''The Body'' is a 1970 British scientific documentary film directed and produced by

Roy Battersby Roy Battersby (born 20 April 1936) is a British television director, known for his work in drama productions such as '' Between The Lines'', ''Inspector Morse'', '' Cracker'' and ''A Touch of Frost.'' Early in his career, he made documentary fea ...

. In the film, external and internal cameras are used to showcase the human body. The film's narrators,

Frank Finlay Francis Finlay, (6 August 1926 – 30 January 2016) was an English stage, film and television actor, Oscar-nominated for a supporting role as Iago in Laurence Olivier's 1965 film adaptation of ''Othello''. In 1983, Finlay was directed by Ital ...

and

Vanessa Redgrave Dame Vanessa Redgrave (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress and activist. Throughout her career spanning over seven decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Television Award, tw ...

, provide commentary that combines the knowledge of human biologists and anatomical experts. The film's soundtrack, '' Music from the Body'', was composed by

Ron Geesin Ronald Frederick Geesin (born 17 December 1943) is a Scottish musician, composer and writer known for his unusual creations and novel applications of sound, as well as for his collaborations with Pink Floyd and Roger Waters. Career Ron Geesin ...

and

Roger Waters George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. In 1965, he co-founded the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Waters initially served as the bassist, but following the departure of singer-so ...

, and includes songs that were made using the human body as a medium. Waters is also the narrator of one scene.

Production

The film was "suggested by" a science book by Anthony Smith.Putting a poet on flim Pendennis. The Observer 3 May 1970: 44. The cost of optioning film rights and developing the project to take to market cost £11,000 which came from the NFFC. After a year, by December 1969 Battersby had a script. He showed this to the NFFC which resulted in another draft of the script. The NFFC agreed to provide half of the finance. In March 1969 Battersby met with Nat Cohen at Anglo-Amalgamated who agreed to provide the other half of finance on that day.Making it Jordan, C. New Society; London Vol. 16, (Jul 2, 1970): 420. Battersby shot about 300,000 feet of film of which 11,000 were used. "There was a lot of blood and film on the cutting room floor," said Garnett.

Soundtrack

Tony Garnett asked

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...

recommendations for who might do the soundtrack. Peel suggested Ron Geesin. He did it with Roger Waters from Pink Floyd. Geesin later said:

It was an attempt... to put a deeply socio-human documentary about the human body into cinemas, using some then-pioneering micro-camera work: coursing along the various tubes and all that. The soundtrack did what all film soundtracks are supposed to do: duet with the visual content, for, against, unison, comment. The subsequent album for EMI consisted of most of that soundtrack, in its many parts: mine as originally recorded, Roger’s re-recorded, supplemented by two original tracks, little to do with the film and all to do with Roger and me having fun, ‘Our Song’ and ‘Body Transport’.

Reception

In August 1971

Nat Cohen Nat Cohen (23 December 1905 – 10 February 1988)William D. Rubinstein, et al (eds.''The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History'' Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, p.171 was a British film producer and executive. For over four decades he was one of t ...

, whose company distributed the film, said it had recouped its negative cost in the Far East alone.NAT COHEN. "British film finance." Times ondon, England20 Aug. 1971: 13. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.

Home media

The film was released on DVD on 7 October 2013.

References

External links

*
The Body
at Letterbox DVD
The Body
at BFI

at New York Times 1970 films Documentary films about science 1970 documentary films British documentary films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films 1970s English-language films 1970s British films {{sci-documentary-film-stub