Robert J. Flaherty

Robert J. Flaherty (1884-1951), American film director. Robert Joseph Flaherty was born on February 16, 1884, in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and brought up to be a prospector by his father, who took him on his explorations for minerals in the back country of Canada. After he had completed his education at the Michigan College of Mines, he went out alone to the Hudson Bay area in the far north. On one of such trips he took photographs of Inuit life, and it was suggested to him that he should take a film camera on his next trip in 1913. He was not satisfied with the result, however, and raised the money from a fur company to try again in 1920. This time, he centred the film on an Inuit family, led by the extrovert Nanook, and used the recent developments in fictional film-making technique in telling their story. Robert J. Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922) achieved a successful theatrical release, and was the first artistically notable film using ordinary people doing what they ordinarily do. Except, that is, as in Flaherty's subsequent films, he staged all the scenes, and even had the Inuits do things they no longer did, such as hunting walrus with a harpoon. This was done to support Flaherty's romantic idea of savage man being improved by his struggle with nature. His Moana (1926) applied the same technique to South Sea islanders, but attempts to get Flaherty to work on a more professional basis failed with White Shadows of the South Seas (1928) and Tabu (1929).

Robert J. Flaherty was brought to the United Kingdom by John Grierson, who had coined the term “documentary film” to describe Moana. There he served as an inspiration for the British documentary movement, and made Man of Aran (1934) in his usual way, shooting an immense amount of film and then editing it down over a long period. His final films were The Land (1942) and Louisiana Story (1948). Flaherty died on July 23, 1951, in Dummerston, Vermont.