Movies: Robert Flaherty

The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home....

The life and works of the great artist Michelangelo Buonarroti are shown against the historical background of his time. It begins with his earliest artworks, and follows his life and career as he achieves lasting fame. The documentary includes detail...

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh clim...

In India, Toomai, a young mahout, helps lead the British on a large expedition to round up wild elephants....

Put together from the pictorial space in the artwork. Flaherty was commissioned by MoMA and subsequently filmed Guernica, disregarding any external reference to the painting....

A documentary on the life of the people of the Aran Islands, who were believed to contain the essence of the ancient Irish life, represented by a pure uncorrupted peasant existence centred around the struggle between man and his hostile but magnific...

The second film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series. It introduces Germany as a nation whose aggressive ambitions began in 1863 with Otto von Bismarck and the Nazis as its latest incarnation....

The fifth film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, revealing the nature and process of the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany in the Second World War....

On the South Pacific island of Bora Bora, a young couple's love is threatened when the tribal chief declares the girl a sacred virgin....

A little girl watches the craftsman at work while inter-titles explain the particulars of pottery-making....

A visual celebration of Manhattan and its waterways on the 300th anniversary of purchase from the local Native Americans....

Grierson set out to make "propaganda," and this film--with it's voice-over proclaiming the great value of the British industrial worker, without a hint of ambiguity or doubt--fits that category well. The authoritatarian narrator feels out-of-date and...

This short film is Godard’s message to the people of Lausanne, specifically journalist and critic Freddy Buache, addressing his reasons why he will not make a film about their town’s 500th anniversary. Rather than cynical or defensive, Godard's bemus...

Finnish filmmaker and artist Sami van Ingen is a great-grandson of documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty, and seemingly the sole member of the family with a hands-on interest in continuing the directing legacy. Among the materials he found in the estat...

Illustrated travel lecture directed by Robert J. Flaherty, composed of film shot during his time with the Inuit in 1914-1915. After enthusiastic reception, the entire film stock was burned in an accident in 1916 leaving this a lost film. Soon after, ...

Robert J. Flaherty’s follow-up to Nanook of the North shifts from the Arctic to the South Seas, portraying Samoan village life with a painterly eye. Blending ethnographic detail with a romanticized “Gauguin idyll,” the film celebrates daily rituals, ...

A short, silent documentary by Robert J. Flaherty about pottery in England....

An alcoholic doctor on a Polynesian island, disgusted by white exploitation of the natives, finds himself marooned on a pristinely beautiful island....

Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. Th...

Documentary showing the poor state that American agriculture had fallen into during the Great Depression....