Nanook of the North
Directed by	Robert J. Flaherty
Produced by	Robert J. Flaherty
Written by	Robert J. Flaherty
Starring	Allakariallak (Nanook) Nyla Cunayou
Music by	Stanley Silverman
Cinematography	Robert J. Flaherty
Release date(s)	June 11, 1922
Running time	79 min.
Country	United States
Language	Silent film English intertitles
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Nanook of the North is a silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty, released in 1922. In the tradition of what would later be called salvage ethnography, Flaherty captured the struggles of the Inuit Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic. The film is considered the first feature-length documentary, though Flaherty has been criticized for staging several sequences and thereby distorting the reality of his subjects' lives ^[1]. Image File history File links Promotional poster for the documentary Nanook of the North. ... Robert Joseph Flaherty (February 16, 1884, Iron Mountain, Michigan, United States - July 23, 1951, Dummerston, Vermont) was a filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature length documentary film (Nanook of the North) in 1922. ... Robert Joseph Flaherty (February 16, 1884, Iron Mountain, Michigan, United States - July 23, 1951, Dummerston, Vermont) was a filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature length documentary film (Nanook of the North) in 1922. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... June 11 is the 162nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (163rd in leap years), with 203 days remaining. ... See also: 1921 in film 1922 1923 in film 1920s in film years in film film Events November 26 - Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so but it was not widely... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to document reality. ... Robert Joseph Flaherty (February 16, 1884, Iron Mountain, Michigan, United States - July 23, 1951, Dummerston, Vermont) was a filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature length documentary film (Nanook of the North) in 1922. ... See also: 1921 in film 1922 1923 in film 1920s in film years in film film Events November 26 - Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so but it was not widely... A Hupa fisherman—In the early 20th century, Edward Curtis traveled across America recording photographs of the disappearing lifestyle of American Indian tribes. ... For other uses, see Inuit (disambiguation). ... The red line indicates the 10°C isotherm in July, commonly used to define the Arctic region border Satellite image of the Arctic surface The Arctic is the region around the Earths North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. ...

Film

The film was shot near Inukjuak, on Hudson Bay in arctic Quebec, Canada. Having worked as a prospector and explorer in arctic Canada among the Inuit, Flaherty was familiar with his subjects and set out to document their lifestyle. Flaherty had shot film in the region prior to this period, but that footage was destroyed in a fire started when Flaherty dropped a cigarette onto the original camera negative (which was highly flammable nitrate stock). Flaherty therefore made Nanook of the North in its place. Funded by French fur company Revillon Freres, the film was shot from August 1920 to August 1921. Inukjuak is a Inuit settlement located on Hudson Bay at the mouth of the Innuksuak River in the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, Canada. ... Hudson Bay, Canada. ... Motto: Je me souviens (French: I remember) Capital Quebec City Largest city Montreal Official languages French Government - Lieutenant-Governor Lise Thibault - Premier Jean Charest (PLQ) Federal representation in Canadian Parliament - House seats 75 - Senate seats 24 Confederation July 1, 1867 (1st) Area Ranked 2nd - Total 1,542,056 km² - Water... The original camera negative is the film in a motion picture camera that captures the original image. ... An electrostatic potential map of the nitrate ion. ... Revillon Frères (Brothers Revillon) was a French fur and luxury goods company with stores in London, New York and Montreal at the end of the 19th Century. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ...

As the first nonfiction work of its scale, Nanook of the North was ground-breaking cinema. It captured an exotic culture in a distant location, rather than a facsimile of reality using actors and props on a studio set. Traditional Inuit methods of hunting, fishing, igloo-building, and other customs were shown with accuracy, and the compelling story of a man and his family struggling against nature met with great success in North America and abroad. Igloo An igloo (Inuit language: iglu, Inuktitut syllabics: ᐃᒡᓗ, house, plural: iglooit or igluit), translated sometimes as snowhouse, is a shelter constructed from blocks of snow, generally in the form of a dome. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ...

Criticism

Flaherty has been criticised for deceptively portraying staged events as reality. Much of the action was staged and gives an inaccurate view of real Inuit life during the early 20th century. "Nanook" was in fact named Allakariallak, for instance, while the "wife" shown in the film was not really his wife. And although Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting, Flaherty encouraged him to hunt after the fashion of his ancestors in order to capture what was believed to be the way the Inuit lived before European influence. The ending, in which Nanook and his family are supposedly in peril of dying if they can't find shelter quickly enough, was implausible, given the reality of nearby French-Canadian and Inuit settlements during filming (although Allakariallak himself died of starvation two years after the film was made). On the other hand, while Flaherty made his Inuit actors use spears instead of guns during the walrus and seal hunts, the hunting itself did involve actual wild animals. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... Territories in the Americas colonized or claimed by a European great power in 1750. ...

Flaherty defended his work by stating that a filmmaker must often distort a thing to catch its true spirit. Later filmmakers have pointed out that the only cameras available to Flaherty at the time were both large and immobile, making it impossible to effectively capture most interior shots or unstructured exterior scenes without significantly modifying the environment and subject action. For example, the Inuit crew had to build a special three-walled igloo for Flaherty's bulky camera so that there would be enough light for it to capture interior shots.

At the time, few documentaries had been filmed and there was little precedent to guide Flaherty's work. Nonetheless, since Flaherty's time both staging action and attempting to steer documentary action have come to be considered unethical among documentarians, as has any sort of re-enactment which is not introduced as or immediately obvious as a re-enactment.

See also

• Nanook

In Inuit mythology, Nanook was the master of bears, meaning he decided if hunters had followed all applicable taboos and if they deserved success in hunting bears. ...

References

May 18 is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...

External links

• Nanook of the North at the Internet Movie Database
• Great Movies: Nanook of the North (1922) by Roger Ebert
• How I Filmed Nanook of the North by Robert J. Flaherty
• Media Worlds essay by Faye D. Ginsburg
• Swiss Jazz band Q3 composes a new Nanook of the North soundtrack

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ... Roger Joseph Ebert (June 18, 1942) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic. ...