'Fires Were Started'

Fires Were Started was released in 1943 under the title I Was a Fireman.

It is a documentary featuring reconstructions of what firefighters faced in England during the Nazi bombing during World War II. Yes, they reconstructed actual events.

Any argument that this isn't a "documentary" because it is essentially fake has some validity. Of course, we must first define "documentary." Is what Ken Burns does a documentary? Does he recreate the Civil War, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge or the history of baseball?

He uses archive footage, photos and interviews to tell his story not unlike Humphrey Jennings getting real firefighters to recreate real bombing scenarios.

Jennings, incidentally, was one of the original purveyors of the Mass Observation movement in England.

It was a social research organization created before the war. It basically chronicled everyday people's everyday lives. People kept diaries or they filled out questionnaires.

Other investigators were paid to anonymously account for people's behaviors at work, at parties, at religious and sporting events.

Mass Observation stemmed from King Edward VIII's abdication from the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson. The researchers -- including Jennings -- sought to capture the mood of the country as one king left under dubious circumstances and another king (the dude behind The King's Speech), George VI, took control. The mood of the country was captured by collecting anecdotes, man-on-the-street reaction and overhead commentary.

Jennings died at age 43 after falling off a Greek cliff. So it goes.