On Tue, 19 Mar 1996, Denis Simard wrote:
 
> Does anyone know whether Flaherty was alone when he shot Nanook or if he was
> accompanied with an operator? And did he had one or two cameras with him?
> I'm sorry if these are obvious questions, I know there's a lot of
> litterature on Nanook, but I have nothing at hand at present and I need
> those informations as soon as possible. Thanks to anybody who can help me on
> that!
 
Denis,
 
Obvious Flaherty wasn't alone! But his approach to filmmaking was decidedly
primative. His background was engineering, not filmmaking so his
expedition was not well equipped. If you read his book, imagine reading
the subject's book as a basic part the research, he states that Nanook
saved the film project when the camera jammed -- due to the extreme cold
-- by taking the camera apart and repairing it.
 
Flaherty seems to have been a highly sensitive person whose family
background may have contributed to his ability to accept ethnic people as
equals (Nanook turned out to be an better engineer than Flaherty when it
came to the motion picture camera). His mother's background included
living with first people (Indians). Note: the trajectory of his film
career took his to Eskimo, Pacific Islanders and he only back out of
films when the commerical interests of Hollywood threatened to twist the
film portrayals of indigeous people out of all shape.
 
You've opened an interesting topic. Prehaps not the one you thought.
 
Mike
 
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