Nanook of the North

Throughout the list of documentaries, the two that best compare to each other in my opinion would be Nanook of the North, and Night and Frog. The reason for this is not because of just the overall themes, but the similar styles used to create each film. Nanook of the North is a silent documentary, which captures the struggles of a man name Nanook and his family in the Canadian artic. Similarly, the film Night and Frog is a short film documentary that captures the struggles, and describes the lives of the prisoners who were in concentration camps. Overall, both films show a powerful message to those who are watching, which makes them exceptional films. Nanook of the North is a classic film that tells a story about an Inuit man name Nanook,…

The evolutional emergence of ethnographic film is believed to have begun with the foundation of documentary film. In 1922, filmmaker Robert Flaherty released the first documentary, Nanook of the North. This narrative documentary film essentially led to generic conventions that documentaries then developed over decades (Fisher 13 September), despite its portrayal of its subjects as spectacle. Soon, film had also found its way into the anthropological world. Anthropologist Margaret Mead and her…

Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North is a silent ethnographic documentary following a family of Inuits living in the Arctic Circle. Regarded by some as a turning point for documentaries, it serves as a ground for debate around representation and ethics of documentary film. In 1922 Flaherty set out to record the previously unseen lives of the Inuit in snowy Alaska as they struggle to survive in such a harsh environment. Flaherty spent 16 months living with Inuit where he staged sequences of them…

Criticisms of Nanook of the North and Dead Birds: Worries of Authenticity and Lasting Implications Films have been seen as windows for everyday people to experience and see new and different things. With ethnographic documentary films, people are able to see real parts of the world that are not always visible in their current, everyday lives. Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922) and Dead Birds (Robert Gardner, 1963) are both ethnographic documentaries, revered as revolutionary for their…

Robert J. Flaherty from Nanook of the North and Christopher Oscar and Doug Hecker from Project Censored: The Movie are all aware of the fact that there is a difference between reality and the story and each worked hard to depict what life was really like.. Flaherty is known as the father of the documentary film who has had a profound influence on our society and how films were made and viewed. Flaherty’s first film was “Nanook of the North”, which was one of the films we viewed for class. Robert…

Robert Flaherty is cited in creating the first documentary, with Nanook of the North, made in 1922, this film was wildly successful and generated obsession around this new genre documenting real people. Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson eventually adapted this filmic practice as a tool for documenting cultures for scientific purposes, founding the field of visual anthropology. Flaherty and Mead’s influence can be tracked to filmmaker John Marshall, who challenged the paradigms of spectacle and…

Family: An Anchor during Rough Waters Nanook of the North is a silent documentary from the 1920s. This documentary reveals the life of the man named Nanook and his family’s journey throughout Canada in search for food, trade and the daily fight for survival. Nanook’s sole responsibility is to take care of his family and every sacrifice he makes is in order to keep his Inuit clan alive. It is amazing how a family's culture shapes the perceptions and understanding of the world. In the village of…

Jock Sturges once said, “Different members of different cultures will think that some things are beautiful,” which is representative of the perspective and feeling I accumulated throughout examining the film. The Nanook of the North encompassed the broad distinction of self-reliance, life styles, and something in reference to other cultures. The distinction of the one culture, the Eskimos, amongst others emphasized the unique elements that define variation we experience that we come to…

In Luc Jacquet's March of the Penguins we get to follow emperor penguins as they make their annual march to their breeding grounds in Antarctica. We get to see how penguins court each other and how penguin chicks are dependent upon the participation of both parents in order to survive it's first few months. While the movie shares some compelling facts about the penguins it also distorts the viewers in the way that it's narrated. Does the documentary shares similarities to Flaherty's Nanook of…

was looking into a fish tank at the curiosities inside. In the way however, it does show the “authentic” lives of the Murray people, because Haddon did not create a story or prevent them from using modern tools such as in Curtis’s Head Hunters or Flaherty’s Nanook. Yet because of the short amount of film, it is not an accurate representation of…