"When Nanook is building the igloo, we see a very real picture of family life; the dad is working hard, the mother is helping, and the younger children slide down the snow as if they don’t have a care in the world. The building of the igloo fascinates us, yet these children see it as a boring and commonplace chore, and find other ways to spend their time. Their story has not been manipulated to make us like them, but the scenes we see make them a very believable family, and by the end we find ourselves wishing for more.”
Upon reading this essay, I was struck by two things: first, I was completely wrong. Second, I was completely right. Mostly, I was young. Still, my dialogue with past Erika in many ways represents a dialogue that Nanook invites many of its foreign viewers to have: these people are different from us, but they are just like us. Past Erika is different from me (don’t worry, we’ll leave past Erika alone in a little while, where she will gleefully trot off to her first semester in the film program), and yet many of the elements from that initial essay still hold true.
In "The Ontology of the Photographic Image", André Bazin makes a claim about photography that I find to be true (at least if the image is used appropriately and the viewer pays proper attention):
“The aesthetic qualities of photography are to be sought in its power to lay bare the realities […] Only the impassive lens, stripping its object of all those ways of seeing it, those piled up preconceptions, that spiritual dust and grime with which my eyes have covered it, is able to present it in all its virginal purity to my attention and consequently to my love” (169-170)
In the essays of Bazin that I have read (which, I admit, are all located in Film Theory and Criticism, and which most likely only represent a small part of what he believes), it seems that he is seeking a cinema of objectivity, but more importantly, he believes that a cinema of objectivity is a cinema of love.
Above all else, Nanook of the North is a film that loves its subjects, and a film that invites us to love them as well. Indeed, Barnouw reports that Flaherty himself cites this as the reason for making the film: “The urge that I had to make Nanook came from the way I felt about these people, my admiration for them” (45). While much could be made of the scenes that in some way demean Nanook (the scene with the gramophone being foremost among them), much more can be made of the loving way that this culture is documented. While I wince slightly at my previous characterization of Nanook as “charming”, I also can’t help but think that that is precisely what this film intends—we are meant to be charmed (or perhaps astounded) by these people and their lifestyle (or, to be more accurate, the lifestyle of their ancestors) not because they are quaint, but because they are capable. While Nanook likely hunts walruses with rifles in his everyday life, he and his fellow hunters are still capable of hunting with more primitive (as in first, primary, original) tools.
Bazin’s assertion the objectivity of cinema, its power to “lay bare the realities,” exposes the object to our love is clearly demonstrated throughout the film, but perhaps most clearly in the igloo construction scene. I have seen this scene in the film more than any other scene; I have discussed it with professors, peers, and sixth graders. Upon every screening, in every discussion, we just cannot get around the fact that this is an amazing scene. In this ritual, perhaps commonplace for Nanook (or perhaps not—his skill suggests it is, his real life context suggests it might not be), our eyes are opened to a world of ingenuity, skill, and beauty quite foreign to a modern context. Flaherty encourages and cultivates a sense of wonder in showing us this process, and he does so without any unnecessary encouragement from the filmmaker. Though the film’s poetic titles certainly pay tribute to the Eskimo and serve to orient us, much is left to the viewer. “One thing is needed,” leaves us curious; then epiphany strikes as we realize that the ice block is a window. These people are different from us; they are just like us. We also have homes, we also have windows. Everyone wants to let in the light.
Erika of 2004 claimed that this was an honest film, and despite the film’s various contrivances—this is not a real family, that was not a real seal hunt, we are not really inside an igloo (details which were obviously lost on me at the writing of the first essay)—I find this to be a true statement. Whereas I previously saw Nanook’s interaction with the camera as a sign of discomfort, I now see it as a bit of a wink at the audience; this is a collaborative film, and Nanook was most likely a voice in contributing to some of the scenes that we might find insensitive or offensive today (perhaps the gramophone encounter is a mockery of Nanook’s real thoughts when he first encountered a gramophone; maybe the fumbling seal hunt is his own (successful!) attempt at slapstick). The sheer duration of certain scenes—particularly the scene navigating the snow storm, which Barnouw likens visually to Eskimo drawings—does not lie; it cannot lie. Whatever contrivances exist, this is a real storm, this is real cold, and these are the people that choose to live in it. Though this might not be a family, these are social actors. In a move that pre-dates Neo-Realism, these actors existed before the camera started rolling, and they will exist long after. The film makes me want to believe it; I believe that Flaherty’s intentions were to explore and not exploit, to capture on film a way of life he found to be beautiful and meaningful. I believe that there is something profound to be learned from people whose ability to survive in the harshest of climates astounds me (the term primitive has come to have a negative connotation, as if things can only get better the farther removed they are from their origin. I’m all sorts of enthusiastic about technology, but I don’t know that we’ve gained anything by having children play video games instead of hunting hand-crafted snow polar bears). I believe that it is not challenging to love those who are different from us if we are willing to spend sufficient time with them. Nanook is a film born of a significant investment in the lives of these people, and it offers us the chance to spend some time with them as well, and in so doing, to learn to love the world.
References:
Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Nonfiction Film. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University, 1993. Print.
Bazin, André. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image.” Film Theory and Criticism. 6th ed. Ed. Braudy and Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 166-170. Print.
