Yamagata Speech - In Defense of Flaherty
Yamagata Speech - In Defense of Flaherty
As we approach the centenary of the invention of 35mm motion picture film making and, perhaps, in the near future, its demise in that particular form, I find myself more and more at odds with what has been written by critics, film historians and that relatively rare breed, film-maker-theoreticians, about what we have learned.
We are here in Yamagata to look at recent Documentary films and to honor the work of Robert and Frances Flaherty. I would like to take this opportunity to tell you something of what I learned about the Flahertys, first hand, and something of my views on why it is that the above mentioned writers on film have consistently denigrated and misunderstood this body of work.
I first met this extraordinary couple when I was a schoolboy in England. I had just completed my first film and one of my teachers showed it to the Flahertys who were visiting. They were generous in their comments though Francis later ticked me off for a '"montage" sequence made a la Russe. Ten years later I found myself working with them as cameraman on Louisiana Story. Even though I was at the time a Marxist and a member of the Communist Party I knew that I loved what this man did with a movie camera and though I often thought he was crazy, I stuck with it and eventually came to realize that these people were none of the things that they were said to be by my fellow militants.
Recently I have been rereading various articles that discuss the Flahertys and their work. I have attended meetings not unlike this where their work is shown. I find that most people claim to "love" Nanook of the North, but in discussions after the film get bogged down in false issues, did Mr. Flaherty "cheat"? Did some one see a rifle in the upper left-hand corner of one frame in the Walrus hunt? Was it true that he built a half-igloo to film the interiors of family life? Why does he show Nanook "eating" a gramophone record? Why didn't he show that the fur trader cheated the Eskimo (Inuit)? Why didn't Nanook share in the "huge profits" made by the film instead of "starving to death" two years after the film came out.
With the subsequent films this rain of questions get heavier. In the recent literature we have ROBERT FLAHERTY: A BIOGRAPHY by Paul Rotha. Edited by Jay Ruby. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. I reviewed this book for Film Vision
QUOTE WHOLE REVIEW
Soon after this the far more illustrious and widely read Sight and Sound magazine, published the following review by Brian Winston who once worked for a British TV network and now teaches film in the U.S.A.
‹j ‹åQuote Winston Article (entire?)
Clearly, this is not strictly speaking, a review. I knew Rotha in his declining years and am sure that these malicious conclusions, supposedly wrung from his book would have shocked and dismayed him.
To start at the beginning, the notion that Flaherty was not aware that some people starve in this world is ludicrous. He spent years in the Arctic where starvation was commonplace. That he chose, in The Arctic, in Samoa and on the Aran Islands to depict life as it had been some fifty years earlier was no more a fraud then than Dr. Assen Belixie's 1950's film on the Neksilik Eskimo which was enacted by people with only the remotest idea of how their grandfathers lived and yet these films have not been criticized as far as I know. As Winston well knows, all the documentary films before the advent of the hand held camera we reenacted, including the films of Vertov, Eisenstein, and all the British Documentaries especially those directed by Humphrey Jennings. Flaherty seems to be held responsible for what Oliver St John Gogarty and Paul Rotha say in praise of their friend which he defines as "blarney". Then without having said anything of substance Winston concludes has "cast a pall over the entire documentary tradition..." Then, " Flaherty's was an imperial career..." His first attempt to film Nanook was an adjunct to his work as a prospector in search of minerals, particularly iron ore, the second attempt was sponsored by Revillon Frere of Paris, Moana by Paramount Pictures, Man of Aran by Gaumont British, Elephant Boy by Korda, The Land by the US Dept. of Agriculture, Louisiana Story By Standard Oil... and Grierson was funded by the GPO (the Post office) and Song of Ceylon by the British Tea Board...that has been a pattern for all of us so are we all Imperialists? We all know that funding from any one presents you with problems. Standard Oil attached some husky strings to the Louisiana project and it did in my opinion mar the film. The Flahertys were well aware of this. But an imperial career? Nonsense.
And then there are the usual canards. "The clowning with the record in Nanook" Nanook is feeling the grooves on the record with his teeth, try it!. Especially if you have gloves on! The death of Nanook... as far as we know, Nanook died of TB which runs rampant among his people. "The revival on the body of Ta'avale(Moana) of the dead ceremony of tattooing" When Monica Flaherty and I visited Savai in 1975 we saw not one but several young men tattooed. etc. etc. etc.
After reading this book and this article I sat down and wrote an outline of that film that would perhaps have made these people happy. I dedicate it to Brian Winston and the late Paul Rotha;
STORM IN THE ARCTIC
OK, I am making fun of the kind of political film making that
has held sway for a very long time. I would like to suggest that we give some thought to what has happened, particularly in the recent past, to our evaluation of the most directly political, and polemic films. The early (late compared to Nanook and Moana) films of Eisenstein and Vertov. How do they look today? The films of Ivens after Rain. How do they look and sound today? The Films of Godard, especially Le Chinoise? Yes, The films of Paul Rotha? Basil Write?... How do they stand? Do we find poetry? Do we find a deep sympathy for human beings? Is the camera work sensitive and more than professional? Is that much talked about "scientific editing" still of interest?
Well, for me the answers are obvious. I can still learn more from this man Flaherty and his imperialistic family who went with him while he and his co-worker wife worked, yes, wrote, and filmed and developed and printed and took stills and worked and viewed and edited "with one shot following another so as to tell a story". They were able to teach us how to make a tree high(one way, their way) how to make a cliff high, how to scale an elephant, how to convey a mystery. These films are a gold mine of invention and a treasury of film theory. Not academic rules but real live throbbing film made by people who had no time for carping academic bureaucrats who never made a film worth the powder to blow it to hell.
