Film Analysis Of Faherty's Nanook Of The North

Flaherty’s Nanook of the North has been dissected and analyzed by many since its creation. A commonality in those works are of how Flaherty created a false perception of the Inuit people during that time. He was more interested in filming a society that was so different than what had ever been seen before that he was willing to distort the reality of a foreign people. When the film was being made the Inuit people were depicted to follow the stereotype of being “a people without technology, without a culture, lacking intelligence, living in igloos, and at best a sort of simplistic ‘native boy’ type of subhuman arctic being” (Rony 99), as described by the writer Joseph E. Senungetuk. However, in reality these people were civilized and had a culture that was different than what was depicted in

An example of this would be the long shots of the snowing tundra that appeared throughout the movie. When compared to what the Lumière brothers accomplished when they first began filming, Nanook of the North shows growth in both filming techniques and technology which should be appreciated. Lastly, the film should be celebrated for Flaherty’s research in what the Inuit people were once like. Initially, “[Flaherty] made four expeditions – during a period of six years, along the East Coast of Hudson Bay, through the barren lands of the hitherto unexplored peninsula of Ungava” (Flaherty) where he first found a passion to learn more about the people and land. Also, it was during this time that he claimed to have learned about the Inuit people that allowed him know what to document in his film. He also stated that it was a collaboration effort to create the documentary as he did; yet “there are no existing Inuit accounts of the process, suggesting the film was not as ‘collaborative’ as Flaherty would have one believe” (Rony