Leonardo Reviews
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Leonardo reviews Leonardo reviews includes his wife’s professional and pri- (including interviews with Flaherty him- Editor-in-Chief: Michael Punt vate role in his career and life. Opening self) and lets the short extracts from Managing Editor: Bryony Dalefield with shots from Man of Aran (1934), the Flaherty’s original film footage “speak film introduces Flaherty’s Irish origins, for themselves.” Some of these clips are Associate Editors: Dene Grigar, although he was born to a mining captured during screening to specialist Martha Blassnigg, Hannah Drayson engineer in Iron Mountain, Michigan. audiences as well as local communi- A full selection of reviews is pub- It shows how he gained a respectable ties, such as on the island of Savai’i lished monthly on the LR web site: reputation as a prospector, explorer on Samoa, where Moana (1926) was <leonardoreviews.mit.edu>. and photographer, which placed him filmed. In addition, the interviews with in company with Shackleton and Scott descendants of those who worked with at the Royal Geographic Society in Flaherty, including Martha Flaherty, his London. The story then moves chrono- and Nanook of the North “actress” Nyla’s logically through the key works and sets granddaughter, offer particularly touch- ilms F them against the context of Flaherty’s ing insights into the complexities of the personal life, and, most relevantly, the way Flaherty is memorialized and also a BoatLoad of context of Hollywood and the thriv- of a film’s diverse reception, reinterpre- wiLd irishmen ing film genre of the travel-adventure tations and afterlife. These highlights film that drew audiences to experience bring to the fore how, despite contro- directed by Mac Dara Ó Curraidbin. something more authentic than pure versial opinions and positions when it Scriptwriter: Brian Winston. 84 min. fiction in the narrativized reworkings of comes to personal engagements with a DVD, color. Distributor’s website: life’s hardship and dramas set in exotic film’s history and reception, the latter is <icarusfilms.com>. locations. always bound up with precious practices Against this background, the recep- of memorizing and forgetting, identity Reviewed by Martha Blassnigg, University of tion of his famous Nanook of the North formation and personal recollection Plymouth, U.K. Email: <martha.blassnigg@ (1922)—in itself a recognized heroic and historiographies. plymouth.ac.uk>. adventure with on-site film devel- In this regard A Boatload of Wild Irish- doi:10.1162/LEON_r_00581 opment in which the “actors” also men makes a particularly important assisted—is contrasted and contextual- contribution in that it captures some A Boatload of Wild Irishmen is a long- ized with the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle of the histories that have been created, overdue portrait of the legendary film- scandal, one of many moral scandals sustained and re-created by those most maker Robert Flaherty. Written by Brian that dogged Hollywood in the early Winston, Professor of Communication 1920s. Nanook of the North, released in at the University of Lincoln and award- 1922 with the subtitle A Story of Life and winning scriptwriter, and directed by Love in the Actual Arctic, had a most pow- Mac Dara Ó Curraidbin, it presents erful impact. It was a staged re-creation Reviews Panel: Allan Graubard, Amy Ione, Flaherty’s work and ambition through of stories that were told to Flaherty Anastasia Filippoupoliti, Annick Bureaud, the perspective of a wider context and during prospecting on the Belcher Anna B. Creagh, Anthony Enns, Aparna networks of influence. Flaherty’soeuvre islands in 1913, which a Pathépicture Sharma, Boris Jardine, Brian Reffin Smith, Catalin Brylla, Chris Cobb, Claudia Wester- and legacy has particularly fallen prey film poster announced as a “truest and mann, Claudy Opdenkamp, Craig Harris, Craig to the persistent fragmentation of dis- most human story of the Great White J. Hilton, Dene Grigar, Eduardo Miranda, ciplinary engagements in academia as Snows.” Flaherty’s work has raised many Elizabeth McCardell, Elizabeth Straughan, well as in industry, which has frequently ethical concerns over the years, not Ellen Pearlman, Enzo Ferrara, Eugene Thacker, skewed the attention given to his work only with regard to the imposition of a Florence Martellini, Flutor Troshani, Franc Chamberlain, Fred Andersson, Frieder Nake, as informed by segregated fields such as romanticized view onto a reconstructed, George Gessert, George K. Shortess, Giovanna visual anthropology, documentary film fictionalized past but especially also Costantini, Hannah Drayson, Hannah Rogers, history and theory, and commercial in respect to the physical dangers and Harriet Hawkins, Ian Verstegen, Jac Saorsa, Jack film. the