Flaherty

When I was approximately eleven years old and performing the Saturday afternoon ritual of attending the local movie theatre, Flaherty’s Man of Aran unrolled upon the screen and I was suddenly aware of an extraordinary sensation. It was similar to the reaction a Siberian nomad would have had upon his first view of the ocean; awe and disbelief. I said to myself kind of a film is this – so different from the common Hollywood fare whose formulas we had so expertly caught on to Flaherty’s film’s were authentic studies of various indigenous societies shot on location, using native people as performers and having a lyrical poetic form rather than a dramatic structure. He was sometimes accused of reenacting or contriving scenes but this was a minor violation in the spirit of poetic license and made very little difference in the essential spirit of the film. Furthermore Flaherty was interested to show how these societies functioned before the corrupting and damaging influence of western imperialism rather than showing them as they now existed. This gave his films a romantic quality rather than tough minded realism but also an intrinsic beauty. Even though his vision embraced some contradictions it contributed a much needed aspect of the family of Man other than the popular view of the inferiority of tribal people.

After the first rush of emotion activated by Flaherty’s poetic imagery, what appealed to me was the respect and love that he expressed for the Aran Islanders. Regrettably I’ve seen very little of this quality since then, which is to be expected because indigenous people have been regarded as commodities by our society and it is inevitable that the commercial cinema should follow the same pattern.

Nevertheless Man of Aran had a profound effect upon me and was a strong influence and motivation in my making of On The Bowery and Come Back Africa.

Now in the year of the celebration of Columbus’s discovery of America we are bombarded with information about the impact of Europe upon the culture of the Americas and the massive genocide of the Indians and also the Africans during and after the slave trade. Although it has long been obvious it is now inescapably evident that there is a desperate need for a greater understanding and respect for these cultures, many of which are rapidly disappearing along with their language, and lifestyles. We cannot expect the commercial cinema as it presently exists to deal with this deficiency. It is inextricably linked to all the destructive tendencies of our society. The violence, militarism, the destruction of the environment, rain forests, ozone layer, animal species and indigenous people that our society is so efficient at. We seem to enjoy the process of grinding things up.

Flaherty also made Nanook of the North. The star of this film was Nanook an Inuit. He was a star that had never appeared before nor has he appeared since. Nanook of the North gives us an indication of how the Hollywood star system has ruined the art of cinema.

Nanook is a good example of Flaherty’s method, which gave his films their exceptional authenticity First and foremost was his attitude of respect and affection for the indigenous people he was portraying. Before filming Nanook, Flaherty had been a geologist exploring Northern Canada for minerals and gold and he had no experience with filmmaking. I don’t know what decided him to make a film about Nanook but even at the time Inuit culture was rapidly eroding under the impact of our society and he may have wanted to record it as it had been. He had already had years of acquaintance with the Inuit, so he didn’t have much research to do. However in future films he followed the same procedure often spending several years living with his subjects until he had thoroughly absorbed the essence of their lifestyle. Some filmmakers think he spent too long but their films don’t have that inexplicable magic that Flaherty’s films convey. They seem effortless and absolutely real. Flaherty was a poet and had a marvelous eye. Once you have seen Nanook he becomes a part of your memory, although there is nothing very dramatic about his actions except that they simply imply the great hardship and danger in his struggle for survival as he goes about his routine tasks of hunting and fishing on the ice flows. For all of our technical superiority, science and knowledge we couldn’t survive three days in the arctic winter as he does, even the mighty hunter Nanook was vulnerable to this cruel nature. He was found dead several years after the completion of the film frozen to death on the ice clutching the rifle Flaherty had given him.

Flaherty remained true to his subject and rejected false mellow-drama and fictionalized episodes and particularly exotic ceremonies used out of context, which gave the impression of the “natives” as superstitious barbarians.

Flaherty had a lucky accident in the film, which was particularly memorable for me. This was the scene in which Nanook discovers the sound of a phonograph. In his perplexity over the source of the music he picks up the record and gingerly tests it with his teeth. It’s a marvelous example of trying to understand the world through your senses and touching in its instinctive simplicity.

Nanook was one of the greatest box office hit’s of 1924, which has a rather hilarious aspect to it, but it obviously brought him to the attention of the Studios. The remainder of his career was a constant battle with the studios to maintain authenticity of his films and the respect for the indigenous people who he tried to portray. With some like Man of Aran and Moana he held his own quite well but with Tabu and Sabu the Elephant boy the producers took over. Despite this, Tabu also has a startling power of authenticity in which Flaherty collaborated with the feature film director Murnau. Flaherty left the film before completion because of disagreements with Murnau and the producers. Sabu was almost a complete abortion inexplicitly lived. Flaherty had an influence on feature film production but his concept never caught on to mainstream of commercial cinema, although it had a short-lived influence on the films of De Sica and Rossellini and others throughout the history of cinema. Clearly there is a desperate need for the qualities that Flaherty brought to the cinema but a need for something doesn’t always bring about it’s gratification. Flaherty’s work is relatively unknown today but perhaps it will reemerge far in the future like Bach or Villa Lobos who wrote, “I write letters to the future but nobody answers them.”