Nanook of the North
Story
Nanook of the North is an early (1922) silent documentary that ravishes the viewer with black and white images of the fairy-like world of ice and snow. Nanook of the North shows the world of Nanook, the bear, an Inuit living on the shores of Hudson’s Bay in Northern Quebec. He lives there with his wives, his many children and their dogs in a constant struggle for food and survival. With great ethnographical interest the film capture the daily ‘routine’ of Inuit living in the Arctic while fishing, hunting, traveling and building Igloos. The climate is harsh however and the Inuit are forever battling the elements.
First Feature Documentary Ever Made
Although Nanook of the North is often famed as the first documentary ever made, it’s of course not the earliest ‘documentary’, In the early days of cinema, the medium was almost entirely used for documenting events, such as the arrival of a congress, the building of a skyscraper or throwing snowballs. But Nanook of the North took docuumentary film to a whole new level. It is without doubt is one of the earliest- if not earliest, full length featured ‘documentary’.
Why Nanook Of The North Is An Essential Film
In its earliest years (approx. 1895–1902), film production was dominated by actualities, short pictures of real people in real places. Comprised largely of two categories—the travelogue and, more substantially, the industrial-life portrait—these films favored an unmediated view of the world over arranged spectacle. Actually, the first film ever made, ‘Train arriving at Ciotat Station‘ (Lumierre Brothers, 1895) was such a industrial-life portrait. When the film was first shown, people fled the theatre in horror when they saw a train coming at them. Though they gave way in popularity to the narrative fictions of Georges Méliès and Edwin Porter, they continued to be produced in great number. Robert Flaherty’s great innovation was simply to combine the two forms of actuality, infusing the exotic journey with the details of indigenous work and play and life. By so doing Flaherty transcended the travelogue, as the picturesque became a real and respectful portrait1Dean Duncan, Nanook of the North, Criterion.
Ethnographic Importance
European colonialism has profoundly altered the way of life of the indigenous people, like the Inuit filmed in this documentary. Nanook of the North is the most famous example of a film made in the style of salvage ethnography. Here, the filmmaker tries to capture the lives of the indigenous people before western influence, even by manipulating and staging the video images. Salvage ethnography has been a big influence for visual anthropology since the 1950s.
Nanook of the North was Directed in the observational style that would become ethnographic etiquette
Flaherty’s goal was complete authenticity. He wielded his gyroscope camera himself, carrying into the harsh arctic surroundings enough equipment to process and develop the film and show it to the Eskimos2Derek Malcom, Robert Flaherty: Nanook of the North, The Guardian. Flaherty developed each day’s footage and screened it for the participants, who were encouraged to make suggestions. Since the Inuit were the authorities on their own lives, many of these suggestions were incorporated into the film. Consistent with this substantial artistic collaboration, and contrary to a narrative and stylistic impulse that would prevail elsewhere for many more years, Flaherty does not intrude on his subject. However, the film is not a straightforward recording of their everyday life: they amiably enacted some of it for Flaherty’s cameras. But so honest and instinctive was their playing that it was undoubtedly truth of a sort.