short-lived yet transformative life Ox, Jacques Mandelbrojt, Jan Baetens, Jennifer Ferng, John F. Barber, John Vines, Jon Bedworth, Flaherty’s work and the subsequent changes to which the film work and its Jonathan Zilberg, Jung A. Huh, Jussi Parikka, criticism of his romanticist, heroic legacy subjected the “actors.” Interviews K. Blassnigg, Kathleen Quillian, Kieran Lyons, docu-fiction style (so-called “ethnofic- with filmmakers and experts from vari- Lara Schrijver, Lisa M. Graham, Martha tion”) has become a burden for his ous local contexts, as well as from uni- Blassnigg, Martha Patricia Nino, Martyn legacy. A Boatload of Wild Irishmen, versities, outline aspects of the critical Woodward, Maureen A. Nappi, Michael Mosher, Michael Punt, Mike Leggett, Ornella Corazza, however, manages to stay above the reception of Flaherty’s working method Paul Hertz, Richard Kade, Rob Harle, Robert controversies. It neither resituates nor in indigenous contexts. A Boatload of A. Mitchell, Roger Malina, Roy Behrens, Sean re-evaluates Flaherty’s work nor does Wild Irishmen avoids overloading the Cubitt, Simone Osthoff, Sonya Rapoport, Stefaan it feel the necessity to take a position. narrative with information and care- van Ryssen, Stephen Petersen, Valérie Lamon- tagne, Wilfred Arnold, Yvonne Spielmann, Instead, it stays close to Flaherty and fully orchestrates a broad spectrum Zainub Verjee those who have worked with him and of perspectives and archival footage © 2013 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 293–306, 2013 293 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_r_00583 by guest on 02 October 2021 closely affected by Flaherty’s films: a success similar to Nanook) he strug- sometimes cut short—clearly there was Newly filmed as well as archival inter- gled to conform to the constraints of more material and thoughtful reflec- views with some of the main characters production. In this, A Boatload of Wild tion than fitted into the final cut, and of Nanook of the North (1922), Moana Irishmen gives context to the struggles, inevitably curiosity is roused about the (1926) and Louisiana Story (1948) independent of the particular genre, lesser known productions—but even reveal a broad spectrum of reflection that every filmmaker will recognize. in the seeming brevity (an apparent on the personal impact of the filmmak- It also shows how some of the contro- “short” 84 minutes for a documentary ing process, ranging from tragedy to versies around the legacy of Flaherty film; a good sign for its pace and drive), celebration to indifference. Among the are already embedded in the tensions Winston and Ó Curraidbin succeed most revealing are those testimonies and complications of the filmmaking in offering a moderate and nuanced in connection with the role these films process: e.g. tensions between Fla- portrait of an influential figure in the play in the contemporary life of the herty’s driven imagination and story- history of film and cinema and, as the villages. Some spectators in a village telling capacity and the very realities voiceover states in the end, “his place in on Savai’i still have strong memories of he chose and selected to work with, cinema’s pantheon.” The documentary those depicted in Moana and consider and the pressures in working under concludes with an epic touch that reso- the film a crucial document of their his- commissions by a Hollywood studio or nates self-consciously with Flaherty’s tory; one elder strikingly suggests that the industry. He was not averse to the own poetic timbre: the film is owned by the village—a senti- world of commercial sponsorship, and ment that in the field of visual anthro- industry patronage runs throughout One thing is certain, all the strengths and weaknesses of the documentary; its pology is usually considered a positive Flaherty’s oeuvre; Nanook of the North ability to show us life, to preserve mem- impact of a film production typical for was supported by Revillon Frères, a ory, to thrill, absorb and entertain, as community-based projects. These testi- French fur-trade company; in 1933 he well as the dangers of it misrepresenting monies raise intriguing questions: What was assigned by John Grierson and the people, the hazards for those it focuses will happen to the reception of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit in on are being filmed, the manipulations needed to tell a story: all these are to be films in the original location in future London on the documentary Industrial found in the cinema of Robert Flaherty. generations when the generational Britain (1933); Louisiana Story (1948) He was among the first to celebrate all connection is further removed? Will was commissioned by the Standard Oil documentary strengths and demonstrate they become a touristic attraction and Company (the script was written