Robert J. Flaherty

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Robert J. Flaherty filming in Port Harrison in 1920

Robert Joseph Flaherty (born February 16, 1884 in Iron Mountain , Michigan , † July 23, 1951 in Dummerston , Vermont ) was a documentary filmmaker who, among other things, made the first long American documentary Nanuk, the Eskimo (1922). With his semi-documentary film Elephant Boy (1937) he started the film career of the young Indian leading actor Sabu .

Life

Family, youth, career beginnings as a prospector and cartographer

Robert Joseph Flaherty was on his father's side of a family who emigrated to Canada as a result of the Great Famine in Ireland; his mother, Susanne Klockner, had immigrated from Germany. His father, Robert Henry Flaherty, explored ore deposits in southern Canada, Minnesota, and Michigan on behalf of mining companies and searched for gold veins on his own. On one of his trips he took his son Robert Joseph with him; For a year, father and son roamed underdeveloped areas of Canada. This year he was seized by the passion for the wilderness that never let go of him. Upon return, Robert Joseph Flaherty attended Upper Canada College in Toronto, then studied mineralogy at Michigan College of Mines . He followed in his father's footsteps and became a prospector .

From 1910 to 1916 Flaherty undertook five long, long journeys in northern Canada, particularly around Hudson Bay , to search for iron ore and copper deposits on behalf of William Mackenzie (1849-1923), the founder of the Canadian Northern Railway . In 1913 and 1914 he was the first to produce comprehensive, accurate maps of the Belcher Islands ; the largest island in the archipelago was named Flaherty Island in his honor .

Documentary filmmaker

He was so fascinated by the Inuit way of life , which he got to know between 1910 and 1916 and who accompanied him on his expeditions through Baffinland as well as through the areas in the north of Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay , that he first saw their everyday lives Describes travel books and - at the suggestion of William Mackenzie - also documented them on film from 1913. He brought back a total of 9,000 meters of film from his travels. At his home in Toronto, he worked the following winter long because of it into a film cut . When this was packed for shipping, his burning cigarette fell into the scraps of film on the floor; the raw material and the finished film went up in flames.

Flaherty was not discouraged, but returned to Baffinland and the Ungava Peninsula in the north of the Labrador Peninsula in 1919 and 1920 and filmed the everyday life of the Inuit there a second time. He pulled the handy Newman Sinclair - film camera from the heavy models of its time, as it for its unique Inuit documentary film " Nanook of the North " independently be had. At the low temperatures he could on the experience of the British Mount Everest - Expedition abandoned. His model had a strong frame made of steel , which, due to its weight, also allowed long focal lengths .

Flaherty's innovations pioneered the development of documentary film . He was one of the first directors to combine documentary material with a feature film-like narrative and poetic moments.

From 1914 until his death, Flaherty was married to Frances Hubbard Flaherty . She supported her husband in his work.

Filmography

Fonts

  • My Eskimo friends: "Nanook of the North" . Doubleday & Page, Garden City 1924.
  • Samoa. Travel and experience report . Hobbing, Berlin 1932.
  • The Captain's Chair. A Story of the North . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1938.

literature

  • Richard Griffith: The world of Robert Flaherty . Victor Gollancz, London 1953.
  • Wolfgang Klaue, Jay Leyda (Red.): Robert Flaherty. With the collaboration of Manfred Lichtenstein and Günter Schulz. Published by the State Film Archive of the German Democratic Republic on the occasion of the Robert Flaherty retrospective for the VII International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week. Henschel, Berlin 1964.
  • William T. Murphy: Robert Flaherty. A guide to references and resources. Hall, Boston MA 1978.
  • Paul Rotha : Robert J. Flaherty. A biography. ( February 16, 2015 memento on the Internet Archive ) University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia PA 1983, ISBN 0-8122-7887-9 .
  • Richard Barsam: The Vision of Robert Flaherty. The Artist As Myth and Filmmaker. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN et al. 1988, ISBN 0-253-32074-7 .
  • Jay Ruby: The Aggie Must Come First. Robert Flaherty's Place in Ethnographic Film History. In: Jay Ruby: Picturing Culture. Explorations of Film & Anthropology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL et al. 2000, ISBN 0-226-73098-0 , pp. 67-94.
  • 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 2005, ISBN 0-7735-2876-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Map of Belcher Islands. In: World Digital Library . 1909, accessed June 3, 2013 .
  2. ^ Richard Griffith: The world of Robert Flaherty . London 1953, p. XVII.
  3. ^ A b Richard Griffith: The world of Robert Flaherty . London 1953, p. XVIII.
  4. ^ Richard Griffith: The world of Robert Flaherty . London 1953, p. XX.
  5. ^ Richard Griffith: The world of Robert Flaherty . London 1953, p. XXI.
  6. ↑ Robert J. Christopher (Eds.): Robert and Frances Flaherty. A Documentary Life, 1883-1922 . McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal 2005, p. 429.
  7. ^ A b Richard Griffith: The world of Robert Flaherty . London 1953, p. 36.
  8. ^ Richard Griffith: The world of Robert Flaherty . London 1953, p. 37.
personal data
SURNAME Flaherty, Robert J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Flaherty, Robert Joseph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film director and documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Iron Mountain , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1951
Place of death Dummerston , Vermont