I will make every effort to moderate the tone of my response to Evan Cameron in the hope that he will try to substitute logical discussion for invective in his future communications. I apologize for the length of this posting. Evan Cameron writes: > > Professor Langer seems to have difficulty rendering coherent not only > Flaherty's work, but his own conjectures about it. An excellent example of what I was complaining about at the beginning of this posting. I have no difficulty finding coherent elements in Flaherty's work. I simply pointed out that the film begun by Flaherty in 1913 was a completed work. It was exhibited in Toronto in 1915 and reviewed in such papers as The Globe, The Toronto Mail and Empire and The Toronto Daily News. Not a frame of the earlier expedition footage survives in NANOOK. NANOOK was shot hundreds of miles away from the previous expedition footage, depicted significantly different material, had a narrative of sorts, did not depend on the use of an accompanying lecturer, had a completely different cast and a continuing, central character, was made by a completely different sponsor for a different purpose, and in almost every possible way was a different film than the "first NANOOK." Could you engage with my argument with logical counterargument, rather than respond with insult? What Langer said, and > I contested, was that Flaherty had been "professionally trained by Kodak", > bearing the full implication that the skills Flaherty brought to bear in > the making of NANOOK and his later films were - contrary to his own > testimony and those who knew best of his work - the result of prior > "professional training" by others. A 3-week crash course from Kodak, > taken in 1913 at the suggestion of William McKenzie, amounts to being > "professionally trained by Kodak" by no standard known to me nor to any > one who later worked with Flaherty. > Perhaps Evan Cameron could answer the following questions. Was Flaherty trained in the use of amateur cinema equipment or professional cinema equipment? Was the Kodak course meant for amateurs? What longer forms of education (other than apprenticeship) was available for professional cinematographers in 1913? In short, can Evan Cameron demonstrate that Flaherty was not taught how to use professional equipment by Kodak? Can his use of a Graflex still camera and Bell and Howell 35mm equipment be considered the operation of amateur equipment? Was the Akeley not a professional machine? Were non-professionals routinely using profesional film labs in such marginal conditions? Would seven years of experience using professional equipment only qualify the practitioner for amateur status? Would professional interaction with Curtis, Mawson and major motion picture companies be the activities of an amateur? I would like to read a more compelling argument from Evan Cameron other than the simple repetition that Flaherty was not a professional and that his training was not professional training. Repetition of your claims does not advance your position. Please respond to these questions specifically. > As for the coherence of the earlier work on NANOOK with the latter, > perhaps Professor Langer will someday inform us why his standard of > identity (whatever that may be) should supercede Flaherty's own and those > who knew him. Perhaps Evan Cameron can provide some evidence from the time period in question that Flaherty and those who knew him considered the two projects to be the same. I don't mean printed accounts after the fact, but evidence from the 1913 to 1920 period, which is the period in question. I suspect that he is unfamiliar with the Flaherty papers and the evidence contained within that would support my contention that these were separate projects. The negatives culled from four expeditions beginning in > 1913 were indeed burnt while being cut in Toronto in 1917; Maybe yes and maybe no. I haven't been able to find any contemporary evidence of this. I would be grateful, even delighted, if Evan Cameron could provide me with some. I do have evidence in a letter written by Frances Flaherty on July 16, 1916 that Sir William Mackenzie was "holding on to them [the motion pictures] like a leech. I have given up the fight for the pictures on R's account ...[to] make the pictures pay for future expeditions of our own. But Sir Wm. won't give them up." If you can provide some evidence that Sir Wm. did give them up, and that the negative was then burnt while being cut in 1917, please post it. But I can't take anecdotal evidence provided years later as somehow proving definitively that the negative burned while in Flaherty's possession. I'm not saying that the information in the papers definitely proves that the negative did not burn. It does strongly suggest that Flaherty did not have the negative, and therefore casts doubt on his story. Please make an effort not to distort my position in your response. Flaherty then > convinced Revillon Freres to back the 1920 expedition which culminated in > the successful revision of the project - and indeed, by 1920(!), Flaherty > had lots of first-hand experience under his belt. Thanks you for this concession. One might even call him professional! > > To claim, however, that the northern projects which culminated in NANOOK > were "distinct ventures" to Flaherty, because he took the opportunity to > reconstrue and restructure the film between his initial and final attempts > at it, simply begs the question at issue. The "initial attempt" was a completed film. The 1913 venture is related to > the one of 1920 as neither are related to MOANA, MAN OF ARAN or LOUISIANA > STORY. The latter were "distinct ventures", as the phrase is commonly > understood, though I doubt that the nuances of our language will stand in > the way of Professor Langer's quest for deconstruction. "Nuances of our language?" My "quest for deconstruction?" This wouldn't be an unkind characterization, would it? I like the selection of "distinct ventures" that you've presented, which deal with different societies and which represent films that were produced in widely spaced time periods. Let me present a selection of Flaherty films that are more directly linked in terms of time of production and subject matter. The so-called "first NANOOK" and "NANOOK OF THE NORTH" are as distinct as MOANA, WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS, the incomplete THE MAD MUSICIAN and TABU. These four films are set in Polynesia (albeit at locations as remote from each other as Baffin Island, the Belcher Islands and Cape Dufferin), have different casts, different narratives, as well as different production and distribution companies. Would you argue that the Polynesian films are just one production that culminated in TABU? Would you agree with me that they are distinct ventures, despite their common links? (As Bernard > Herrmann once said to me about CITIZEN KANE, with reference to Ms. Kael's > similar anti-authorial project generated without consultation with him > or any other of Welles's coworkers, "yeah - the shoeshine boy did it!") I refer to documents in the Flaherty papers and to the films themselves. Could you explain why you regard my stance to be anti-authorial? I do refer to Flaherty's diaries and letters. I must plead guilty to one of your accusations. Like Pauline Kael, I have not consulted with Robert Flaherty himself, although I have spoken to some family members and co-workers. Unless you have received your wisdom directly from conversation or correspondence with Robert Flaherty, I would like to know how you could claim that your position is any different. Since you are making an accusation, I would like to have some concrete evidence as to why you have characterised my position in this way. Certainly a reference to a hypothetical extreme auteurist position should not be misconstrued to be an "anti-authorial" project. Or is this simply name calling? My position on the question of authorship in relation to Flaherty's work is that a large part of his work has been excluded from the Flaherty corpus because it doesn't conform to certain widely-held conceptions about the "Flaherty Way." Rather than denying authorship on the part of this filmmaker, I have consistently called for a broadening of the scope of Flaherty's work considered by scholars and for a reconsideration of the entire range of his film work. Feel free to check out my earlier postings in this thread and my other publications on this matter before you come to your conclusions on my "project." > > The fascination of Flaherty to so many who worked with him, of course, is > that the glorified stories he (and his wife, Frances) later concocted > around his production methods rested almost without exception upon a hard > core of truth, as every coworker from Goldman to van Dongen and Leacock > has attested. (Dispite his disregard of them, I trust their testimonies > are known to Professor Langer, or at least where to find them!) I am unaware of any connection that Goldman, van Dongen and Leacock had with Flaherty's work during the teens and twenties. Isn't such evidence commonly called hearsay? Surfaces > aside, the Flaherty myth matched the reality, in their judgment, to a > degree altogether exceptional among filmmakers. To careful historians, > that doesn't mean you trust the myth; but it assuredly forbids one from > junking it in the interest of an anti-authorial agenda. I ask Evan Cameron to calmly and without insult or hyperbole explain what he thinks my anti-authorial agenda is, and why he thinks that "glorified stories that rest on a hard core of truth" somehow should be given equal empirical weight with documentable evidence. In what way does the simple questioning of such things as the burning of the "first NANOOK" negative "junk" the myth? In what way does my reference to primary documentation in the Flaherty papers in order to supplement or contest anecdotal evidence by Flaherty and his coworkers disqualify me from being a "careful historian?" I'd like to suggest that Evan Cameron might do his position a greater service by specifically dealing with the issues and questions of evidence that I raise. Ad hominem attacks do not really engage with my arguments, nor do they answer the questions that I pose. I acknowledge his deeply held feelings about this. Now, could we have a civil discussion? And then, could we get back to some of the issues raised earlier by others in this thread? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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]