Nanook of the North

Documentary film icon Robert Joseph Flaherty (1884-1951) started his career as an explorer and prospector in the remote Hudson Bay region of northeastern Canada. Before his third expedition to the area, his boss, railroad tycoon William Mackenzie, serendipitously suggested he bring a camera with him to document the unfamiliar territory. Flaherty embraced the idea, shooting hours of incredible footage of the native Inuit people. The ensuing film, Nanook of The North (1922), is regarded as the first ever feature-length documentary.



Flaherty quickly ascertained the mechanisms of cinema. He realized that if he were to capture shots such as reverse angles, close-ups, and various deliberate camera movements, he would be able to edit them together to offer a hyper-realistic vision of reality that was unknown to audiences of that time. We take these sequences for granted today, but Flaherty was one of the first to master how to use film as a means of communication.

It has been the day of days. Morning came clear and warm. Some twenty walrus lay sleeping on the rocks. Approached to within 100 ft & filmed with telephoto lens. Nan stalking quarry with harpoon - within 20 ft they rose in alarm and tumbled toward the sea. Nan's harpoon landed but the quarry succeeded in reaching the water. Then commenced a battle royal - & Esk straining for their lives on the harpoon line at water's edge - this quarry like a huge fish floundering - churning in the sea - The remainder of the herd hovered around - their "Ok ok!" resounding - one great bull even came in to quarry & locked horns in attempt to rescue - I filmed and filmed and filmed - The men - calling me to end the struggle by rifle - so fearful were they about being pulled into sea.

Robert Flaherty
September 26, 1920

Yet he did not offer assistance with his firearm. He wanted to portray the men the way they had lived in generations past, so he continued to shoot film as they struggled with the harpooned beast on the water's edge. Much of the film exhibits elements of Romanticism in this manner. While this philosophy has garnered some criticism, Flaherty would certainly not be the last filmmaker to attempt to pass off a slightly distorted truth as reality.

Trivial Tidbits:

• Flaherty Island, one of the Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay, is named in his honor.

Quote Source:

• Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory

Any thorough discourse on documentary film must begin with the genesis of film itself, as the earliest motion pictures were simply attempts to capture moments of reality by transatlantic innovators Thomas Edison, based in West Orange, NJ and French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière.

Image via famousfrenchfilms.com

Edison was restrained by the enormity of his camera, which had to be stationed within his studio, which was dubbed “the Black Maria.” For that reason, his films were mainly performance pieces of vaudeville acts, circus characters, and dancers acting in the empty studio. Meanwhile the Lumière brothers’ lightweight camera, the cinématographe, allowed a sole operator to roam and document the world.

The Lumière brothers’ Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory (1895) is widely viewed as the first film ever made and is, in a sense, a documentary. The 800 frames display a torrent of workers, a pair of unleashed dogs, bicycle riders, and concludes with a horse drawn carriage. One is familiar with seeing static images from this time period, but to see dozens of industrial-era workers actually moving around in their 19th century garb is surreal.

As Bertolt Brecht has stated, “Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.” Man has always strived to capture reality through the ages, from painting to photography. Cinema is a relatively new extension of that ambition that remains relevant and vital to this day. While remarkable advances have been made to the methods since 1895 (advent of sound, video, etc.), one could argue that the format is fundamentally the same as it was 100 years ago.



Conversely, it’s amazing to consider the progress that has been made since these early films of les frères Lumière and Edison. Today, you can stream the film in its entirety and watch it on your iPhone in the palm of your hand as you take the elevator out of the office.

Trivial Tidbits:

• Lumière is French for “light." It's a female noun (La Lumière).
• Construction costs for the Black Maria studio totaled $637.67.