Remarkably matter-of-fact in its blow-by-blow depiction of the everyday struggle to stay alive in the Arctic hinterlands of Canada’s Hudson Bay, Nanook of the North expresses Flaherty’s reverence for his Inuit subjects in every carefully framed shot. The film, which emerged from a return trip up North after celluloid from a preceding adventure went up in flames, unfolds as a series of long takes interspersed by annotative, occasionally poetic intertitles, all of which serve to highlight seemingly mundane tasks required for survival in the frigid terrain. Beyond its educational function, though, Flaherty’s profoundly empathetic intimacy with his subjects—the resilient, prodigious seal-and-walrus-hunter Nanook and his weathered clan—heightens what seems on the surface to be merely a dry informational pamphlet. While many of his subsequent projects felt the pressures of a variety of forces (Hollywood studios, production houses, commissioning industries), Nanook shows the effects of complete artistic freedom, its constraint-free conditions yielding an unmatched sensitivity to climate, labor and the simultaneous bond and vulnerability of humans to both.

Live Musical Accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis