Frances H. Flaherty

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Frances Hubbard Flaherty (born December 5, 1883 in the USA , † June 22, 1972 ) was an American documentary filmmaker and writer who, together with her husband Robert J. Flaherty, won the Oscar for best original story as well as for that of The Writers Guild of America 's Robert Meltzer Award was nominated for Screenplay Dealing Best with American Problems.

Life

Movie poster of Nanuk the Eskimo (1922)

Frances Hubbard married the documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty in 1914 and lived with him until his death in 1951. In the following years she worked on her husband's film projects and was initially a screenwriter for Nanuk, the Eskimo (Nanook of the North, 1922), which is considered one of the most important documentaries of the silent film era and the first full-length documentary, as well as in 1989 has been included in the National Film Registry .

After working on the staff of The Men of Aran (Man of Aran) in 1934 , she worked as both a screenwriter and an assistant director on the 1942 film The Land . To 1937 on the narrative Toomai of the elephants from the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling based and her husband and Zoltan Korda staged adventure film Elephant Boy (Elephant Boy) with Sabu , she published the book in 1937 Sabu the elephant boy .

In 1948 she and her husband wrote the screenplay for the film drama Louisiana-Legende (Louisiana Story) with Joseph Boudreaux , Lionel Le Blanc and E. Bienvenu in the leading roles. For this film, directed by Robert J. Flahertys, the couple were nominated for an Oscar for best original story as well as for the Robert Meltzer Award for the screenplay with the best handling of US-, given by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) American problems. This film, which has won other film awards, was also entered into the National Film Registry in 1994.

In 1960, she wrote her husband's biography under the title The odyssey of a film-maker: Robert Flaherty's story . In 1971 she starred in the documentary Hidden and Seeking directed by Peter Werner .

Publications

  • with Ursula Leacock: Sabu, the elephant boy. Dent, London 1937 (In German: Der Elefanten-Boy. Schneider, Berlin 1938; several editions).
  • Elephant Dance. Faber and Faber, London 1937.
  • The odyssey of a film-maker. Robert Flaherty's story. Beta Phi Mu, Urbana IL 1960.

Filmography

Background literature

  • Robert J. Christopher (Eds.): Robert and Frances Flaherty. A Documentary Life, 1883-1922 (= McGill-Queen's Native and Northern Series. Vol. 45). McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal et al. 2005, ISBN 0-7735-2876-8 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Flaherty, Frances H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Flaherty, Frances Hubbard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American screenwriter, writer and documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH United States
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1972