Film One: Haddon’s earlier film was designed to show to Westerners the curious lives of people around the world; but it was also one the first step towards the creation of ethnographic films today. Though Haddon documented (for only four minutes) the lives of the natives of the Torres Strait, he did it in a way of an outsider rather than immersing himself into the culture; the film was taken as if one was looking into a fish tank at the curiosities inside. In the way however, it does show the “authentic” lives of the Murray people, because Haddon did not create a story or prevent them from using modern tools such as in Curtis’s Head Hunters or Flaherty’s Nanook. Yet because of the short amount of film, it is not an accurate representation of
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Like Curtis’s film, he wanted to show the “true” people of the north, as it was before White contact. Though Flaherty is more remembered than Curtis, their film styles and approaches are very similar (Marcus 1996). Like Curtis, Flaherty wanted to show the true “authenticity” of the Inuit as they used to be; he put the actors in clothing that were never worn anymore, did not permit the use of rifles during the walrus hunt, showed Nanook and his family making Igloos in order to stay warm (though the scene is partly false), and tried to promote a sense of man in his struggles against nature. Many barren landscape shots are taken with just tiny human specs walking around amidst the white to underline this notion. The film may have seemed to be an accurate representation of regular life for the jolly Inuit to the film’s audience, as it is shown as if Flaherty has just followed around Nanook performing his various day to day tasks as if it were not staged at all (Marcus 1996). This gives the notion to outsider audiences that this is the way things truly are, as Flaherty was doing it in order to preserve the traditional thought culture of the Inuit people. The poster for the film even declares “the truest and most human story…” though it is all a staged story and not exactly true at all. Though the film was not accurate for the representation of that time period, is has, like Curtis’s film provided some education to descendants of the people in the film, as well as a way to remember their
Like Curtis’s film, he wanted to show the “true” people of the north, as it was before White contact. Though Flaherty is more remembered than Curtis, their film styles and approaches are very similar (Marcus 1996). Like Curtis, Flaherty wanted to show the true “authenticity” of the Inuit as they used to be; he put the actors in clothing that were never worn anymore, did not permit the use of rifles during the walrus hunt, showed Nanook and his family making Igloos in order to stay warm (though the scene is partly false), and tried to promote a sense of man in his struggles against nature. Many barren landscape shots are taken with just tiny human specs walking around amidst the white to underline this notion. The film may have seemed to be an accurate representation of regular life for the jolly Inuit to the film’s audience, as it is shown as if Flaherty has just followed around Nanook performing his various day to day tasks as if it were not staged at all (Marcus 1996). This gives the notion to outsider audiences that this is the way things truly are, as Flaherty was doing it in order to preserve the traditional thought culture of the Inuit people. The poster for the film even declares “the truest and most human story…” though it is all a staged story and not exactly true at all. Though the film was not accurate for the representation of that time period, is has, like Curtis’s film provided some education to descendants of the people in the film, as well as a way to remember their