals, the plot focussing on a young couple deciding whether to stay in Shetland or emigrate to Australia.
“It’s not the overblown kind of film we think of when we think of silent films because it’s something rooted in reality,” said Shona. “She was an extraordinary film-maker because of the time she took and the very careful looking and listening.
“People lived incredibly frugal lives then but they are not shown as victims, they are not romanticised.”
The film was a success both person
She was only 4ft 10ins and in her 70s and she was rattling along on a dog sleg
GRANDDAUGHTER HEATHER ON JENNY’S LIFE
ally for Jenny – the leading man was played by farrier Johnny Gilbertson who she went on to wed – and professionally in that it played in cinemas across Britain to critical acclaim.
But times were changing. Talking pictures were now the rage and in a bid to make her film more up-to-date, she sunk £100 of her own money to commission a score – “a fantastic amount at that time,” said Shona.
Unfortunately for Jenny, while the movie was a success, her distribution company had gone bust and she never saw a penny back on her investment.
“It then becomes incredibly expensive to make a film, war arrives and Johnny goes to war and there was no money so she has to give up filmmaking,” said Shona.
The next few decades Jenny spent on Shetland, teaching and raising her two daughters Helen and Ann with her husband.
But her career has its unusual postscript after she retired in 1967 and Johnny died. Heather said: “After my grandfather died, she just picked up her camera again and started filming by herself.”
She spent nine years in Canada. Her films include Jenny’s Dog Team Journey, where she spends two weeks travelling by dog sled with a group of Inuit including a three-month-old baby, sleeping in igloos every night – including one which falls on her head – changing the baby’s nappy at -30C, and living on frozen cheese and hard biscuit, supplemented with caribou meat.
“She was only 4ft 10ins and she was in her 70s and she was rattling along in a dog sled, I can’t imagine it was very comfortable,” said Heather of the grandma-of-five.
And in Jenny’s Arctic Diary she spent a year in the tiny Inuit community of Grise Ford, 900 miles north of the Arctic Circle, with its 100mph snow storms and perpetually dark winter months.
Heather said she is pleased her grandmother’s work could reach a new audience with next week’s screening. She said: “I am delighted there is interest in her work, and different ways to present it. What she created is an extremely valuable insight to life in days past. She was an educator through and through, through her film work and in the classroom.”
She believes Jenny would also have been thrilled at the renewed interest. She added: “She wanted her films to be her legacy to her family and for all the people involved in her work.” Heather now lives in Canada but at the time all the family was still in Shetland. But she said they didn’t find themselves worrying about Jenny. She said: “We were always a very practical family. We just though, ‘uh-oh what’s grandma up to now?’ She really did get herself immersed to understand the people, whatever that took.” Heather, 20 when Jenny died in 1990, says she is still full of admiration for a woman who was sending out a powerful message “to be who you want to be, optimistic, unique, and not restricted to what is expected of you”. She added: “She was small, she was tough, she was amazing, she was my grandma.”
●The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric will be screened as part of HIPPFEST at the Bo’ness Hippodrome on Wednesday 20 March and will be livestreamed online via HIPPFEST at Home.