> > > Evan Cameron ([log in to unmask]) disputes the claim that Flaherty had extensive professional experience as a photographer and filmmaker before embarking on NANOOK OF THE NORTH and claims that production of the film began in 1913, not 1920. He cites as partial proof of Flaherty's inexperience the difficulties of processing film. I don't really see how a lack of prior knowledge about how to filter caribou hair out of water determines Flaherty's experience as a cinematographer. I respectfully suggest that James Wong Howe, Stanley Cortez or even Gregg Toland would have come up short in this regard. As far as Cameron's allegation that the filming of NANOOK began in 1913, he appear to be jumbling together two different film productions -- the one shot in Baffin Island and the one shot at Port Harrison. I'm not sure that I understand how a film project shot in an entirely different area of the north, using a completely different cast, which was edited and exhibited in major Canadian cities as a complete film could be considered to be the same movie as the later NANOOK. The so-called "first Nanook" was made to promote Sir Wm. Mackenzie's mining and railroad empire. Mackenzie claimed ownership of the film, which had as much to do with the fact that Flaherty could not use it commercially after he left Mackenzie's employ as the somewhat disputed "fact" that the negative was destroyed in a fire. The later 1920 venture was sponsored by Revillon Freres to compete with the earlier Hudsons Bay Company pageant films and ADVENTURES IN THE FAR FUR COUNTRY. How could this be coherent as a single project with the earlier film? Flaherty's late teens correspondence with his wife Frances deals at length with their plans to make the next Eskimo film different than the first, adapting strategies used by Curtis and Mawson, among others. In Flaherty's mind, these were distinct ventures. To my knowledge, they projects share not a frame of common material. From an extreme auteurist standpoint, it might be possible to conceive of a director's entire body of work to be just one film, released in ninety-minute chunks over a period of years. But, speaking other than in this sense, does Cameron have some evidence of which I am not aware that these were one coherent project? My earlier statement stands. Flaherty had extensive experience as a still photographer and as a cinematographer by the time he proposed making NANOOK to Revillon Freres in 1920. He not only received instruction in filmmaking at Kodak, but had met with representatives of Kinemacolour, Paramount and several other companies long before embarking on the Revillon project. He also received advice from Edward Curtis and Alfred Stieglitz. He knew the film business reasonably well, and was able to negotiate an advantageous contract with Revillon. I would be happy to provide Evan Cameron with citations of specific documents in the Flaherty papers that demonstrate this. I would call upon him to provide similar primary documentation to contest anything that I state here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Langer Email address: [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]