Nanook of the North   Term Paper ID:45886 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: This paper consists of two essays, the first a five-page essay on the ethnographic value and Orientalism of the 1922 Flaherty film Nanook of the North and the second a reflection on Karl Heider's attributes on ethnographic film in relation to the documentary First Contact. Paper Introduction: Nanook of the North Robert Flaherty\'s film Nanook of the North is in some respectsan Orientalist film Shohat and Stam emphasizes how Orientalism in theform of Eurocentrism sanitizes Western history while patronizing and evendemonizing the non-West and this is precisely what Nanook of the Northdoes It depicts the Eskimo as an atavistic tribal being whoseintelligence appears limited and whose society is primitive As EdwardSaid explains Orientalism it is not just a detailing of thegeographical distinctions between the Orient and the Occident but Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media. This representation of Inuit life must be recognized as largelyconcocted, and Rony (116) notes that seven years after the film's release,Vilhjalmur Stefannson "claimed that Nanook was as authentic as SantaClause." Rony (116) emphasizes the irony that "The filmmaker must useartifice to convey truth," as merely recording what actually transpiresdoes not appear real to the viewer. Attribute #1, the appropriateness of sound, for example, Heider (52)explains, depends upon the context of the sound. While adding a music sound track to lendatmosphere to a film may enhance its appeal and interest value, there isalways the danger that this can inadvertently add stereotyping and otherundesirable connotations along with it that are not confirmed by theethnographic research. To omit close-up shots is to omit much of what makes anindividual human, distinct, and understandable. Staged and posed responses aredefinitely not ethnographic. Thus, the conclusion in this case is that Nanook of the Northis ethnographically valuable as a representation but not anethnographically accurate or authentic rendering of an actual historicalcontext.2. Who is to say which is the most objective?Even that opinion is subjective. Moreover, it would have toprovide an analytical commentary, not an overly cute narrative staged toshow the Inuit solely as "happy-go-lucky" (Flaherty). It depicts the Eskimo as an atavistic tribal being whoseintelligence appears limited and whose society is primitive. Nanook of the North. Robert Flaherty's (1922) film Nanook of the North is in some respectsan Orientalist film. In a true ethnographic film-althoughit might be less story-like and easy to understand-there would be depictionof authentic, not scripted, action and relationships. Rony (112) likens Nanook and his family to "a museumdisplay in which sculpted models of family groups perform 'traditionalactivities," noting that they pose for the camera. I agree with all of Heider's attributes and his points about themexcept Attribute #12, with which I only agree partially. In First Contact, both synchronousand wild sound are integrated, and both are used appropriately. Inmy opinion, good ethnography includes a mix of both, with roughly equalproportions. The concept of "taxidermy" that Rony (1 1) discusses is integral to ananalysis of Nanook of the North. Othering homogenizes an indigenous people such as the Eskimointo "a collective 'they'" that is distinguished from mainstream culturevia its "exotic cultural practices," which are presented as "bizarre,strange, remarkable, curious, unfamiliar, colourful and fascinating," perGallini (MacNaughton & Davis 87). Heider's book Ethnographic Film identifies anumber of attributes of ethnographic film that can be analyzed in FirstContact. In the BBC film First Contact, a group of anthropologists is led by anAmerican tour guide and a group of natives into the heart of Papua, NewGuinea to see native Papuans that ostensibly have never had any contactwith the outside world. Recreating something true, even withattention to historical accuracy, is not ethnographic in the same sense ascapturing something true as it happens or after the fact. To label the film as ethnographic when it is an acted-out fictitious story is to give it too much credit for authenticity. In orderto qualify as an ethnographic film, it would have to record or representactual people in the relationships and activities that are traditional tothe Inuit-not the Western nuclear family. Although it is instructive and providesan overall understanding of the forces of nature, the habits, and even theappearance of the Inuit, it is still a fictitious representation. AsRony (123) acknowledges, Nanook is not the actor's real name, which wasAllakariallak, but "Nanook seemed to suit the whites better," and the womenplaying Nyla and Cunayoo were not married to Allakariallak but were inreality Flaherty's common-law wives. Heider (64)asserts-and rightfully so-that "Things or events must not be treated inisolation; they have meaning only in context." In other words, drawing outjust a few incidents and highlighting them is too fragmentary to be fullyrepresentative. Attribute #2, narration, is one that Heider (54) regards as virtuallyalways distracting. The first isbound to lose something in translation, while the second is indisputablyauthentic. Attribute #6, voice or point of view (POV), Heider (6 ) identifies ascontroversial with respect to ethnography, since while objectivity is thegoal, there are, as he contends, "several points of view" that could bepropounded in a documentary. London: Routledge, 1994. Thus, what is most important is that thePOV is clearly delineated to the audience, as it is in First Contact. Orientalism. It is by seeing the same things and events many times thatone can develop a holistic perspective on them. Much ofthe postsynthesized sound consists of music and jungle sounds pertinent tothe film or narration that explains what is occurring. Thus it is still critical to evaluate how eachattribute is being used in the film to ensure that it is conveying truthand not something else. