Nanook Of The West: Film Analysis

As the frontier was successfully settled by Americans, many people became interested in documenting the fleeting culture of Native Americans. William F. Cody was on tour with his Wild West show during 1883-1917, which reenacted battles against the Plain Indians. Similarly, Robert J. Flaherty distinctly focused on capturing the old ways of the Itivimuits tribe in his 1922 docudrama film, Nanook of the North. Under the direction of these two men, both types of entertainment were explosively popular across North America and Europe. The creators of these crowd-pleasing forms of entertainment held Native Americans at a high level of admiration. The Wild West shows were used to retell battles during the westward expansion; Plain Indians were allowed the opportunity to educate whites on their culture because of Cody. In addition, while on tour, he would often spend his downtime with Indians in teepees. Similarly, Flaherty spent many months working with, as well as living among, an Inuit tribe. His goal for this film was to show the public the old ways of these indigenous people
To go along with the storyline that Cody had created, Indians acted like bloodthirsty savages, whose plans were foiled by cowboys. While it was clear to Native Americans that they were merely acting, the audience thought that Indians were always this barbaric. Likewise, Flaherty directed the Inuit to act dumbfounded by a gramophone, biting into the record and looking for the man inside of the box. In reality, the Inuit listened to the radio and wore American manufactured clothing, not furs. Nanook proposed many adventurous tasks Flaherty could film Inuit performing, such as hunting walrus’ with a harpoon, something they had not done for some time. Although hiring real Natives was a step up from painting a white man red, they were displayed as primitive