Analysis Of Robert Flaherty 's Famous Work Nanook Of The North

[edit] Uses of sociological imagination in filmsThe advantages of using popular films to enhance students' comprehension of sociological topics is widely recognized. Those who teach courses in social problems report using films to teach about war, to aid students in adopting a global perspective and to confront issues of race relations. There are benefits of using film as part of a multimedia approach to teaching courses in popular culture. It also provides students of medical sociology with case studies for hands-on observational experiences. It acknowledges the value of films as historical documentation of changes in cultural ideas, materials, and institutions.

Betrayal, loss, and forgiveness are common themes amongst the Inuit legend of Lumaajuuq (an adaptation of The Blind Boy and the Loon) and the history of FNMI peoples. Inequity is something faced continuously and that has its struggles to be brought forward and addressed. The story of Lumaajuuq grasps all of these concepts and brings them forward beautifully, addressing the problems of the FNMI peoples through an artistic concept and with hidden links and connections within a broken relationship of a boy and his mother.

There are numerous ethnographic surrealist films that have an intriguing relationship to aesthetics and politics. A film that exemplifies this relationship is “Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan” (Land Without Bread). This film is only 27-minutes and is directed by the infamous Luis Bunuel in 1933. Bunuel was a Spanish filmmaker of the 1920’s to the 1970’s. He is often attributed to being one of the major contributors to the surrealist movement of the 1920’s. “Ethnographic surrealism is a utopian construct, a statement at once about past and future possibilities for cultural analysis.”(Clifford, 119) ‘Land Without Bread’ has a clear connection between politics and aesthetics. It uses many techniques, specifically

Nanook of the North is an interesting film that documents the lifestyle of an Inuit family in Quebec, Canada. Robert J. Flaherty, the writer, producer and director of the film makes sure to film every aspect of the family’s daily struggles and duties. With nearly everything but cold weather in limited supply, it becomes very obvious that every aspect in their lives serves a specific role aimed towards survival; they have no space extraneous luxuries.

Documentarians often want to get as close to their subject matter as possible. Some documentarians have an insider perspective which ignites a spark to create a piece that illuminates a specific topic or area of study. There are also documentarians that have no affiliation with said subject matter, but want to explore the topic in question. Finally, there are documentarians that have a foot in both worlds. Insider/outsider is a theory in which a documentarian can be close to a subject, but also possess characteristics or traits that make them distant from the topic in question (Coles, 1998). Such is the case with the directors of both Stranger with a Camera and The House I Live In. Due to their own location, both Eugene Jarecki and Elizabeth Barret exhibit characteristics that make them fall into the insider/outsider roles as directors. Robert Coles defines location by stating, “We notice what we notice because of who we are” (Coles, 1998, p. 7). Included in this is, a person’s education, race, class, and gender. Both directors realize they are outsiders and utilize a lens into a world in which they are not otherwise a part of. Jarecki’s lens comes in the form of Nanny Jeter, his family’s nanny from when he was a child. Barret’s lens for her documentary is the community that she shared with Ison. The two directors enter into a world that they are not a part of because of their location, but forge a connection to the subject matter through means of a lens.

The Canadian North, a rugged landscape often glamorized as a land of adventure and promise, hides a dark history. From the early day’s of the gold rush, when the land was first colonised, to the attempted cultural assimilation of the indigenous peoples through residential schools, the people native to the area are still in a struggle of identity and culture, and the resulting effects such as high suicide rates, poverty and drug abuse,. It is through this lens that I will examine the work of Ted Harrison, a prolific English artist who spent the majority of his life living in the Yukon and painting the contemporary society that he saw around him. There is no doubt that his work was highly intertwined with the indigenous culture, and as such his identity brings up questions regarding the appropriation of native american culture. To that end, this essay will look at the context of his biography, the subject matter of his work, and compare it to contemporary Native American artists in order to clarify the nature of his art.

