The problems with traditional ethnographic filmmaking as exemplified Essay

The problems with traditional ethnographical filmmaking as exemplified by Nanook of the North - Essay ExampleThe film Nanook of the North is a pioneering effort by film-maker Robert Flaherty. Released in 1922 and filmed in the immediately preceding years, the film was a tentative experimentation in two genres ethnography and documentary. At a time when the written word was the primary mode of entropy dissemination, Nanook of the North attempted to achieve what an ethnographic book on the Eskimo would have done. When motion picture as we know it today was taking its early steps as a medium of popular culture, Flaherty, who called it a non-fiction film, can be credited to have made the first documentary. Looking back at the ninety years since the release of Nanook of the North, one can see vast improvisations in film-making technique and technology. The addition of synchronized sound would be another cornerstone in the history of films. (Ellis & McLane, 2005) As can be judge in thi s early example/experimentation with narrative film, there are a few translucent problem areas. While nominally adapted to the documentary form, the viewer cannot avoid feeling the enactment of a pre-conceived script. It is as if the film-maker, instead of making himself the invisible observer of unfolding events, seems to have instructed Nanook and his clan to discharge specialised acts. This is typical of not only early documentaries but also the vast body of ethnographic make of the previous century. For example, other post-First World War forays in this genre such as Dziga Vertovs The Man with the exposure Camera, Walter Ruttmanns Berlin Symphony of a City (1927) and John Griersons Drifters (1929) all share this common flaw. This is also accredited of Flahertys ensuant film Moana (1926). Flaherty portrays Eskimo and Samoan cultures in a revisionist mode by creating imagined characters, bringing back to life befuddled cultural practices (such as hunting for Walruses using harpoons) and setting the film in an ancient period (conveyed to the listening through use of oil lamps when electricity is easily available). All this goes to show that these early ethnographies were done slight in the name of art than to salvage elements of the past by portraying them in the filmic equivalent of the ethnographic present. As a result, Flahertys alterations and temporal licenses met considerable disapproval in scholarly circles. He only exacerbate passions further by stating, Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit. (Askew, 2006, p.29) There is also a directorial slant that seeks to iterate well-established stereotypes of the natives. This is not only applicable to Nanook and the Native American stock he comes from, but also to all indigenous people under European imperialist purview. For example, similar stereotyping of the natives is evident in British-authored ethnographies in Indian subcontinent, German experience in African colonies, Belgians in the Congo and the French occupation of Indo-China. What is also evident in early film ethnographies are the fixedness in perspective these films were made by white men for other white men, with a wicked attitude toward nativities/communities being explored. Further, the primitives were shown to display Western family ideals Like a museum display in which sculpted models of family groups perform traditional activities, Nanooks family adopts a variety of poses for the camera. These scenes of the picturesque always represent a particular view of family or community, usually with the father as hunter and the mother as nurturer, paralleling Western views of the nuclear family. In the next trading post sequence, Nanook is shown to be ignorant of Western technology....This conceit of the indigenous person who does not insure Western technology allows for voyeuristic pleasure and reassures the viewer of the contrast between the Primitive and the