Coal Face

1935 British film

Coal Face
Opening title card
Directed by	Alberto Cavalcanti
Written by	W.H. Auden
Produced by	John Grierson
Cinematography	Stuart Legg
Edited by	William Coldstream
Music by	Benjamin Britten
Production company	GPO Film Unit
Release date	1935
Running time	11 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Coal Face is a 1935 British documentary film short directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. With a film score by Benjamin Britten^[1] and a poem written and narrated by W.H. Auden,^[2] the film gives a glimpse into the lives of a Yorkshire mining community and the dangerous working conditions the miners routinely faced. The film largely reuses older footage from Tour of a British Coal Mine (1928), which was shot in Barnsley, Yorkshire.^[3]

References

^ White, Eric Walter (1970). Benjamin Britten: His Life and Operas. University of California Press. pp. 23–24. ISBN 0-520-01679-3.
^ Thesing, William B. (2000). Caverns of Night: Coal Mines in Art, Literature, and Film. University of South Carolina Press. p. 120. ISBN 1-57003-352-8.
^ Aitken (2006). Aitken, Ian (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Routledge. pp. 237–238. ISBN 978-1-57958-445-0.