#33: Nanook of the North
Hey friends,
I took a break last week because I just could not. Ya know what I mean?
This week, I’d love to take a MOMENT to tell you about a few newsletters I love that are written, incidentally, by people whom I love!
Shining Light Where the Sun Don’t Shine (I think the cool kids are just going to call it Shining a Light) by my friend and teacher Chloe Caldwell. If you are a writer, it is a must-read. Really good book recommendations that you won’t hear anywhere else, reviews, and writing prompts. Also, I just love Chloe’s writing voice so I would read anything she wrote tbh.
UNHINGED: crafts and thoughts by my friend Amanda. I have a lot to say about Amanda and her writing and her newsletter, but the first post really tells you all you need to know. To know her is to love her.
Reading Faraway Places from my friend Diane is like asking your coolest friend, “What should I buy? What should I read? What should I look at? What should I care about? Also, make me feel French.” 10/10 you must subscribe.
I'll Decide in the Car from my friend Elizabeth is the beautiful roundabout intersection of comedy, pop culture, feminism, and the life of a writer. Elizabeth is so gd funny and thoughtful and every post feels like a little blessing from her beautiful, sparkly brain.
And! This is a fun: my friend Caroline hasn’t posted her first post yet but y’all…when I tell you this woman can WRITE. PHEW. Subscribe to The Body of Work so you don’t miss her first post. It will surely make you FEEL something which is my personal highest writing praise.
That’s it! I just realized I can talk about things I love in addition to things I hate and it feels great (what is this feeling?) so I’m gonna do it more!
But, of course, not before I talk about something I kind of hated…
#33: Nanook of the North
Director: Robert Flaherty
Country: United States
Year: 1922
Runtime: 79 minutes
Language: English
**As always, this post contains spoilers**
CW: Racist stereotypes and language, animal death/hunting
I was skeptical, but I entered this movie—the first documentary in the collection— with an open mind. I really did.
And the thing is, if you were to watch the film itself with no context it wouldn’t be so bad (minus the racist language in the title cards, which we will get to). It would feel like a pretty well-crafted-for-its-time documentary about a community of Inuit people. It’s when you start reading about the making of the film that things get bizarre and--I know this will be shocking--racist.
With that said, I have to tell you something right up top: this movie is full of lies, which I note throughout. It is widely considered to be the first docudrama and one could argue that this genre gives the filmmaker greater creative license and I would generally agree! But what complicates the matter in this case is the inherent power imbalance of a White filmmaker making a film for mostly White and Western audiences about an Indigenous community. I think you’ll see what I mean.
The film is silent and black and white with classical music and title cards used to tell the story.
It begins with a several-title-card preface from the director, Robert Flaherty.
It says in part:
“This film grew out of a long series of explorations in the north which I carried out on behalf of Sir William Mackenzie from 1910 to 1916. Much of the exploration was done in journeys lasting months at a time with only two or three Eskimos as my companions. This experience gave me an insight into their lives and a deep regard for them.”
The TL;DR version of all of these cards (which include the word “half-breed” to talk about a person and refers to the people as the “kindly, brave, simple Eskimo” [a term that should no longer be used]) is that Flaherty went to the Canadian Arctic a few times in the early 1900s. He filmed Indigenous people who lived there but lost the film in a fire. He went back again, met an Indigenous man whom he wanted to film, and he did. This is that film.
The next title card calls Nanook of the North, “a story of life and love in the actual arctic” which I actual-ly love!
The next title cards (the cards act as narration) say: “The sterility of the soil, the rigor of the climate no other race could survive; yet here, utterly dependent upon animal life, which is their sole source of food, live the most cheerful people in all the world--the fearless, lovable, happy-go-lucky Eskimo.
The picture concerns the life of one Nanook (The Bear), his family and little band of followers, ‘Itivimuits’ of Hopewell Sound, Northern Ungava, through whose kindliness, faithfulness and patience this film was made.”
