Film Analysis: Nanook Of The North

As documentary filmmakers Jill Godmilow and Ann-Louise Shapiro stated, “documentary film... is one of the "discourses of sobriety" that include science, economics, politics, and history-discourses that claim to describe the "real," to tell the truth.” (Godmilow & Shaprio, 1997, pg.80). Although documentaries are presumed to represent the realities of the world, questions of truth, and more specifically, how “real” a film is, are inherent to the form. With this in mind, this essay aims to critically analyze the key theoretical, historiographical and formal debates surrounding ethnography, direct cinema and cinema verité, and the ways in which these schools of documentary film are all situated in a never-ending quest for the truth. The following

This is evident in the way ethnography acts as a form of visual anthropology, whose origins can be traced to the explorer-turned filmmaker Robert Flaherty and his film Nanook of the North. Not only is Nanook of the North considered as the first ethnographic film, but it is also considered by some scholars to be the first documentary film (Rony, 1996, pg.99). With this in mind, ethnography can be characterized as a documentary genre that attempts to visually capture and represent the studies of different cultures and people on film. This stems from a desire to account for the lives of those being colonized. Thus, the goal of the ethnographic film is to bring marginalized individuals and cultures to the forefront. Ethnography is also aligned with the form of documentary, because it is precisely its mode of filming the daily lives of real marginalized groups that correlates with the role of documentary as a recorder of real people and events. Lastly, it is important to note that ethnography is a highly controversial school of documentary film, as issues of subjectivity, voyeurism, ethics and truth are often debated within the context of the

This criticism surrounding Nanook of the North stems partly from Flaherty’s use of staging. This is evident in the film’s climax, where audiences whiteness a starving Nanook attempt capture a seal from under the ice. Here, audiences watch as Nanook strikes the seal and struggles to bring the beast to the surface. This scene is relatively long, as audiences experience Nanook’s struggle and desperation alongside him. However, although this scene appears to represent the true struggles Nanook faced, the scene was in fact, staged. This is because, as Fatima Tobing Rony noted, although Nanook was pulling the line from above the ice, there was a group of men off camera who would tug the line, thus, creating the impression of a physical struggle (Rony, pg.114). Likewise, it should be noted that some of the locations in the film were also staged. For instance, the igloo where Nanook and his family slept was a constructed set. That is, although the building of the igloo is one of the most celebrated scenes in the film, it should be noted it was staged. This is because the scenes inside the igloo were shot in a constructed three-walled igloo, which allowed room for Flaherty's camera and effective lighting to