Nanook Of The South Analysis

The structured perception of Nanook of the North by Flaherty shows the inclination of peoples’ criticism to something different from their assumptions. Nanook of the North is an ethnography depicting the Canada Arctic life of Nanook and his people. Flaherty’ underlying concept is to bring to light the already made assumptions of “Eskimo” culture. By using the narrative arc of the intro/exposition-conflict-rising action-climax-denouement/resolution, Flaherty is able to pass of staged events as in the walrus hunt as reality to make the ethnography more “authentic”. Nanook of the North helps also to detach the audience from what is occurring through music; music equals emotion. That emotion is what Flaherty uses throughout the movie to hold the

assumptions of Nanook’s people in place.

Flaherty seems like a good person; he takes his time as a Harvard professor to go into the sub-temperature Canadian Artic to film a family of Intuit. However throughout the movie, he places inferences to how he feels and wishes for the audience to feel about Nanook. The thing that stands out is the company funds the movie: The Revillion Frères. They were a fur company who used the Inuit people to help catch their furs. The irony here is Flaherty filming the endangered lives of the Inuit people, while the encroachment of modern society is causing that endangerment.

Nevertheless it is passed off as something good, for the Revillion Brothers use Nanook of the North as an ad to the outside world that they are able to work with “savages”; they are inclusive of different peoples.

Flaherty is not the only one who does this; the ethnographical film Land without Bread is another good depiction of how people are criticized by others for their way of life. The producer of Land without Bread was Luis Buñuel who unlike Flaherty created the ethnofiction as a way to criticize the people of La Alberca, depicting the people as backwards and unfit to be part of society. It compares to also how Nanook is shown at the ‘Trading Post of the White Man’, trying to find out what the record is, by biting it (Flaherty).

The audience is to laugh at Nanook, because only a small child out do something like that.

As in Land without Bread, when the small children are in their classrooms and the camera pans to a picture of an elegant dressed lady, whilst the narrator in the background states, “What are you doing here?” The nature of this statement is to ridicule the townspeople as to how there are so deplorable, they have no right to mingle with the ‘civilized folk’ for they are too dirty and stupid. Flaherty and Buñuel both criticize people through their film, because their value system and how their society works is different.

A specific example of this in Nanook of the North is when Nyla was showing off either her baby or husky named Rainbow about four months old. There is no differentiation of who Rainbow is, so Flaherty makes the inferred assumption that “Eskimos” are no different from the dogs; this reinforced when the family is eating seal meat and the shots keep panning back and forth from the hungry dogs to Nanook and his tribe.

Buñuel’s film functions in the same way, but it is through the narration of the Hurdanos. He uses an ‘I speak about them to us’ narrative to separate the audience from the townspeople, such that they would not be able to sympathize with

them.

However it seems that neither the Hurdanos nor Nanook and his family care. As stated in Documenting the Documentary for Nanook of the North “Nanook and his family [were actively involved] in the filming”; and “[his] titles credit the ‘kindness, faithfulness, and patience of Nanook and his family’” (Grant, Skoniowski 24). Whether Nanook and his family were happy to take part in the film, will not be known, however without their active participation the film could have not been made. It may have been better for Flaherty that Nanook did not know what the camera was nor what the film would entail, so that Flaherty would have full control over the film, possibly to belittle Nanook and his tribe.

This raises the question of consent; it entails three concepts: respect, basic human rights (dignity) and coöperation. Without these then Flaherty would have not gotten the film he wanted. Documenting the Documentary goes into detail stating that Nanook would have needed to know what a camera was – the medium of which he was being filmed – in order to give consent to being filmed. Different areas of the film do show that Nanook and his family actively participated in the making of Nanook of the North: Nyla showing of her child to the trader, Nanook showing off his huskies; the building of the igloo.

Active participation with the film places Nanook in a positive light as that he wishes to be filmed, such that outsiders may be able to see how he lives. The problem that arrives with this is Nanook does not know that he might be taken as a savage due to how he eats, hunts, lives in general.

