the most cheerful people in all the world

... so much truth in that statement, "the most cheerful people in all the world" .. That is almost a myth these days, PUCK says...

BACKGROUND: Setting off by canoe with Indigenous guides in June 1920, Flaherty followed Moose River to Moose Factory on James Bay.  Here, he boarded a schooner, and finally, in August, reached Inukjuak (formerly Port Harrison) in Nunavik. Holding auditions, he selected a man of the Itivimuit tribe named Allakariallak for his star, whom he would subsequently immortalize as Nanook of the North.

MEANWHILE:

Otis was looking at

 THE FILM: 

The intertitles set the scene for Nanook’s introduction — a man untroubled by the corrupting influences of civilization. “The sterility of the soil and the rigor of the climate no other race could survive; yet here, utterly dependent upon animal life, which is their sole source of food, live the most cheerful people in all the world — the fearless, lovable, happy-go-lucky Eskimo.”

Reality Iced: Robert J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/nanook-of-the-north/#1-0

 

FOOTNOTE:

“Because of filmmakers like Flaherty, we’ve seen the damage wrought by policies built on visual misrepresentation, salvage ethnography, and the lines of ownership that become purposefully blurred by others extracting our own images”, writes Kiowa/Mohawk filmmaker Adam Piron. “For Indigenous artists, there’s an added weight to engaging with the moving image because we know the cost of carelessness.”