Filmmaking Styles
Posted by Gerardo Alba on February 10, 2014
Filed under Uncategorized
In watching both Nanook of the North and Night Mail, it is clear that both works are different but share great similarities. ” A Flaherty documentary had been a feature-length, close up portrait of group of people” while “the characteristic Grierson documentary dealt with impersonal social processes” (Barnouw 94). This was evident with the subjects of both documentaries. In Flaherty’s, an entire family becomes the base of the story while in Night Mail, the only subject is the post office industry. While the Inuit family can be a source of great emotion for an audience, the post office industry can also be a source of pride for the country.
Visual similarities between the films are presented in the scenes that show detail and process clearly. In Nanook of the North, the scene in which Nanook is building an igloo shows a lot of detail and focuses on the process of building. In Night Mail, the scene that to me showed great focus on detail was when a worker was showing how to correctly tie up a mail bag. The scene of the train picking up mail bags while in motion also placed emphasis on process and made gathering mail a moment of excitement and intrigue. Another visual similarity that I saw between both films involved the long distance tracking shots. Flaherty used them in his film to show Nanook and his “family” traveling far distances while Grierson used them to show the train also making its lengthy journey.
One of the major differences between the films was the use of a narrator for Night Mail which helped focus the story on the industry rather than the characters on screen. Nanook using cue cards and music to tell their story was interesting but for me, the talkies are better just because they allow me to follow without breaks.
“Grierson’s determination was ‘to bring the citizen’s eye in from the ends of the earth to the story, his own story, of what was happening under his nose…the drama of the doorstep'”(Barnouw 85). By focusing on social processes or issues, Grierson showed his audience something going on in their country versus Flaherty focusing on a past way of life of a group of people that is not representative of your country.
Both of these directors contributed to documentary by making the term documentary define completely separate styles. Flaherty defined it as a portrait of people to follow and learn form while Grierson saw it as an opportunity to explore social issues and social processes.
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