I was just sitting on my porch, describing the movie Kid Cannabis (a must watch) to my friend. She asked me “is it a documentary?” and I told her “no, just a recreation of real events.” Then I remembered what Betsy McLane writes about Robert and Frances Flaherty, influential documentarians in the mid-1900s. First, she recognizes their work as the basis of documentary conversation on “truth, reality and illusion”. Then, she goes on to say his famous films “Nanook of the North” and “Moana” were staged, with actors representing historic cultures in Northern Quebec and Somoa. Flaherty is a celebrated documentarian but his most prominent work was staged. Is this documentary film? Clearly, my subconscious still thinks it has to be “real events” with real people, not actors. I mean, McLane says Robert Flaherty depicted Eskimo and Somoan culture only to the extent of family, imposing a “nuclear family structure along conventional Western cultural lines.” Is this documentary? Even if it isn’t, Flaherty definitely shaped the history of documentary film.