The ‘How to’ videos Mrs. Elliott’s students made give light to this issue. The video about ‘How the Human Digestive System Works’ shows my sister Tayo as the interviewee. What the movie does not show is before she dressed up to be perceived by the audience in the ‘right way’. It contracts heavily with Nanook of the North, because people today react differently when filmed on camera, because they are always worried about how people might take them. It shows how modern society is bent upon image.

Flaherty’s image of Nanook of the North is to capture the life of the “Eskimo”. Contrasting the videos, Mrs. Elliott’s students try to capture the function of something they use in their everyday lives: cars, microwaves, floss, and their stomach. (EXAMPLES) What is interesting about this is how most just state how they get the microwave, car to work, but fail to state how it works. Both are completely two different things. This is captured by Flaherty in Nanook of the North to an extent because he actively tries to show his audience ‘These are the Eskimos. This is how they live’, even with the inferred criticism to their culture.

Nanook of the North, an ethnographic film by (???) Flaherty depicts the daily lives of the Eskimo Nanook and his family

Works Cited:

Nanook of the North. J. Flaherty, Robert, dir. Pathé Exchange, 1922. Film.

Keith Grant, Barry and Sloniowski, Jeannette. Documenting the Documentary: Close Reading of Documentary Film and Video. Eds. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988.

Omoyemi Oluwumi Aleru

Ms. Elliott

English 3H

23 September 2015

Nanook of the North:

The structured perception of Nanook of the North by Flaherty shows the inclination of peoples’ criticism to something different than their assumptions. Nanook of the North is an ethnography depicting the Canada Artic life of Nanook and his people. Flaherty’ underlying concept is to bring to light the already made assumptions of “Eskimo” culture. By using the narrative arc of the intro/exposition-conflict-rising action-climax-denouement/resolution, Flaherty is able to pass of staged events as in the walrus hunt as reality in order to make the ethnography more “authentic”. Nanook of the North helps also to detach the audience from what is occurring through music; music equals emotion. That emotion is what Flaherty uses throughout the movie to hold the assumptions of Nanook’s people in place.

Flaherty seems like a good person; he takes his time as a Harvard professor to go into the sub-temperature Canadian Artic to film a family of Intuit. However throughout the movie, he places inferences to how he feels and wishes for the audience to feel about Nanook. The thing that stands out is the company funds the movie: The Revillion Frères. They were a fur company who used the Inuit people to help catch all their furs. The irony here is Flaherty filming the endangered lives of the Inuit people, while the encroachment of modern society is causing that endangerment.

Nevertheless it is passed off as something good, for the Revillion Brothers use Nanook of the North as an ad to the outside world that they are able to work with “savages”; they are inclusive of different peoples.

Flaherty is not the only one who does this; the ethnographical film Land without Bread is another good depiction of how people are criticized by others for their way of life. The producer of Land without Bread was Luis Buñuel who unlike Flaherty created the ethnofiction as a way to criticize the people of La Alberca, depicting the people as backwards and unfit to be part of society. It compares to also how Nanook is shown at the ‘Trading Post of the White Man’, trying to find out what the record is, by biting it (Flaherty).

The audience is to laugh at Nanook, because only a small child out do something like that. As in Land without Bread, when the small children are in their classrooms and the camera pans to a picture of an elegant dressed lady, whilst the narrator in the background states, “What are you doing here?” The nature of this statement is to ridicule the townspeople as to how there are so deplorable, they have no right to mingle with the ‘civilized folk’ for they are too dirty and stupid. Flaherty and Buñuel both criticize people through their film, because their value system and how their society works is

different.

A specific example of this in Nanook of the North is when Nyla was showing off either her baby or husky named Rainbow about four months old. There is no differentiation of who Rainbow is, so Flaherty makes the inferred assumption that “Eskimos” are no different than the dogs; this reinforced when the family is eating seal meat and the shots keep panning back and forth from the hungry dogs to Nanook and his tribe.