U.S. (Les Frères Revillon, Pathé) 79m Silent BW
Director: Robert J. Flaherty
Producer: Robert J. Flaherty
Screenplay: Robert J. Flaherty
Photography: Robert J. Flaherty
Music: Stanley Silverman
Cast: Nanook, Nyla, Cunayou, Allee, Allegoo, Berry Kroeger (narrator1939 re-release)
The history of documentary filmmakingan approach generally thought to involve a filmmakers recording of an unmediated realitybegins really with the invention of the cinema itself, but for better or worse the nickname father of the documentary has generally been bestowed on Robert J. Flaherty. Raised near the U.S.Canadian border, Flaherty loved exploring the far-off wilderness from an early age, and after his studies went to work as a mineral prospector in Canadas Far North. Before one of his trips, someone suggested he bring along a movie camera; over the next few years, Flaherty would film hours of material of both the land and its inhabitants, which in 1916 he began showing in private screenings in Toronto. The response was enthusiastic, but just as he was about to ship his footage to the United States, he dropped a cigarette ash and his entire negative30,000 feetburst into flames. Flaherty took years to raise enough money to go back north and shoot again; when he finally succeeded (thanks to Revillon Frères, a French furrier), he decided to focus his efforts on filming one Nanook, a celebrated Inuit hunter. Based on his memory of the best of what he had shot before, Flaherty fashioned the events to be included in the new film, including things Nanook commonly did, some things he never did, and some things he used to do but hadnt done in a while. The result was the deeply influential, but endlessly debated, Nanook of the North.
A series of vignettes that detail the life of Nanook and his family over a few weeks, Flahertys film is a kind of romantic ode to human courage and fortitude in the face of an overwhelming and essentially hostile Nature. Despite Nanook getting pride of place in the title, many audiences are left with the memory of the arbitrary fury of the arctic landscape. Indeed, the film received a powerful (if tragic) publicity boost when it was revealed that Nanook and his family had indeed perished in a raging snowstorm not long after the film was completed, giving Nanook of the Norths extraordinary and already powerful final sequencein which the family looks for shelter from a storma terrible poignancy.
Many contemporary film students are critical of the picture because so much of it seems staged for the cameraseveral times you can practically hear Flaherty barking out directions to Nanook and the othersbut the films many defenders over the years, such as André Bazin, wisely pointed out that Flahertys most remarkable achievement here is the way he seemed to capture the texture of their daily lives. The details of the walrus hunt, such as whether or when a gun was used, seem less important than Flahertys decision to
simply follow in long shot Nanooks slow crawl toward his prey; if Nanooks beaming face as he warms his sons hands is part of an act, then he was simply one of the great screen performers in history. Call it what you willdocumentary, fiction, or some hybridNanook of the North remains one of the few films that completely deserves its description as a classic. RP
See all movies from the 1920s
1920s
NOSFERATU, EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS (1922)
NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY OF TERROR
Germany (Jofa-Atelier Berlin-Johannisthal, Prana-Film) 94m Silent BW
Director: F.W. Murnau
Screenplay: Henrik Galeen
Photography: Günther Krampf, Fritz Arno Wagner
Music: James Bernard (restored version)
Cast: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, Georg H. Schnell, Ruth Landshoff, John Gottowt, Gustav Botz, Max Nemetz, Wolfgang Heinz, Guido Herzfeld, Albert Venohr, Hardy von Francois
Bram Stokers Dracula inspired one of the most impressive of all silent features. The source material and the medium seem almost eerily meant for each other. Stokers novel, largely written in the form of a series of letters, is light on traditional dialogue and heavy on description, perfect for the primarily visual storytelling of silent films. It is fitting that a story of the eternal conflict between light and darkness should be matched to a format consisting almost entirely of the interplay of light and darkness.
Director F.W. Murnau had already established himself as a star of the German Expressionist movement when he decided to adapt the Stoker novel, renamed Nosferatu after legal threats from Stokers estate. In fact, the finished film barely evaded a court order that all copies be destroyed, but in the end little of Stokers novel was ultimately altered, save the names of the characters, and indeed the success of Nosferatu led to dozens of subsequent (and mostly officially sanctioned) Dracula adaptations.
Yet Nosferatu, even so many years later, stands apart from most Dracula films. One key difference is the striking presence of star Max Schreck, whose surname translates as fear. Schreck plays the eponymous vampire with an almost savage simplicity. His creature of the night is little different from the rats at his command, lurching instinctively toward any sight of blood with barely disguised lust.