Lecture 3:
Romantic Ethnography
Nanook of the North (1922)
Directed by Robert Flaherty
Professor Michael Green
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Previous Lecture
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The Meaning of
Whiteness
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The Voice of
Whiteness in Griffith’s
Biograph Films
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The Artful racism of
Broken Blossoms
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Writing about Film
Lesson #1
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This Lecture
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“The Imperial
Imaginary”
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Nanook of the North
and Romantic
Ethnography
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Writing about Film
Lesson #2
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“The Imperial Imaginary”
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Lecture 3: Part I
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Imperialist Ordering of the Globe
“The colonial domination of indigenous
peoples, the scientific and esthetic
disciplining of nature through classificatory
schemas, the capitalist appropriation of
resources, and the imperialist ordering of
the globe under a panoptical regime, all
formed part of a massive world historical
movement that reached its apogee at the
beginning of the twentieth century.”
– Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “The Imperial Imaginary”
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Historical Context
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Cinema was born during the height of the
imperial project, when Europe held sway
over vast territories and subjugated peoples.
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Kipling's "White Man's Burden" and the US
acquisition of Cuba and the Philippines.
The first Lumière and Edison screenings in the
1890s closely followed the “Scramble for Africa.”
The British occupation of Egypt in 1882.
The Berlin Conference of 1884 carved up Africa
into European "spheres of influence.”
The 1890 massacre of Sioux at Wounded Knee.
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The Leading Imperialists
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The countries yielding the most silent film
– Britain, France, the US, Germany –
were among the leading imperialists.
It was in the interest of these countries to
laud the colonial enterprise.
The audiences for popular film – not just
the elite – took to colonial entertainments
thanks to popular fictions and exhibitions.
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Neutralizing Class Struggle
“For the working classes of
Europe and Euro-America,
photogenic wars in remote
parts of the empire became
diverting entertainments,
serving to ‘neutralize the
class struggle and transform
class solidarity into national
and racial solidarity.’”
Henry Morton Stanley
– Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “The
Imperial Imaginary”
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Adopting Colonial Stories
• The early cinema adopted popular works
and attitudes of colonialist writers:
– Rudyard Kipling: Gunga Din, The Man who
Would be King, The Jungle Book
– Rider Haggard: King Solomon's Mines
– Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tarzan
– David Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley, and
other “adventurers.”
– The "conquest fiction" of the American
southwest.
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Colonial Adventure Movies
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Directed by W.S. Van Dyke
Gunga Din (1939)
Directed by George Stevens
The Adventure of Film
“Adventure films, and the ‘adventure’ of going
to the cinema, provided a vicarious
experience of passionate fraternity, a playing
field for the self-realization of European
masculinity. Just as colonized space was
available to empire, and colonial landscapes
were available to imperial cinema, so was
this psychic space available for the play of
the virile spectatorial imagination as a kind of
mental Lebensraum.”
– Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “The Imperial Imaginary”
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Shaping National Identity
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Stories often carry our beliefs about the
evolution and origin of nations.
Cinema, as the world's foremost storyteller,
has adeptly projected narratives of nations
and empires to large audiences.
It built on the novel as a way to fashion
“imagined communities,” and shape thinking
about historical time and national history.
This usually benefits some national and
racial imaginaries and harms others.
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Distribution Hegemony
“The dominant European/American form of
cinema not only inherited and disseminated a
hegemonic colonial discourse, it also created
a powerful hegemony of its own through
monopolistic control of film distribution and
exhibition in much of Asia, Africa, and the
Americas. Euro-colonial cinema thus mapped
history not only for domestic audiences but
also for the world.”
–
Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “The Imperial Imaginary”
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What is Hegemony?
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Hegemony refers to the way that the
political and social domination of the power
class in capitalist society is expressed not
only in ideologies but in all realms of
culture and social organization.
This kind of power takes the form of
influence rather than domination, as well
as an appearance of naturalness and
inevitability that removes it from
examination, criticism and challenge.
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The Camera and Empire
“If the culture of empire
authorized the pleasure of
seizing ephemeral glimpses of
its ‘margins’ through travel and
tourism, the nineteenth-century
invention of the photographic
and later the cinematographic
camera made it possible to
record such glimpses.”
–
Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “The
Imperial Imaginary”
The Camera Explorer
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These early cinematographic “explorers”
rarely considered the power relations
between observer and observed.
Their interpretations were subjective and
informed by imperialism.
These cinematographers then popularized
imperial imagery for those back home,
turning the recording of images into a
participatory activity.
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Expanding “Science”
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Expanding the frontiers of science and
empire became a linked ambition.
Cinema, a result of Western science, was
put to the tasks of exhibiting Western
triumphs and prolonged the museum
project, which gathered archeological,
ethnographic, botanical, and zoological
objects in the imperial metropolis.
Science in cinema appealed to a popular
audience, and not just the elite.
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The Looting Camera
“The camera penetrated a
foreign and familiar zone like
a predator, seizing its ‘loot’
of images as raw material to
be reworked in the
‘motherland’ and sold to
sensation-hungry spectators
and consumers, a process
later fictionalized in King
Kong (1933).”
