Nanook of the North (1922)

Directed by

Robert J. Flaherty

Genre

documentary film, drama film, silent film

Country

France, United States

Runtime

1h 18m

Rated

U

Rating

7.1 of 10 from 327 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

It follows an Inuk man named Nanook and his family as they hunt, fish, and build shelter in the Canadian Arctic. The film shows their daily struggle to survive in a freezing landscape.

visually starkslow-pacedobservationalharshdignifiedhumblequietearnest

What happens

Nanook of the North is a 1922 American silent film that combines elements of documentary and docudrama/docufiction, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist. In the tradition of what would later be called salvage ethnography, the film follows the struggles of the Inuk man named Nanook and his family in the Canadian Arctic. It is written and directed by Robert J. Flaherty, who also served as cinematographer, editor, and producer. Some have criticized Flaherty for staging several sequences, but the film has been described by Roger Ebert as "stand[ing] alone" among Flaherty's films "in its stark regard for the courage and ingenuity of its heroes." It was the first feature-length documentary to achieve commercial success, proving the financial viability of the genre and inspiring many films to come. In 1989, Nanook of the North was among the first group of 25 films selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• The Great Greenland Film (1922)
• Land of the Long Day (1952)
• Groenland, vingt mille lieues sur les glaces (1952)
• A Moon of Nickel and Ice (2017)
• Milak, the Greenland Hunter (1928)
• Shadow of the Wolf (1992)
• Kabloonak (1994)
• Qui se souvient de Minik (2003)