panied by his movie camera. In 1919, with the
financial help of the French fur company, Re ́villon
Fre`res, Flaherty again shot the Inuit with the idea
of telling a story instead of merely juxtaposing
images and short scenes. This effort,Nanook of
the North(1922), becomes his first real movie and
the one that earned him enduring fame—a silent
film made with an Inuit family living in Inukjuaq
(also known as Inukjuak, or Port Harrison), on the
east coast of the Hudson Bay, in northern Que ́bec.
It showed the everyday life of an engaging Inuit
named Nanook (‘‘The Bear’’), with scenes such as
his hunting a walrus, participating in the building
of an igloo, and a surprising scene of the whole
family sleeping together side-by-side, naked. The
enjoyment of modern, Western culture, such as
listening to a record played on a gramophone,
was also captured.Nanook of the Northwas later
reedited with a soundtrack; thus, two versions of
the film remain today. The film was a huge success
worldwide, although some critics condemned Flah-
erty for showing an exotic side of the Inuit doing
things that they had left behind, such as wearing
traditional clothing (which was made especially for
the film) or hunting using primitive harpoons.
Later critics also point out that Nanook was more
or less ‘‘hired’’ to be the lead in the film, as he
served as Flaherty’s main assistant, coordinating
transportation, taking care of the equipment, and
even suggesting scenarios, thus creating a work of
fiction more than that of a dispassionate ethno-
graphic documentary. Flaherty’s technical innova-
tions were considerable as well; shooting in the
frigid conditions of the north provided endless
challenges; the use of graphite as a lubricant was
one important innovation.
Nevertheless, by contemporary accounts, the
audience that most enjoyed the movie was the
Inuit themselves. Tragically, as the film was entran-
cing audiences worldwide, the Inuits were facing
exceedingly harsh conditions; Nanook died of star-
vation not long after filming was complete.
For his still photographs made in the Canadian
north from 1910 onwards, Flaherty utilized a 54-
inch Eastman plate (or view) camera and a 45-
inch Graflex roll-film camera to take photographs
of Inuit groups. Although the Inuit people were by
no means entirely isolated, when Flaherty showed
photographs to Nanook for the first time in his life,
the Inuit did not understand what he saw and could
not grasp what the images represented. As Flaherty
explained later:
My task is to make Nanook understand what I intended
to do. My first difficulty was that he didn’t even knowhow to read a picture. The first pictures I showed him
meant no more to him than so many curious marks. It
was only when I showed him some photographs of
himself which I had made as tests—I had him look at
himself in the mirror, and then at the photographs—that
I got him to understand what a picture meant.
(Flaherty [1934], quoted in Christopher, 1998: 187)Although Flaherty is widely credited with coming
up with the first film documentary and his device of
shooting footage with the idea of constructing a
narrative was pioneering and has proven to be
enduring, according to filmmaker Dennis Doros
Flaherty had in fact been influenced by previous
films such as Edward S. Curtis’s film,In the Land
of the Head Hunters(akaIn the Land of the War
Canoes, 1914), and Herbert Ponting’s90 Degrees
South: with Scott to the Antarctic.
Flaherty went on to make a number of other
films, includingMoana: A Story of the South Seas
(1926), about the Samoan people, with whom Flah-
erty and his wife lived for almost three years.
Moanawas innovative: Flaherty pioneered the use
and development of panchromatic black-and-white
film. When Flaherty’s friend, the British producer
(and later founder of the National Film Board of
Canada), John Grierson sawMoana, he coined a
new term, namely ‘‘documentary,’’ to describe his
innovative style, combining an ethnographic ap-
proach with poetic images. Although his docu-
mentaries were successful, Flaherty’s career as a
filmmaker was difficult. Often at odds with those
interested in the commercial exploitation of his
films, or with his producers or collaborators, his
only other great success wasMan of Aran(1934).
Invited by his old friend John Gierson to England
to live in 1933, Flaherty shot for over a year off Ire-
land’s Galway coast, on the island of Aran, creating
an epic without dialogue, which showed the rude
life of fishermen, who re-enacted for the camera
some fishing practices that were long abandoned.
After other setbacks, including work on a big-
budget production in India of Rudyard Kipling’s
Elephant Boy, Flaherty returned to the United
States. There, he madeThe Land(1942) for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, andLouisiana Story
(1948), funded by corporate support.
Robert J. Flaherty died of a thrombosis on July
23, 1951, in Dummerston, Vermont. The Annual
Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, an international
event, has been held every year since 1954, having
been inaugurated by Flaherty’s widow. The Robert
Flaherty Foundation was established in New York
City in 1953; it moved to Brattleboro, Vermont, the
following year. Canada also remembered Flah-FLAHERTY, ROBERT JOSEPH