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2 6.MacNaughton, Glenda; Davis, Karina. It is this student'sopinion that the film is not truly ethnographic, although it does have someethnographic value. In Attribute #12, whole bodies, Heider (78) contends that forethnographic purposes, camera shots of the subject's whole body ispreferable to a close-up showing just the face. Shohat and Stam (3) emphasizes how Orientalism in theform of Eurocentrism "sanitizes Western history while patronizing and evendemonizing the non-West," and this is precisely what Nanook of the Northdoes. In the samesense that a movie made to teach about an event or a person in history hasethnographic value, Nanook of the North is worthwhile. Heider (22) describes Flaherty'sunderstanding that while film provides specific communication, the printedword can be contrasted as providing general communication but notes thatFlaherty was able to convert the specific acts of one individual, Nanook,into generalizations about Inuits overall. Per De Heusch, this is an"ethnographically sound" form of documentary if the director is faithful toreproduce what he saw (Rony 116). Although he concedes thatan occasional close-up to show greater detail is valuable, for the mostpart, close-ups omit too much information about the person and the contextto be ethnographically sound. Most importantly, itwould have to be scrupulously accurate and devoid of bias, just a faithfulrepresentation of the Inuit's actual lifestyle, not a stylized andromanticized fictitious version of it. AsRony (1 1) points out, anthropology "legitimized imperialism through its'scientific' findings that indigenous non-European peoples were inferiorand at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder of history." This connectionbetween imperialism and anthropology was strengthened by the fact thatuntil 1926, anthropologists could obtain their ethnographic informationsecondhand, without even traveling to the field under study (Rony 1 1). Nanook of theNorth fits into the same category. Othering and imperialism are additional concepts embedded inOrientalism. Taxidermy, as Rony (1 1) defines it,"seeks to make that which is dead look as if it were still living." In thefilm's case, it does not depict Eskimo society at the time the film wasmade but rather is a filmed representation of an earlier time, a time thatwas already dead but that the film was in a sense resurrecting through itsdepiction. 1922.Heider, Karl G. Imperialism-the implicit suggestion thatone culture is superior to another-is part of the Orientalist mindset. Boththe idea that the tours are authentic and the idea that they might not beare offered up and evidence on both sides is presented. If it is synchronoussound-the sounds that actually occur as the film is being made-it isappropriate as long as it is not excessively distracting. As EdwardSaid (12) explains Orientalism, it is not just a detailing of thegeographical distinctions between the Orient and the Occident but also ascholarly exploration that at times strives to "control, manipulate, evento incorporate, what is manifestly different" about the Oriental, or non-Western, culture. The names would bereal names, and the action would consist of a recording of real-timeactivities of the Inuit people, not a scripted storyline. That the film has ethnographic value is not in dispute. Works CitedFlaherty, Robert. Several movies have been made about thelife of Abraham Lincoln, but most of these are fiction, not 1 %historically accurate representations of recorded fact. Wild sound isany sound other than synchronous sound, such as postsynthesized musictracks or dubbed narration (Heider 52). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.Said, Edward W. In Attribute #16, culture change made explicit, Heider (1 1) pointsout that cultures are continually changing and that ethnographic films thatomit any trace of this change are bordering on what he calls "ethnographicfiction." Although it is impossible to hit a moving target, it is possibleto capture the culture at a point in time and include information aboutchange that is emerging or imminent. This is not what occurs in First Contact, where the participantsare making just one foray into the Papuan culture that takes a few days andderiving all of their judgments from this brief contact. Heider asserts that in Nanook,Flaherty was telling "a story of the individual facing crisis...man'sstruggle with nature." Flaherty's film is regarded by many as the first documentary, anethnographic record of Inuit life. Said (12) asserts that Orientalism reinforces thestereotypes through which Westerners see the Orient through "culturalstereotyping." MacNaughton and Davis (87) describe how the concept of"othering," or drawing "a binary distinction between 'civilized' and'primitive'," enters into this stereotyping. Ethnographic Film. By viewing it,students and adults can gain an understanding of the type of lifestyle thatthe Inuit lived and the forces that were operative in their environment.However, it must be regarded as merely a representation of the truth, not ahistorical record of the truth. Flaherty filmed Nanook and his family in what Rony (1 2) refersto as "a cinematic 'ethnographic present.'" Therefore, the film that theviewer sees is not a real-time recording of what the indigenous people doon a day-to-day basis but rather a reconstruction in a fictitious formatthat utilizes posed actors to act out how the Eskimo used to go about hisdaily routine. The appropriateness of sound, forexample, is in its ethnographic content, which must be unadulterated by"canned" sound to convey value. It is true thatvaluable ethnographic information is visible in a whole-body shot that ismissing from a close-up face shot, such as body posture, the body's contextin terms of environment, and so forth, but on the other hand there is alsovaluable ethnographic information visible in a close-up shot that is notdiscernible in a whole-body shot, such as intricate facial expressions. Attribute #7, holism, Heider (64) explains as "behavioralcontextualization." Essentially, holism consists of gaining a holisticview of a culture by living among them and seeing them in a variety ofcontexts. "Beyond 'Othering'" rethinking approaches to teaching young Anglo-Australian children about indigenous Australians." Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2.1, (2 1), 83-93. The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle. Therefore, it is-at leastwithin limits-appropriate and integral to the viewer's comprehension. There are imperialistundertones as Nanook is shown biting the record and the intertitles explainthat he does not understand how the record emits sound (Rony 112).Moreover, the activities that Nanook and his family engage in for thecamera are carefully constructed from a Western viewpoint, showing thefather as the hunter/gatherer and the mother as the family's nurturer (Rony112). Nanook of the North1. However, in the case of this film, since much of theconversation takes place in a foreign language-Indonesian-the narration isvital to understanding what is being said. Rony, Fatimah Tobing. Given ethnographic film's goal of truth, these attributes canfacilitate its expression if Heider's guidelines are followed, butdistortion can occur if they are not. New York: Random House, 1978.Shohat, Ella; Stam, Robert. Ultimately, however, the question ofwhether Nanook of the North can be designated as an ethnographic filmhaving ethnographic value is highly questionable. 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