Out of the Archives 4: USIA commissioned the first film of noted independent Black documentarian William Greaves
The US Information Agency (USIA) was a Cold War propaganda and public diplomacy agency. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) contains a large collection of USIA’s film, photography, and textual records, with many of these holdings still to be explored. As I make research visits to NARA, I’ll be sharing occasional updates of my discoveries, especially those materials related to post-independence Africa, from the USIA archives.
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In the previous installment of Out of the Archives (№3), I mentioned USIA’s use of both industrial film companies and independent documentary filmmakers (some of whom also worked in Hollywood) for its film production.
Some of the headline names who directed USIA films include Willard Van Dyke (The Photographer, 1948) Carroll Ballard (Harvest, 1967), and Charles Guggenheim (Nine from Little Rock, 1964). A number of them emerged out of the New York documentary scene of the 1930s-40s, like director-cinematographer Leo Seltzer, while others moved between industrial films and their own productions. USIA also acquired experimental films like Richard Preston’s Manifesto (1963) to distribute for screenings at its post globally.
Also on this list is director, cinematographer, editor, and screenwriter William Greaves, whose fiction-documentary Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1971) was described by The New Yorker as “one of the most daring and original movies of its time.” Greaves is also rightly famous for his poetic portrayal of the major gathering in Dakar in 1966, The First World Festival of Negro Arts, also a USIA production. But USIA gave Greaves his first chance to helm a film a few years earlier in its production Wealth of a Nation (1964).
Especially under the leadership of George Stevens, Jr., USIA’s Movie division deliberately identified and recruited directors to add to its roster. In a July 1964 memo by Stevens, he noted that “in its efforts to provide USIA posts with documentary films of quality and effectiveness, USIA has been calling upon the nation’s best talent.” William Greaves was listed among almost 20 such prospects in that memo.
Stevens describes Greaves as “one of the earliest members of the New York Actors Studio and as a filmmaker is the product of the Canadian Film Board.” His previous work with United Nations television on a film on international civil aviation was cited. According to Knee and Musser (1992), Greaves was recommended to Stevens, who was looking for a Black director, by none other than the celebrated director Shirley Clarke (Portrait of Jason, 1967).
In this memo, Stevens refers to the film as “A Nation of Dissenters.” However, Knee and Musser claim that Greaves’ original treatment of the film “proved too controversial for the agency. . . USIA subsequently decided to change the film’s focus to freedom of expression.” According to the USIA description, the film, now under the title Wealth of a Nation, “explores how freedom of speech — including dissent — is afforded to all Americans, and shows freedom of expression in art, music, dance, architecture, and science. The film also emphasizes the importance of the individual’s contribution to the whole of society and demonstrates how a productive and creative society is formed by the open and respectful exchange of ideas.” Elsewhere, it was described as “illustrat[ing] that freedom of thought and expression, including violent dissent, is a source of national strength in US politics, education and the arts.”
The 22-minute black-and-white film, which Greaves produced, wrote, and directed, is a beautifully shot essay film on this notion of freedom of expression and the special capacity of American society to accommodate diverse views and new ideas; in fact, that respecting the opinions of others that differ tests and strengthens democracy and maintains harmony. It briefly shows pioneers in several areas — sculptor Lee Bontacou, jazz composer Bill Dixon, architects William Katavolos and Paolo Soleri — as examples of the power of unconventional ideas. It pairs Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech at the March on Washington with a debate of citizens at a town council meeting to demonstrate that open, even heated, expression is embedded in the fabric of American life.
The film is structured around an elaborate analogy of maturation, starting from a scene of a newborn’s entry into the world “kicking and screaming” through pre-school when the individual learns to adapt his preferences to this social good to a final idyllic scene of an interracial group of children playing together in a forest. The narrative voice-over (is that Greaves’ voice?) is constantly flipping back and forth around this tension of standing out and fitting in. It concludes that “ideas and opinions and the freedom to express them, this is the wealth of a nation. . .”
These were themes USIA liked to emphasize, framing (or reframing) the civil rights movement, for instance, as a positive attribute of American society in that it represented peaceful protest and the ability of the government and society at large to allow this pushback. This contrasts, of course, with the unspoken description of Communist societies as closed and hostile to dissent. And it attempts to counter the most effective Communist criticism of the US, the state of “race relations,” by embracing elements of the non-violent civil rights movement as a sign of the virtue, not the weakness, of the American way of life.
Other credits on the film include music by Bill Dixon, cinematography by Guy Borremans, and sound by Richard Coll. Wealth of a Nation was not retired from USIA circulation until 1977. I have updated various Wikipedia entries for USIA-associated filmmakers with some of my research.