As we approach the centenary of the invention of 35mm motion picture film making and, perhaps, in the near future, its demise in that particular form, I find myself more and more at odds with what has been written by critics, film historians and that relatively rare breed, film-maker-theoreticians, about what we have learned.
We are here in Yamagata to look at recent Documentary films and to honor the work of Robert and Frances Flaherty. I would like to take this opportunity to tell you something of what I learned about the Flahertys, first hand, and something of my views on why it is that the above mentioned writers on film have consistently denigrated and misunderstood this body of work.
I first met this extraordinary couple when I was a schoolboy in England. I had just completed my first film and one of my teachers showed it to the Flahertys who were visiting. They were generous in their comments though Francis later ticked me off for a '"montage" sequence made a la Russe. Ten years later I found myself working with them as cameraman on Louisiana Story. Even though I was at the time a Marxist and a member of the Communist Party I knew that I loved what this man did with a movie camera and though I often thought he was crazy, I stuck with it and eventually came to realize that these people were none of the things that they were said to be by my fellow militants.
Recently I have been rereading various articles that discuss the Flahertys and their work. I have attended meetings not unlike this where their work is shown. I find that most people claim to "love" Nanook of the North, but in discussions after the film get bogged down in false issues, did Mr. Flaherty "cheat"? Did some one see a rifle in the upper left-hand corner of one frame in the Walrus hunt? Was it true that he built a half-igloo to film the interiors of family life? Why does he show Nanook "eating" a gramophone record? Why didn't he show that the fur trader cheated the Eskimo (Inuit)? Why didn't Nanook share in the "huge profits" made by the film instead of "starving to death" two years after the film came out.
With the subsequent films this rain of questions get heavier. In the recent literature we have ROBERT FLAHERTY: A BIOGRAPHY by Paul Rotha. Edited by Jay Ruby. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. I reviewed this book for Film Vision
QUOTE WHOLE REVIEW
Soon after this the far more illustrious and widely read Sight and Sound magazine, published the following review by Brian Winston who once worked for a British TV network and now teaches film in the U.S.A.
‹j ‹åQuote Winston Article (entire?)
Clearly, this is not strictly speaking, a review. I knew Rotha in his declining years and am sure that these malicious conclusions, supposedly wrung from his book would have shocked and dismayed him.
To start at the beginning, the notion that Flaherty was not aware that some people starve in this world is ludicrous. He spent years in the Arctic where starvation was commonplace. That he chose, in The Arctic, in Samoa and on the Aran Islands to depict life as it had been some fifty years earlier was no more a fraud then than Dr. Assen Belixie's 1950's film on the Neksilik Eskimo which was enacted by people with only the remotest idea of how their grandfathers lived and yet these films have not been criticized as far as I know. As Winston well knows, all the documentary films before the advent of the hand held camera we reenacted, including the films of Vertov, Eisenstein, and all the British Documentaries especially those directed by Humphrey Jennings. Flaherty seems to be held responsible for what Oliver St John Gogarty and Paul Rotha say in praise of their friend which he defines as "blarney". Then without having said anything of substance Winston concludes has "cast a pall over the entire documentary tradition..." Then, " Flaherty's was an imperial career..." His first attempt to film Nanook was an adjunct to his work as a prospector in search of minerals, particularly iron ore, the second attempt was sponsored by Revillon Frere of Paris, Moana by Paramount Pictures, Man of Aran by Gaumont British, Elephant Boy by Korda, The Land by the US Dept. of Agriculture, Louisiana Story By Standard Oil... and Grierson was funded by the GPO (the Post office) and Song of Ceylon by the British Tea Board...that has been a pattern for all of us so are we all Imperialists? We all know that funding from any one presents you with problems. Standard Oil attached some husky strings to the Louisiana project and it did in my opinion mar the film. The Flahertys were well aware of this. But an imperial career? Nonsense.
And then there are the usual canards. "The clowning with the record in Nanook" Nanook is feeling the grooves on the record with his teeth, try it!. Especially if you have gloves on! The death of Nanook... as far as we know, Nanook died of TB which runs rampant among his people. "The revival on the body of Ta'avale(Moana) of the dead ceremony of tattooing" When Monica Flaherty and I visited Savai in 1975 we saw not one but several young men tattooed. etc. etc. etc.
After reading this book and this article I sat down and wrote an outline of that film that would perhaps have made these people happy. I dedicate it to Brian Winston and the late Paul Rotha;
STORM IN THE ARCTIC
OK, I am making fun of the kind of political film making that
has held sway for a very long time. I would like to suggest that we give some thought to what has happened, particularly in the recent past, to our evaluation of the most directly political, and polemic films. The early (late compared to Nanook and Moana) films of Eisenstein and Vertov. How do they look today? The films of Ivens after Rain. How do they look and sound today? The Films of Godard, especially Le Chinoise? Yes, The films of Paul Rotha? Basil Write?... How do they stand? Do we find poetry? Do we find a deep sympathy for human beings? Is the camera work sensitive and more than professional? Is that much talked about "scientific editing" still of interest?
Well, for me the answers are obvious. I can still learn more from this man Flaherty and his imperialistic family who went with him while he and his co-worker wife worked, yes, wrote, and filmed and developed and printed and took stills and worked and viewed and edited "with one shot following another so as to tell a story". They were able to teach us how to make a tree high(one way, their way) how to make a cliff high, how to scale an elephant, how to convey a mystery. These films are a gold mine of invention and a treasury of film theory. Not academic rules but real live throbbing film made by people who had no time for carping academic bureaucrats who never made a film worth the powder to blow it to hell.