poster for the movie, released in 1922 (Google Images)
Many consider Nanook of the North to be the first feature-length documentary film. However, Robert Flaherty, the film’s creator and the man behind the concept, did not originally set out to make a film. Flaherty, and anthropologist by trade, who was on an expedition in Canada’s Arctic, decided to bring a camera along with him to document the life of Inuits. What resulted was his fascination with their culture and their ways of life, and he realized it was something that people would want to see and know more about. So, when his expedition was over, he set out back to The States, and unfortunately (or fortunately, in Flaherty’s view), all his reels of film burned. Instead of thinking all was loss, Flaherty went back sometime later, and redid the film. The contribution the end product made to film was that it established feature-length documentaries as a genre of film that people were interested in seeing.
Even though this film is considered the first documentary, it is unique in several ways. Firstly, it created a new film niche that included ethnography (the study of human races and culture), and it brought feature-length documentaries into the mainstream and onto the general public’s radar. Secondly, the film is unique because it staged many of its sequences. Even though it has been criticized for this, there are reasons behind Flaherty’s decision to do this. Some of the scenes that were staged were the hunting scenes, the building of the igloo scene, the walrus hunting, and the visiting the trade post. Even though these translated as authentic occurrences on film, Flaherty set them up because he wished to present a time before Inuits came into contact with Europeans. It acts as a bit of a nostalgic piece, representing a time when the Inuit culture was pure and untouched; a time when outside influences did not affect their culture and what it actually looked like present-day when the film was shot. When hunting, he encouraged the Inuits to use harpoons as opposed to guns, which they had adopted; he had them act surprised when interacting with the White Man at the trading post; he set up the family, which was not actually “Nanook’s”; and Nanook’s actual name was Allakariallak. In addition, the Inuits in the film were very involved in the making and understood what was being asked of them.
Even though Nanook of the North is considered the first film of its kind, documentaries were not a new concept. Leading up to the advent of this film, many before Flaherty had tried their hand at film. The Lumière Brothers, two French brothers who are viewed as the earliest filmmakers, patented their own version of the cinematograph; this device was a motion picture film camera, and it also served as a projector and film developer. It was an improvement upon the idea of the kinetoscope, a device that was invented by American, Thomas Alva Edison; the kinetoscope, built in 1894, was not a very successful invention. The Lumière Brothers are famous for their video that showed a train coming into its station. As for Flaherty, when he shot his film, he used a Bell & Howell camera, brought along lights, and had a crew who helped him shoot on different cameras.
Despite any disputes or criticisms surrounding this film, Nanook of the North really brought the idea of feature-length documentary to a wider audience, and helped people see a different aspect to film and its purpose.