Sunday, October 5, 2008

Nanook of the north



Robert Flaherty’s film, Nanook of the north, there are many beautiful scenes, which capture the essence of Eskimo life. One of my favorite scenes, in the entire film is when we see Nanook constructing an igloo, the snow dwelling of an eskimo.
It essentially starts with Nanook, licking his walrus ivory knife, (Which allows him to cut through snow more easily). Which then goes to a shot of the children playing. They are using themselves as sleds.
After the shot of the children, we see Nanooks wife Nyla, And their youngest child Cunayou, who is nestled in Nyla’s coat. Nyla is chinking the igloo, we then learn, babies find igloo building a bore.
A few shots later, we discover that Nanook was able to construct this sturdy, and
Handsome igloo, within only one hour. Which insinuates, Nanook has undoubtedly done this hundreds of times before. This shot ends with a charming scene of Nanook cutting a small door through the igloo, poking his head out, and smiling, ever so pleasantly towards the camera.
The next shot, begins with Nanook prodding a block of ice in the ground. It takes him just a few moments until he picks up the piece of ice. Which has been carved into a perfect square, He then walks back over to his igloo, and we discover, he is using the block of ice as a window. He does this by cutting out a piece of the igloo, and replacing it with the ice window. Nanook then places the old piece of the igloo wall upright, next to the window. Nanook does this very precisely in order to reflect the sun light through the window.
The last shot, in the scene, we watch as Nanook helps his family, as well as, their belongings, into the igloo. “ a few robes of bear and deer skin, a stone pot, and stone lamps”.

1 comment:

sarra said...

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