–
Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “The
Imperial Imaginary”
King Kong (1933)
Directed by Merian C. Cooper and
Ernest Schoedsack
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The Impact
“Racism and ‘entertainment,’ . . .became
closely intertwined.”
“Such expositions gave utopian form to White
supremacist ideology, legitimizing racial
hierarchies abroad and muting class and
gender divisions among Whites at home by
stressing national agency in a global project
of domination.”
– Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “The Imperial Imaginary”
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Variations on Colonial Narratives
• Early Cinema
• Edison, Méliès, American one-reelers
• U.S. and British Adventure films
• Rhodes of Africa (1936), Beau Geste (1939),
The Four Feathers (1939)
• The Western
• How the West was Won (1936), Oklahoma Kid
(1939), The Last Frontier (1956), El Dorado
(1967), The Last of the Mohicans (various)
• Science fiction
• Return of the Jedi (1983), Stargate (1994)
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The Late Imperial Film
• The colonial/imperial paradigm did not die
with the formal end of colonialism, nor is the
western paradigm limited to the wild west.
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
• The Man Who Knew to Much (1954)
• Gilligan’s Island (1960s, TV)
• Dr. No (1962)
• The Man Who Would be King (1975)
• A Passage to India (1984)
• The Indiana Jones movies (1981 – 2008)
• Coverage of The Gulf War
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Examples
Pause the lecture and watch the Clips from Raiders of the
Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
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Summary of Points
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The height of Imperialism coincided with the
birth of cinema; the two collaborated in
expanding the Imperial project.
The cinema combined narrative and
spectacle to tell the story of colonialism from
the colonizer's perspective.
The power of cinema was – and is – very
influential in shaping national identity and in
ordering power relations between colonizer
and colonized and within imperial nations.
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Nanook of the North and Romantic
Ethnography
Nanook of the North (1922)
Directed by Robert Flaherty
Lecture 3: Part II
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Definitions
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Romantic
– imbued with or dominated by idealism, a desire
for adventure, chivalry, etc.
– fanciful; impractical; unrealistic
– of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a style of
literature and art that subordinates form to
content, emphasizes imagination, emotion, and
introspection
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Ethnography
– The branch of anthropology that deals with the
scientific description of specific human cultures
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The Movie
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Directed by Robert J. Flaherty.
Nanook of the North focuses on the daily
activities of a family of Itivimuit, a group of
Quebec Inuit.
Considered by many to be a great work of
independent cinema.
It is been called the first documentary, the
first art film and the first ethnographic film.
Had immediate worldwide success.
“Canonized” by the National Film Registry of
the Library of Congress
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Authenticity Debate
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The academic discourse
on the movie centers on
questions of authenticity.
Some argue that it
cannot be objective or
“true science.”
Some feel that the film
captures the human
“essence” and that its
characters are symbols
for all of civilization.
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Rony’s Arguments
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The way in which the film represents
indigenous peoples parallels the romantic
primitivism of modern anthropology which
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Focuses on the indigenous body, which is seen
as “unsophisticated.”
Situates the filmed subject in a displaced
temporal realm, i.e. outside of history, so that it
seems to represent an early evolutionary epoch.
Propagates the myth of vanishing races.
All of this is in the service of asserting
“authenticity.”
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Nanook’s Construction
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Rony shows that rather the movie has
clearly been “staged.”
Evidence proved that Flaherty used Inuit
labor – they were his assistants during the
production and post-production and
“acted” scenes for the film – and
introduced them to new technology.
He used artifice to create a Western idea
of “truth” partially based on a construction
of himself as an explorer/artist.
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Examples
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Nanook often hunted with a gun, but
Flaherty encouraged him to hunt as his
ancestors had before European influence.
Nanook’s “wife” in the film was not his wife.
His real name was Allakariallak.
The “danger” in which Nanook and his
family were in at the film’s climax was
greatly exaggerated.
Consider where the cameras are in this
sequence.
Pause the lecture and watch clip #1 from Nanook of the North.
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Examining the Rhetoric
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A close examination of the rhetoric in the
movie’s interstitial cards supports the idea
that Flahtery based “Nanook” on many,
personal, preconceived and historical ideas.
Some examples of this rhetoric include:
“happy-go lucky Eskimo,” “Expedition,”
“half-breed,” “maps,” “civilization,”
“mysterious,” “post of the white man,”
“chaotic wastes”
“A story of life and love in the actual Artic”
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More Rhetorical Examples
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“Nanook, the kindly, brave, simple Eskimo”
Gone into most of the odd corners of the
world”
“Wind-swept illimitable spaces which top the
world”
“The sterility of the soil and the rigor of the
climate no other race would survive.”
“The melancholy sprit of the North.”
Pause the lecture and watch clip #2 from Nanook of the North.
