Nanook of the North



Nanook of the North (also known as Nanook of the North: A Story Of Life and Love In the Actual Arctic) is a 1922 American silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty, with elements of docudrama, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The film made its mark as the first full-length documentary, not only defining what could be called a "documentary", but at the same, breaking every one of the rules that would be established about the genre. However, despite all of the events being manipulated for the camera, the film stills retains a charm and innocence.
 * 2) *To that end, he altered the he reality he was filming to a surprising degree. For scenes shot in the interiors of igloos, Flaherty had the roofs removed to provide more light.
 * 3) *In one sequence, Nanook hunts a polar bear through a hole in the ice, struggling to hold on to the rope attached to the hook. A harpoon appears and disappears in the sequence, showing that the director was shooting at different times.
 * 4) *Flaherty also had no qualms about directing his actors and using the techniques of Hollywood features to introduce the film's characters and was confident enough to stage and restage incidents to get what he wanted on film.
 * 5) Depicts a mostly accurate --if partially staged-- representation of Eskimo life. It even showed filmgoers how Inuits were like any other humans, with children and pets and stomach aches.
 * 6) Robert Flaherty, the film's director, was an explorer, and shot film and photographs for some of the expeditions he took. This film's direction took a different approach from his first (now lost) film of Inuit living near Baffin Island. In this case, he brought along the apparatus to both develop and project the film, enabling him to see on the spot what worked and what didn't. This allowed him to reshoot scenes if he felt they merited better framing and exposures, and he could return to locations if he needed more footage to edit a scene. More crucially, he showed the Inuits what he was shooting, making them participants in shaping the structure and meaning of the film.
 * 7) Flaherty focused in individuals rather than incidents, so he told the story of the Inuits through the people themselves. Since he had lived with them for years, he understood the essential elements of their lives and could zero in on situations that would best explain them to moviegoers. He also had an eye for composition and editing. He was extremely sensitive to light and perspective and to the passage of time.
 * 8) Despite being a documentary, the film still has several action scenes, with most of them demonstrating Nanook’s prowess securing food including fishing, and hunting walrus, fox, and seal.
 * 9) Even though Nanook and the other Inuk are trying to find ways to survive, they're still very brave and generous when the time calls for it.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Attracted a lot of controversy during its time. Especially for staging some of the events, which are supposedly based on actual events; not to mention breaking various rules of the future genre of documentaries.

The Film
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