Nanook of the North (1922) dir. Robert J. Flaherty

A lot has happened since my last blog post and, as always, none of those things hindered my ability to to watch the next film on the list and write up a piece on it. I just didn't do it. Until now!

This time we have arrived on an ever-so-slightly different piece for the blog, for we have arrived at our first documentary, or our first non-fiction piece. We haven't gotten into any of the experimental films or home movies, but at least we're getting something different. As far as documentaries go, Nanook of the North isn't especially unusual. It tells a story about real life with real people (although its notorious for its fabrications). But it is a beautiful piece of cinema and its not without it's share of interesting trivia. That, and it offers some things to think about as well.

I have notes about this from my film history class. The professor, Pete, had a lot of info on this film, as I recall. I have gone through periods where I have his notes and I have used them for this blog. I've also gone through periods where I haven't due to not knowing where they are. Sadly, though his knowledge and insights were in full force behind this film as we went over it in his class, due to my family's massive summer cleaning event, I've lost them again--possibly for good. I will not let this information fall into oblivion. I've initiated an emergency retrieval plan to get another set of copies of the notes as I have many contacts who took the class as well.

The reason I say this is because I am going to have to provide all of my background information from Wikipedia. I don't often provide a whole lot of background in my reviews, but obviously I would if it came from a good source. 

Technically, the film is what you might call a "docudrama". The story of a great Inuit (referred to as Eskimo) hunter named Nanook actually features a man who is not actually named Nanook and people who are not really his family (the wives, in fact, were with Flaherty, the director). And so the film is often criticized for it's fabrication. Some of it's most celebrated scenes are not only staged but thoroughly faked. The interior shots from the most recognized scene of the film, the igloo sequence, were recreated with an igloo missing a wall to fit the film equipment. The hunting sequences where Nanook and his huntsmen use spears and knives to get food were embellishments.  Nanook was already using a gun to hunt at the time. And yet, a simple change of perspective and a reconsideration of Flaherty's real intention not only reveal even greater filmmaker discrepancies, but authenticity that we didn't see before.  

The film opens with a series of intertitles that set-up the context of what we're about to see. I would argue that here, before the film really starts, we see a documentary mode that is ahead of its time. Reflexivity is a staple of Cinéma vérité, particularly French vérité. In it's true form, reflexive documentary filmmaking is much more complex than anything divulged to us in the intertitles of Nanook. Filmmaker philosophy and introspection play a greater part in true French vérité films like Chronicle of a Summer or the American experimental documentary, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm. The Maysles' Grey Gardens or Gimme Shelter represents this method as well. However, what's interesting to see is in Nanook is similar traits to the reflexivity of a modern movement in its more primal cinematic ancestor. 

The filmmakers of Chronicle of a Summer discuss the plan of the documentary with one of the main subjects.

 As it was 1922, formula was still being developed for narratives in general. Documentary, certainly, had not been able to  evolve into the expository and, for lack of a better word, square educational tool that the direct cinema and French vérité movements were rebelling against. And so in a purely honest and straightforward gesture, Flaherty opens the film by detailing the creative process that went into choosing his subject, the pitfalls he went through in this process, and his ultimate artistic goal, to typify the Eskimos through one "character". The film is less about being truthful in portraying this Nanook character, but in painting a picture of an Inuit lifestyle from an anthropological and geographic perspective. In a way, the criticism that has always surrounded this film is addressed by Flaherty before one can even witness the contents of it. And it is rationalized, although not necessarily justified.

(I want to note that the intertitles during the actual events of the film are not like this. They're the lofty, overly descriptive silent movie intertitles you'd expect.)

Keeping the fact that a lot of the events were made up and that the premise was almost entirely fabricated, the authenticity of the landscape, the clothing, and the way of life of the Inuit (at least a few decades before the film was made) is still there. The glacial plains shadowed by the last glows of dawn begin the events of the film. Without sync sound, the film, in theory, relies on visuals to teach the audience about Nanook's way of life. So does the film achieve cinema truth? In a way. In many other ways, it doesn't. So there.

 In particular, the focus on Nanook as a man comes from the notion of artisan craftsmanship. The thing to be watched and observed is to see how Nanook's "occupation" directly provides his living, something industrialized societies very seldom provide. Take me for instance. I get up at 7:30, go to work at 9, and come home at 5. I get paid currency to perform a task, a task which very, very indirectly provides my living. Nanook and his clan are nomads, more or less. They work as a way of life, hunting for food, creating a new shelter every few days, and training their young to do what they do. They live a life where they don't need money, which is practically incomprehensible, if not impossible, to people like me and you.

And then, in contrast to the more objective and intriguing motion picture visuals, the intertitles contain quaint illustrations and speak to the viewer like the warm, paternal speaker of a children's book. They over-explain, oversimplify, and provide unnecessary breaks in the action. Sometimes, they were written by Yoda. 

Because this is a silent (and not just in a non-dialogue way), it really makes me question the importance of sound in documentaries. Innovation in sound both held back and later improved the genre. The sugarcoated, bland educational style documentaries were mainly so bad because of the stentorian narrator introducing a fake family and speaking to us like children. Direct cinema and vérité movements would break down this technique with their own improved use of sync sound to capture the noises of an environment in real time. To let the beauty stand out in the film, it needs to stand alone. To truly marvel at Nanook's activities, they should go one without explanation. Perhaps, without the necessity of intertitles, the film would have had less over-explaining by telling a story through visuals and sounds. Then again, it's likely that sound would have only invited that same narrator to use his voice instead of intertitles to talk down to us.

The are several forces at odds with each other in this film. I mean, I'm writing a review about it. It's on the registry. Yet it constantly gets called out as a major piece of pre-journalistic ethics bullshit. And that's what it is in a lot of ways. But there's something authentic about it. There's something majestic and dignified about it. And yet, sometimes I wonder how Flaherty regards Nanook (his real name was Allakariallak, by the way). Is this story framed around man vs. nature? Or does Flaherty really consider Nanook a man like himself? The distance can sometimes be felt between the filmmaker and the subject in such a way that it feels like you're watching a nature documentary about a totally different species. In no way are Nanook and his "family" disrespected of dehumanized, per se. But the story is framed by a man who clearly views society from an industrial/technological perspective and his relationship to Nanook is that of an academic to his field of study.

You couldn't force me to say that this was an early example of documentary. Really, if we're going off a pure and simple definition of the word, then the Lumiere brothers were making documentaries when they captured the first moving pictures on their cinematograph.

However, non-fiction events had never really been arranged into a feature-length narrative like this before. That alone earns it its early spot on the registry. I think it's more interesting, however, to see how this films contains techniques that would both inspire and deter the great documentarians of the late 20th century. What cinematic seeds lay germinating under the snow?