Nanook of the North

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Nanook of the North Moana
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Robert Flaherty

• 1884-1951
• Born Michigan moved to Canada aged 13 UCC
• Michigan College of Mines
• Miner, explorer (maps) Flaherty Island (Belcher
  archipelago)

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Nanook of the North (1922)

• Desc. as first feature film of fact
• 50,000 Revillon Freres fur company (France) -
  1913-16
• 1 year shoot, 6 mos edit (NY)
• Rushes went up in smoke (nitrate negative)

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• 2nd trip North 1920 more sophisticated equip
• 2 cameras, gas generators, lights
• Cam lubricated w. graphite gyro-head tripod (pan
  horizontally vertically)
• Full lab develop, print, project
• Trained natives as technical assistants

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• No shooting script
• Staged sequences - Seal hunt lands dead one
• Central episode building igloo, cutting ice
  blocks
• Half-igloo

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• Romantic purpose to affirm life
• Post WWI re-awaken cssness of civilizations
  own resources values by depicting struggle of
  man w. minimal resources vs. desolate
  environment (Flaherty)
• Social document / vision of romantic idealist
• Suspense as day ends no food, shelter
• Ends w family in abandoned igloo cozy but lost

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Nanook cont.

• Rejected by US distributors
• Opened 1st Paris, Berlin
• NY 1922 grossed 40,000 1st week
• Immediately heralded as genius Nanook in a
  class by itself, one of the best in the history
  of movies (contemporary review)

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• humanist vision Richard Barsam
• poetic celebration of man true tragedy
• eternal struggle of the Human Being
• the hunters every gesture seems part of a
  sacred ritual

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• Not yet concept of documentary
• Drama loose narrative
• Environmental details, continuity, intertitles
• Not purely descriptive

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• swept away the notion that what the camera
  recorded was the total reality
• Another reality that the eye alone could not
  perceive
• that high moment of seeing, that flash of
  penetration into the heart of the matter
  Frances Flaherty

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• Charged w exploiting Nanook
• Overemphasise hardship severity of life w/out
  offering help
• Nanook died of starvation 1924

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• the inscription, upon the body of a small group
  of Inuit of Robert Flahertys masculinist,
  American ideology and his nostalgic desire for,
  and belief in, a pure, primitive, uncomplicated
  innocence lost to white civilization Sherrill
  Grace

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Moana A Romance of the Golden Age (1926)
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• Jesse Lasky (later Paramount) commissioned
  another Nanook (Moana)
• No restrictions re , time, approach
• Model for others
• Cooper Schoedsack Flaherty influence - Grass
  (Persia, 1925) Chang (Siam, 1927)
• lyrical studies

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• Flaherty and Frances went to remote Samoan
  island of Savai'I
• took new Akeley "pancake" camera
• Prizmacolor two-color camera
• panchromatic film (Nanook orthochromatic)
  contrast, depth, dimension
• use of color filters to dramatize bring out the
  values of skies foliage

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• 1st use of term documentary
• Of course, Moana being a visual account of
  events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth
  and his family, has documentary value John
  Grierson, review of Moana for NY Sun (8 Feb 1926)

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• Greater mastery of film technique
• Camera angles, composition, etc. superb
• Panchromatic film unequalled tonal values,
  light, shadings
• Induces philosophical attitude in spectator It
  is real, that is why

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• Episodic narrative
• Trapping wild boar, fishing, mother making cloth
  from bark, boy harvesting coconuts, turtle hunt,
  prep for tribal feast
• Climax coming of age ritual - tattoo

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• no dramatic conflict -
• only ordeal is a ritual body-tattooing of a youth
• depicted at length - staged especially for the
  film- practice dying out
• "One often has to distort a thing," he said, "to
  catch its true value."

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• Flaw misses cultural significance of many
  incidents
• Travelogue Few insights into human strength etc
  of Nanook
• More experimentation better stock, variety of
  lenses, cam technique - static cinematog
• prepared in 11 reels for a roadshow release, but
  studio cut to 7 reels for normal release
• Not great financial success but lyrical
  intensity