Ethnography, Film, and Capital

Ethnography, Film, and Capital

A Reflection Paper on the film Nanook of the North

The film Nanook of the North starts with a preface, an explanation of the author, or in this case the film maker, informing the audience his intent and the context of the film. Created by Robert Flaherty in 1960, the film showcases the everyday life of an Inuit family in the Arctic North with most of the scenes showing how Nanook and his people hunt for food in the Arctic wilderness. As a documentary it has earned both accolades and scathing criticisms- especially with the ‘staged feeling’ of the whole film which I’ll discuss towards the end of this paper.

The Big Aggie

Nanook of the North is now regarded as a classic. The film has been crowned as a pioneer of ethnographic film. Given the context of the film industry back in the 1960s, the accolades and the crown is well deserved by Nanook of the North. Flaherty’s methods, specifically the use of narratives in his film spurred revolutionary changes in the film. He lent his voice to the film and introduced the use of narratives in documentary making. This is something that most producers now use and something that we viewers tend to take for granted. Admittedly, I’ve been so used to hearing film makers use narratives in telling their stories that when I first saw Flaherty’s film I focused on how basic and sparse it was. Reading more about the background of the film however enabled me to appreciate Flaherty’s use of narratives and can only flinch at the thought of what Flaherty’s contemporaries presented to their audience.

Film and Capital

After several screens flashing Flaherty’s preface came quite an amusing if not surprising introduction to the main character of the film: Nanook. It was quite typical at first, Nanook landing his canoe, unloading his family. It was hilarious, because for the first 10 frames or so, Nanook’s family came out of the small boat, which amazing as it may be could surely not hold more than two individuals, how much more a wife, two kids, one infant, and a pet dog. This could only mean that camera tricks were used and that the homecoming was staged to a hilt. Flaherty might have sought to impress, to amuse, or exoticize life in the Arctic, but all he achieved in doing was cast a doubt on the integrity of the film.

This plot suggests of a need to make the film entertaining, unique, and exotic. The use of the camera fueled colonial expeditions, making the elites and conquistadors sit up and take notice of the other islands. How much more with moving pictures whose success could mean money in return? The equipment must have been horribly expensive which meant Flaherty had connections with big media outfits like Motion Pictures. Nothing comes for free which could only mean one thing: Flaherty had to think afterwards of the market value of his piece. To gain and please, the film must prove to be unique, entertaining, never mind if he had to disregard the practices of the people he claims to have a ‘deep regard’ for.

Most frames showed how Nanook hunted for game and what they do for a living—hunting fish, walruses, and trading at the “white man’s post”. What I noticed though is how the film managed to edit out the gory details involved in butchering the game, such as with the walrus and the fox pelts, presumably to avoid scaring the women back at his home. Women who would be ‘affronted’ at seeing how those damningly expensive furs they wear elegantly are obtained. Flaherty however does not shirk from showing how Nanook and his people eat aggressively after the hunt, saying, “They do not wait until the kill is transported, for they cannot restrain the pangs of hunger”.

The Uncle Sam syndrome

Throughout the film, I could see a recurring pattern of how Flaherty must have thought of Nanook and his people. I call it the Uncle Sam syndrome, reminiscent of that editorial cartoon showing a big white man changing the diapers of two small dark children.

Several frames showed Flaherty or another white man sitting next to Nanook or in between his family, as if to emphasize the difference, and quite similar to the way colonizers had their photos taken with indigenous people. In one particular scene, Uncle Sam points how ignorant Nanook was of the phonograph and its records, showing Nanook biting the disk. The whole scene reeks of the staged feeling however and one could only ask if the scene was borne out of Flaherty’s script or if it was the real thing.

Nanook and his people could have been ignorant of the phonograph record, yes, but the white man is also ignorant of the Inuit’s practices, so it can work both ways, right? Only difference is that the upper hand here belongs to Flaherty and he calls the shots, this after all is his film, as he so claims. No hint of partnership or recognition of Nanook, he saw them clearly as a bunch of people living an uncivilized life with Flaherty alluding at the start of the film that he finally came to civilized land after wintering in the Belcher Islands. If that is not a clear allusion to what he thought of Nanook’s people, I don’t know what is.

Another Uncle Sam moment is when one of Nanook’s kids overate and the white man supplied castor oil, a white man’s remedy to an upset stomach in those days. The scene started with a very upset child, holding his stomach followed by a white man offering the oil, and ends with a child grinning widely with no hint of paint. From a viewer’s point of view the white man did Nanook’s child a big favor and to a large extent needs Uncle Sam’s help to get civilized.

Conclusion

Like essays and photographs, film too, reflects the author’s biases and context. In Flaherty’s case it was reminiscent of salvage anthropology and at the same time is reflective of the colonial roots of anthropology. Nevertheless, I understand where Flaherty was coming from. He saw a community that only a few people knew about, an opportunity to show the world of their life, and make a name for himself and a few coins along the way. He was a victim of circumstances and the environment he was in, just as we are today. Projects are capital driven nowadays, even noble or pro-bono researches need funds to work on, and we sometimes succumb to accepting funds from the very people who could use the material to exploit the people whose stories we tell.

Flaherty, despite the criticisms, did revolutionize the methods used in documentary making. But the heavier lesson we should remember is to treat the community we study as more than mere subjects. They are our partners in creating knowledge and unlike lab rats; our partners can speak of their feelings, of what they want, just as we can.

*This essay was written for my Visual Anthropology Class. Read more about Nanook of the North here.