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The “Primitive Man”
“The desire of Euro-American audiences and
critics to perceive Nanook as authentic
primitive man, as an unmediated referent, is
evident in the fact that until the 1970s, no
one bothered to ask members of the Inuit
community in which the film was made for
their opinions on the film. Only then was it
learned that the name of the actor who
played Nanook was Allakariallak.”
– Fatimah Tobing Rony, “Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North: The
Politics of Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography”
Pause the lecture and watch clip #3 from Nanook of the North.
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The Eskimo as Model
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The way in which Flaherty treats his
subjects is consistent with the way in which
native peoples were often treated in the
West as specimens and objects of curiosity.
The Inuit were popular subjects for museum
models in dioramas.
The Eskimo was seen as an uncorrupt
example of all the values of the West –
independence, perseverance, patriarchy –
though never seen as an equal to Whites.
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The Inuit Reception
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Many contemporary
Inuit find Nanook of the
North unrealistic and
even laughable.
They argue it was
constructed by Flaherty
to for white audiences.
Contemporary Inuit
have embraced their
own media to counter
“white” media.
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Romy’s Final Point
“This is why Nanook of the North is seen as a
point of origin for art film, documentary film,
and ethnographic film: it represents the
Garden of Eden, the perfect relationship
between filmmaker and subject, “the innocent
eye,” a search for realism that was not just
inscription, but which made the dead look
alive and the living look dead.”
– Fatimah Tobing Rony, “Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the
North: The Politics of Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography”
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Nanook’s Legacy
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Like Birth of a Nation, Nanook of the North
is a technical milestone that employed
filmmaking techniques to express historical
opinions about racial hierarchies.
As the first feature length documentary,
Nanook has been very influential.
It set the precedent for staging in
documentaries.
The film also documented and inscribed
colonial and imperial attitudes and
approaches to ethnography.
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Writing About Film Lesson #2
Beau Geste (1939)
Directed by William A. Wellman
Lecture 3: Part III
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Three Types of Film Writing
• Remember, there are three major types of
film writing:
– Descriptive – a neutral account of the basic
characteristics of the film.
– Evaluative – which presents a judgment or
opinion about a film’s value.
– Interpretive – which presents an argument
about a film’s meaning and significance.
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Summary of Descriptive Writing
• As it suggests, descriptive writing describes
a film, without evaluation or judgment.
• Most descriptions of narrative films relay
plot events, while a description of a
documentary might describe not only the
topic of the film, but also the approach.
• While descriptions do not offer judgments,
they may go beyond plot summary to
describe genre.
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Evaluative Writing
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An evaluative claim presents a judgment,
expressing the author’s belief that the film
is bad, good, mediocre, flawed, etc.
Reviewer’s grades – A, B or C, two thumbs
up, number of stars, etc. – often
summarize the critic’s judgment, while a
longer review lays out the specific reasons.
“The Birth of a Nation is a great film” is an
example of an evaluative claim.
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Stronger Evaluative Claims
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A stronger evaluative claim includes the
reasons why the evaluation is positive or
negative.
“The Birth of a Nation is a great film
because it includes exciting and wellstaged scenes of combat.”
This statement is more convincing than
the first assertion because it provides a
basis for the judgment.
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Evaluative Criteria
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Evaluative claims are always based on
the evaluator’s criteria, even if they remain
unstated.
Here, the unstated but implicit criterion is
that exciting, well-crafted action scenes
make a film great. Given the tremendous
diversity of viewer preferences, its
important to be clear about the evaluative
criteria so the reader can compare the
criteria to his or her own.
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Evaluative vs. Interpretive
• Evaluative criteria is most often seen in the
movie review, which takes a number of forms
in print, on TV and on the Internet.
• Though some critics bring a sophisticated
level of film discourse to the culture, their
discussion of a film generally comes down to
whether they think it is “good or bad,” i.e
worth your time and money.
• These evaluations are often ahistorical and
not very analytical.
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Bordwell’s Take
“Film studies, it seems to me, is an effort to
understand films and the processes through
which they’re made and consumed. Film
scholars mount explanations for why films are
the way they are, why they were made the
way they were, why they are consumed the
way they are. Most ordinary talk about
movies, and most film journalism, doesn’t ask
‘Why?’ questions, or pursue them very far.”
• David Bordwell, “Studying Cinema”
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Interpretation
“When film scholars talk about movies, they
usually also offer interpretations: claims
about the non-obvious meanings that we can
find in films. Interpretations can be thought of
as particular sorts of functional explanations.
An interpretation presupposes that aspects of
the film (style, structure, dialogue, plot)
contribute to its overall significance.”
• David Bordwell, “Studying Cinema”
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Importance
• It is important to be able to clearly,
concisely and efficiently articulate your
evaluation of something as you often will
be asked to do so in both your student and
your professional work.
• In any society, it is important to be able to
trade informed opinions and have an
intelligent dialogue about art and culture.
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Final Point
• However, it is crucial to understand and
recognize the difference between
evaluative and interpretive film writing - the
difference between pure opinion and a
claim supported by analysis and evidence.
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End of Lecture 3
Next Lecture: Hollywood Hegemony
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