This is a reflection on a documentary by Robert J. Flaherty; Nanook of the North. Flaherty was the architect or rather pioneer of documentaries; a film, television or radio programme that is non-fiction as it articulates the lived experiences and aspects of reality following a certain subject matter. A pioneer because Nanook of the North was a genre of film-making that did not exist until that time. The medium of film is a cultural artefact and therefore is extremely crucial in visual representation.
This post will look at the primitive representations or rather misrepresentation of natives that perpetuate the idea of native life as stagnant, simple and counter-progressive. Representation that distorts the idea that natives were imaginative, innovative, complex and sophisticated. Furthermore, this post argues that the camera as a method of anthropological documentation is a tool perpetuating imperialism and patriarchy in the particular context of Nanook.
The anthropological film documents the everyday life of Nanook, an Eskimo, his family and his nanoscopic community. The documentary illustrates the lifestyle of hunting, trading, and migration maintained by Nanook and his family. Flaherty demonstrates the difficulties of surviving in the extreme conditions of the Arctic. In Flaherty’s depiction of the doccie the narrative came from the stance or rather perspective of an explorer as Winston notes that, “Flaherty was a child of the last age of imperial expansion, and beneath the veneer of sympathy and understanding for the people he filmed there is nothing but the strong whiff of paternalism and prejudice” (1995: 20). From this stand -point we can see that Nanook was under the guise of an imperial complex and it is depicted in the scene demonstrating Nanook and his family engaging in trade with westerners. In their engagement Nanook is shown biting what seemed to be a record. This portrayal feeds into western preconceptions of unenlightenment of indigenous people, ridiculing through humour the fact that Nanook does not know how to ‘efficiently’ engage with the object.
Fundamentally, this documentary cannot be viewed in isolation from a contextualised position expressing the western discourse present at the point in time of the production; making Nanook seem more primitive and violent. For instance, Shaka Zulu was a great warrior and an innovator of his time but the western portrayal of Shaka Zulu made him seem primitive and violent. This being a discourse that has harassed the legacy of indigenous groups as forward thinking and advanced for their time. However, this is the politics of looking at the world through a preconceived and ignorant lense.
: 20
Native Telling 