Nanook of the North: Up Close and Personal
Since the early days of filmmaking, there have been countless open debates on the subject of the authenticity of what can be considered the very first documentary film. Several questions have arisen regarding the way in which Flaherty’s film, Nanook of the North was put together, however many techniques used in the making of the work actually enhance the creation of an authentic representation of the Inuit’s most demanding activities.
Today, it is a popular belief that documentaries should not be scripted in any way before they are shot. In fact, this was how Flaherty began his first attempt at his film. However after multiple failures because of poor planning, loss of footage or bad visual images, Flaherty finally decided that it was best to plan ahead, using the true events that he had witnessed in earlier trips to the north and condensing them to create a truly interesting film (Nanook of the North).
In Actuality, this pseudo-documentary style is a common way to go about planning a documentary film: Trisha Das says in her Monograph How to Write a Documentary Script that “In most films, the filmmaker will find himself asking the question, ‘What should I shoot?’ Here, it is imperative to start out with a well-written script” (Das 3). With regards to the authenticity of the film, this technique helps largely in assuring that the content does reflect every aspect of Inuit life, whereas filming without any plan could cause the cameraman to miss an important event or to film only a particularly exciting or boring season depending on luck and coincidence.
Furthermore, If we are to consider Nanook of the North to be a documentary, then we must specify our definition of the word authentic. In short terms, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, something is authentic if it is true and accurate. Flaherty’s film is both these things, only the facts are condensed. It is very rare that a documentary is filmed in real time and not edited in any way. This is because such a film would be quite boring and long to watch. Consequently to this compression of time, one of the most controversial scenes in the film must be explained: the phonograph scene. Inuits had already been exposed to record players for some time when the film was shot, however Nanook reacts as if he’s never seen such a thing in his life, wondering where the sound comes from, even biting the record itself. This is simply a scene representing an Inuits reaction to a strange technology when it was first introduced. The authenticity is based on the accuracy of the representation of an Inuit discovering a record for the first time. It is important to understand that Flaherty does not claim to be representing an inuits real-time reaction to a phonograph during the shooting of the scene, but rather an authentic reenactment of the original discovery. It is true that for one who relies so much on nature and on tools such as one’s own hands and mouth, biting a foreign object might provide a better understanding of it. Again, this scene is a condensed version of time; Although this is not how Nanook would have reacted to the phonograph record during the time the scene was filmed, this is a genuine representation of an Inuit’s first encounter with such an object (Nanook of the North).
Finally, although some may argue that it is far too generalized to construct an entire documentary film around one family of Inuits, this simply accentuates the relatability between the audience and the Inuits on screen: “Nanook of the North has an uncanny ability to make the life of Nanook the Eskimo relatable to an audience not only miles away from the Canadian cold that shaped the life of him and his family but also to an audience nearly 100 years in the future” (Denney 1). This timelessness that Robert J. Flaherty brings to the film adds to the realness of the scene;
Every human can relate to this Inuit family, for our true human traits and desires are apparent: “Dads have always loved teaching their sons their craft, children have always loved play-fighting, and work has always been necessary for survival” (Denney 1). This raw and instinctive human behaviour can be seen when Nanook teaches his son how to use a bow and arrow. The joy in that moment is real, and the audience knows this because every person in the world can understand that simple happiness.
To conclude, Flaherty does not claim to have made a documentary on Inuits as he filmed them live, he claims to have made a documentary on the early lives of Inuits when western influence was only beginning to appear: “Flaherty was […] fully aware of the ways in which he distorted his final [cinematographic] depiction of Inuit life” (Burton and Thompson 74). Flaherty showed a condensed version of Inuit customs in the most accurate historical form that he could manage. He has succeeded in making his audience realize the truth: that original Inuit families where not so different from Western, modern ones. Our human desires have always remained the same, and that is the fool proof evidence of the film’s authenticity.
Works Cited
Burton, John W., and Caitlin W. Thompson. “Nanook And The Kirwinians: Deception,
Authenticity, And The Birth Of Modern Ethnographic Representation.” Film
History: An International Journal 14.1 (2002): 74-86. JSTOR. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.
Das, Thrisha. “How to Write a Documentary Script.” Unesco.org: 1-6. Unesco. Web. 13
Feb. 2015. <http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/
programme_doc_documentary_script.pdf>
Denney, Connor. “Review of Nanook of the North (1922).” ‘Nanook of the North’ Review
• Letterboxd. 27 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.
Nanook of the North. Kino on Video, 1998. Film. Web.
Webster, Merriam. “Authentic.” Def. 3. Merriam-Webster Online. N.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.
