What contribution did Robert Flaherty’s film “Nanook of the North” make to documentary filmmaking and why is it important?

“Nanook of the North” created an opportunity for drama to be used in a more relatable way to the audience. By not using actors and scripts, the drama of the film allowed the audience to experience the scene in the same way Flaherty did, as both “explorer and discoverer” (Barnouw 40). Flaherty’s vision in creating Nanook of the North was not to merely expose the shock values in other cultures, but to celebrate them in an unpolluted, if somewhat romanticized, light. According to Bill Nichols in Introduction to Documentary, films that are categorized as documentaries are often representations of reality, not exact reproductions (Nichol13).  This is evident in the creative story of survival in “Nanook of the North” that Flaherty developed. Though survival was not a fictional aspect of the film, it was still filmed to be a representation of how the Inuit lived. Other filmmakers used this approach in the wake of Nanook and created memorable films themselves. Creativity in the film industry expanded on Flaherty’s success and developed into the “explorer-as-documentarist” genre, leaving a crucial foundation for modern documentary filmmakers (Barnouw 51).

What’s unique about the film?

“Nanook of the North” was the accumulation of two decades of field work done by Flaherty. The movie was Flaherty’s second chance at creating a film about traditional Inuit culture. It was a unique setting with unique characters for the audience to follow. No actors were used, but the participants of the film were charismatic and worked well in the creative direction that Flaherty guided them in.

How is it different from other films during the same era or in the years leading up to the film?

Though not the first film of its kind, “Nanook of the North” was one of the rare non-fiction projects of the early film industry to become an instant success. Many distribution companies had passed up Nanook because previous films in this style “had always ended in failure” (Barnouw 42). Most films at the time that were successful were fiction films, with actors and scripts that centered around drama.