Nanook Of The North [1922]

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
In 1920, explorer and American anthropologist Robert J Flaherty travelled alone, with camera in hand, to the remote Canadian tundra. There, for over a year, he lived with Eskimos, documenting their daily lives and returning to his editing studio with the raw footage. The result of his rigorous study was groundbreaking; with Nanook of the North, Flaherty pioneered both a new cinematic genre, the narrative documentary, and created a timeless drama of human perseverance under the harshest of conditions. Flaherty obviously understood the charisma of one Eskimo in particular, Nanook, and much of the film's warmth, humour, and charm come from the mutual respect and sympathy between the filmmaker and his subject. Flaherty possessed an acute eye for simple detail and his presentation of the stark climate and unique culture remains breathtaking. Flaherty also had a knack for editing and manipulation, and along with pioneering a new cinematic form, Nanook too raised all of the problematic ethical dilemmas that still face documentary makers. Many of the famous sequences--the seal hunt, the building of the igloo--were actually staged for "authenticity" purposes, thus starting debates on whether documentaries could truly capture truth or reality. Then there's the presence of the camera and whether that in itself alters or disrupts the natural behaviour of its subjects. Yet, despite Flaherty's tamperings, there's no denying the film's power, its wondrous sense of adventure, and the touching portrait of one of cinema's truly courageous heroes. --Dave McCoy, Amazon.com

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2000-10-05 rating:
The original and still the best documentary ever made.
"Nanook of the North" was the first film ever to be described as a "documentary" and often appears on lists of the world's greatest films. But has it really stood the test of time? It is, after all, more than an hour long; black & white; silent (providing you turn down the irritating music track which was added later); filmed with a single camera and entirely about the life of an eskimo family nearly a hundred years ago. The answer is that it is visually stunning and emotionally gripping. Even the opening head & shoulders shot of Nanook is intriguing, showing a smile as enigmatic as that of the Mona Lisa.

Flaherty manages to show the people and the landscape as they are, with the minimum of obvious interference. Indeed, although he was really a surveyor and prospector by profession, his approach has much in common with ethnographic anthropology which was developing at the same time. He observes and studies and thus informs the viewer.

This is not to say that the film hasn't been criticised, like every subsequent documentary, for "rigging" certain shots. He built a double-size, half igloo in order to shoot the interior shots. But how would YOU shoot the inside of an igloo illuminated only by a small square of translucent ice!

Flaherty's lens may be neutral, but it is by no means dispassionate. He is the master of the technical and aesthetic aspects of cinematography: focus is as crisp as the snow & ice it depicts; framing as well-composed as the expressions on the faces of the Inuit; black & white photography as stark as the rocks and snow themselves.

This film is much more than these techniques though. What really locks the viewer's eyes to the screen is the sheer gruelling nature of the eskimoes' life; the battle against the harsh terrain; the freezing temperatures and difficulty in finding and catching food. The skill which Nanook applies in sledging over drifted piles of snow, building an igloo or spearing fish through a hole in the ice is in no way comparable to the skill of an actor, stuntman or special effects artist. This is his Life.

It was also his death, for within a few years of the film's release he had died of starvation on a deer hunt. This puts into perspective any criticism about the filming technique employed for the igloo interior. "Nanook of the North" is no fake: Nanook's life was as real as it gets!

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Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Classics
Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Documentary . All Documentaries
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Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Release Date (feature_three_browse-bin) . 1939 and earlier
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