Okay so lie #1: Nanook’s name was not Nanook. It was Allakariallak. I read on Wikipedia that the reason Flaherty chose the name Nanook was because it was more palatable to Euro-American audiences, but I couldn’t confirm that anywhere. After reading more about Flaherty’s approach, I’m gonna go ahead and assume it’s true. Also, I’m going to use the name Nanook when talking about the character in the movie and Allakariallak elsewhere.
We meet the main subjects of the film: Nanook, Nyla “The Smiling One” (his wife), and several of his children when they all pile out of a single kayak.
Lie #2: Nyla was not Allakariallak’s wife. In fact, her name was Alice and she was in a relationship with Flaherty. And…
Lie #3: At least one of the children the film claims is Allakariallak’s is actually Flaherty’s son with Alice. Don’t even get me staaaartteeeddddd.
Also, there is a Husky puppy named Comock and thank G I couldn’t find any lies about the puppy.
Nanook and his community set up a temporary hang spot where they burn moss for fuel and cover their kayak with seal skin so it is better resistant to the cold water.
About a dozen of them pile into an Omiak (a bigger boat) and cross the river to the trading post of “the White man.”
Nanook trades fox, seal, walrus, and polar bear hides for knives, beads, and candy. He also pulls out a literal bag of Husky puppies (not to be confused with a literal bag of hush puppies. I can’t believe you would make that mistake, you sicko). There is a scene where a baby named Rainbow is just sitting in a pile of puppies and it’s outrageously cute.
The White guy shows Nanook his gramophone. Nanook looks super into it. The White guy hands Nanook the record and after inspecting it, Nanook tries to take a bite out of it.
Lie #4: Allakariallak absolutely knew what a gramophone and records were. Flaherty staged this for comedic effect because lol look at this person so isolated from Western culture they don’t even know you can’t eat records! UGH.
Nanook goes salmon fishing amongst a bunch of ice floats. He uses no bait, just a lure with two pieces of ivory that he wiggles up and down. When the fish approach, he quickly stabs them with a three-pronged harpoon-like device. He then kills them somehow by biting their heads.
The title card says that they are low on food but they hear of walrus so Nanook sets out in the kayak to hunt.
Possible/probable lie #5: These people were not actively starving; Flaherty played this up for dramatic effect.
Apparently a “sentinel” walrus is always on watch in a group of walruses because while they are “ferocious” in the water, they are helpless on land. Which was surprising to me at first! Like you’re enormous and you have tusks, how helpless can you be? And then I remembered how walruses are shaped and they don’t have legs and it made a lot of sense.
The guys harpoon one in the butt and, with a lot of work, three men are able to pull it back to shore with the rope on the other end of the harpoon.
Kind-of-lie #6: This Inuit community had been using guns to hunt for a while at this point. This is presumably because Flaherty wanted to highlight the Inuit’s ability to successfully use more traditional means of hunting, like the harpoon. And, probably, to further highlight the differences between the Inuit’s lives and the lives of the Western viewers. And, probably, to make them look more primitive.
Winter arrives, which was news to me because I thought it was winter the whole time because snow.
The title card reads: “Long nights--the wail of the wind--and short, bitter days--snow smoking fields of sea and plain--the brass ball of dun a mockery in the sky--the mercury near bottom and staying there days and days and days.” This is a very beautiful sentence.
The Inuit use sled dogs to set up camp on their way to hunt for seals.
They find a good place to camp and begin to build an igloo. This was SO fascinating because I’ve never seen one being built. They find hard-packed snow, cut it into squares into the dome while they fill in the gaps with more snow. It looks simple but it obviously isn’t easy.
Here’s a 7-minute video of the igloo-building scene:
They also sled by one older kid laying down on their belly and a younger kid sitting on their back. Or they just slide down the hill on their backs. Which begs the question: why are we fucking around with sleds?