Native Americans express their voice in films by incorporating their history, culture and traditions for Indigenous purpose. These independent cinema efforts are produced by filmmakers who want to tell a story about their tribes around the world and educate the younger generations. Zacharias Kunuk, filmmaker of Antantarjuat; The Fast Runner and Journals of Knud Rasmussen, “compels non-Inuit spectators to think differently, not only about what constitutes indigenous content in films and more conventional representations of Native Americans in cinematic history, but also about indigenous visual Aesthetics” (Raheji 1168).

We can refer to the documentary “The man who saw too much” as a primary way to seek a better understanding of what this culture has hidden within its scars. The documentary which was Directed

Filmmakers like Claude Lanzmann (Shoah) negotiate this tension by flatly rejecting the use of "historical images." So, by juxtaposing the visual/critical/rhetorical practices found in these films we can begin to define some of the practical parameters of what a visual-rhetorical critic might investigate.

Documentary films in particular have been the preferred channel for the diffusion of propaganda because of its association with ‘a truthful cinema.’ John Grierson, coiner the term documentary, defined it as “the creative treatment of actuality.” However, Hilmar Hoffman talks about film’s illusory power by explaining that what exists to the viewer is only what the camera ‘sees,’ and due to the absence of alternate perspectives, the viewer conventionally perceives the images shown as reality. In this regard, documentary films are able to influence, represent, and create a particular consciousness by doctoring events, thus making it untrustworthy and, ultimately, the ideal medium to communicate

These items are not anthropological per se, but a context can be provided for them, that is, their anthropological significance can be pointed out” (Ruby 1975, 104). Basically, Ruby is saying that anthropologists can use ethnographic films to study cultural behavior, such as, customs, values, ceremonies, rituals, and even more. The way one’s culture is represented in a film can be portrayed with biases due to motion picture production codes, if an anthropology is not involved. According to Ruby, “the ethics and politics of ethnographic film have been a topic of considerable debate for the past several decades […due to the fact that viewers] began to question the neutrality of science and the objectivity of photographic images” (Ruby 2000, 137). Considering this as an anthropology is significantly important because you are expected to understand your viewers, which are college

Western and Indigenous knowledge systems differ in values, habits of mind and practices; however, there has been productive cross-cultural collaboration that integrates global vision with social and cultural dimensions. Productive collaboration addresses past contradictions in the coevolution of society, science and environment. Ten Canoes is a cross-culturally collaborative film that was meant to portray the Yolngu community in its true representation in an attempt to bridge the black and white Australian cultural divide by sharing its traditions and values with a non-Indigenous audience. Important spiritual and cultural information is shared throughout the passage of the film that frames and contextualizes the cosmology of the Yolngu people (Clothier & Dudek, 2009: p. 85). Dutch-born director Rolf De Heer and Yolngu director Peter Djigirr consolidate to show modern audiences the “community’s cultural continuance and to connect between individuals and the community both past and present” (Clothier & Dudek, 2009: p. 86). Additionally, Ten Canoes is only spoken in the Yolngu’s Indigenous language. For Yolngu audiences, “the use of their own languages in Ten Canoes highlights the vibrancy of a continuing linguistic heritage” (Clothier & Dudek, 2009: p. 87). Simultaneously, audiences that cannot understand the language of the Yolngu people read subtitles that create a critical intimacy to engage in “passion and reason while seeking understanding” (Clothier & Dudek, 2009: p.

In this essay, I will explain why a documentary is always more realistic than a fiction film. I will show my thesis by exploring elements that influence how realistic a film is: film editing and format, genre, and transparency. I will use the documentary of Armadillo (2010), by Janus Pedersen, and the fiction film of The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968), by Danièle Huille as examples.

Hess and Zimmermann mention that conventional categories have blurred and there’s demands for new political and aesthetic responses in transnational cinema (John Hess 2006). These transnational films I believe would be growing significantly in the film industry as a part of film history.

In this paper, I will be collating primary sources, released during the time of Nanook of the North being released to discuss the attitude the people of the western world had on the Inuit’s and the docudrama Nanook of the North. The sources I will be collating will consist of newspaper extracts, images used to promote the film as well as the book written Flaherty about his expedition to the Canadian Arctic.