Nanook carves a block of ice out of the ground to make a window. He then puts a block of snow outside of the window so that it reflects the light of the sun and creates a light source inside the igloo. People truly amaze me sometimes.
Kind-of-lie #7: The interior shots of the igloo are from inside a 3-sided igloo because they couldn’t fit the camera in the one they were actually sleeping in. This “lie” didn’t actually bother me but I am a purist and the lie detector test determined this was a lie.
Also, there is a tiny sled for a tiny puppy. And one of the kids, probably 3-years-old, has a tiny bow and arrow. Nanook carves a bear out of snow and the little kid practices hunting.
Also, during the day, the puppies hang out in the women’s hoods. Dream job.
They set out on the ice field, in a long sled pulled by the dogs, to go seal hunting.
Being mammals, seals keep little holes in the ice open so they can come up for air every 20 minutes. Nanook hunts one by throwing a harpoon through the hole. With the help of the rest of the group, they are able to pull it up.
Lie #8: This “struggle” with the seal was fake as the seal was already dead.
The group’s Huskies (which honestly is it possible one of them is an actual wolf? Looks like a wolf.) is going wild smelling the seal being butchered.
They eat the seal raw because why wouldn’t they? Two little kids play tug of war with the flipper in their mouths. They also feed their dogs who fight over the meat. These dogs seem great when they’re pulling the sled but a total PITA the rest of the time, to be honest.
Also, this is the first Criterion movie Josh and I watched apart. I missed him and I know you did, too. But not to worry! He called me while I was watching and said, “Did you know that, for people who live in the Arctic, narwhal skin is the only source of Vitamin C?” So there you go.
The group runs into a snow storm and they have to take refuge in an abandoned igloo.
As the dogs howl and are covered in snow, the family sleeps together.
A title card says that Nanook died of starvation two years after completion of the film.
Lie #9: Allakariallak died from tuberculosis at home.
A title card reads: “Tia Mak” (The End)
Like I said above, I don’t have an issue with docudrama or a documentary not being “real” enough. I have seen...a lot...of reality tv so I’m no stranger to the proverbial heavy-hand of a producer. BUT when that hand is being used to amp-up harmful stereotypes, that’s a different issue.
How does it help Allakariallak or the narrative of Allakariallak’s life for people to think he is “more primitive” than he is (the use of harpoons over guns, or the gramophone thing)? The better question is, how does it harm him?
I read somewhere that Flaherty said, “One often has to distort a thing in order to catch its true spirit.” As a person who writes personal essays and poetry, I totally agree to a point.
But when telling stories about others and even when consuming stories, we have to grapple with this question: who is deciding what that “true spirit” is? What is the lens this story is passing through? And not just the literal lens, but I mean all of the lenses that take up the space between our reality and someone else’s. Sometimes there are a lot. Layers and layers of them.
I’ll leave you with a few things:
This interview with Tanya Tagaq, a Canadian Inuk throat singer, who was commissioned to perform a soundtrack for Nanook of the North. After watching a short clip of her performance, it makes me wonder how different the viewing experience would have been with her entire soundtrack.
By entering your address on this site, you can see which Indigenous Nation’s land you live on. You can also text (907) 312-5085 with your zip code to find out. Land acknowledgment is important.
There are so many ways to support Indigenous people in America (Google truly rules), especially ones who are part of the Nations whose land you reside on. One organization I found is called IllumiNative whose goal is more Native visibility and countering stereotypes.
In short, it sucks that Flaherty used the power of filmmaking to push a narrative he thought would be pleasing to Westerners. If he had to make the film, it felt like a missed opportunity to simply show them so that they could be simply seen. But ultimately, I couldn’t stop wondering: if Allakariallak had been behind the camera, what movie would he make?
Next up is Andrei Rublev which is a three-hour Soviet biographical historical drama so I appreciate your thoughts and prayers during this trying time. See you there!
XOXO,
Steph