JUG320S: The Canadian Wilderness

1. JUG320S: The Canadian Wilderness

Week 6: Capturing Wilderness on Film Professor Emily Gilbert http://individual.utoronto.ca/emilygilbert/

2. Today�s Themes

I: Ways of Seeing II: Nanook III: The Nature of Things IV: Conclusions

3. I: Ways of Seeing

�the great attraction of nature for those who wish to ground their moral vision in external reality is precisely its capacity to take disputed values and make them seem innate, essential, eternal, non-negotiable� (Cronon)

4. �[The eye] provides access to the world in a particular way, and while it gives us much, it also conceals. Vision permits us the luxurious delusion of being natural observers with the ability to manipulate a distant environment. The gain is objectivity, but the loss is any notion of interrelation between the elements of the visual field. We see only what is, not how it came to be� (Neil Evenden)

5. Assumed authority of the eye, that seeing is believing Framing the landscape: perspective, field Promise of intimacy: making the natural familiar, returning the gaze But at the same time the eye separates, fragments and objectifies�separation from the rest of the senses Processes of production hidden: crews, technology (cameras, sound, lighting), training, editing, etc.

6. Wilson: range of genres to capture nature: 1) Anthropomorphism 2) Drug-and-tag 3) Science journalism 4) Environmental advocacy 5) Social anthropology

7. Characters Setting Plot Narration Style Sound Exclusions Production and circulation Audience reception Intertextuality

8. II: Nanook

Nanook of the North by Robert Flaherty (1922) Said to be first full-length feature documentary Shown at 2005 Toronto Film Festival with piano accompaniment

9. Robert Flaherty (1884-1951)

described as �the father of documentary film� � promoted by his wife Frances Hubbard Flaherty first trip north was in 1910 Explored and discovered natural resources in Belcher Islands: Flaherty Island He wanted to make cinema that could the story of the Eskimoes: �I am not going to make films about what the white man has made of primitive peoples� What I want to show is the former majesty and character of these people, while it is still possible�before the white man has destroyed not only their character, but the people as well�

10. Flaherty later wrote several articles and books about the north, as well as other BBC broadcasts and spinoffs Nanook funded by Revillon Fr�res, French fur trading company � saw marketing potential Revillon budgeted $53,000: $13,00 for equipment, $500 a month for Flaherty, and $3,000 worth of credit at Revillon trading post First version of film (1916) lost: accidentally destroyed�led him to rethink film and to shift it from travelogue to focus on one Eskimo family

11. �happy-go-lucky Eskimo�: Nanook, Nyla, Cunayou, Allegoo, and puppy Comock

12. Difficulty of shooting in the Arctic Flaherty and his aides had to disassemble the cameras every day to remove moisture, and put them back together again Turned his cabin into a film lab where he processed his negatives, which required vats of heated chemicals Printed dailies by running negative and positive film past a frame-sized hole of sunlight

13. Nanook premiered in New York City 1922 Was shown around the world: France, England, India, Argentina� Flaherty later wrote several articles and books about the north, as well as other BBC broadcasts and spinoffs

14. Sherill Grace�s criticisms: exploration as construction Place: terra incognita Subjects: salvage ethnography Narrative: elegiac romance Allakariallak (Nanook) died in poverty in 1924

15. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001) Igloolik Isuma Productions; directed by Zacharias Kunuk; $1.9 million budget First full-length feature film in Inuktitut Won numerous international awards

16. III: The Nature of Things

Premiers on CBC in 1960 David Suzuki (1936-) begins hosting in 1975; full-time in 1979 Produces Planet for the Taking (1985): sums up: �We have both a sense of the importance of the wilderness and space in our culture and an attitude that it is limitless and therefore we needn't worry."

17. 1960s: nature as resource, but also challenge: how to use science to manage nature, limit human impact 1970s: growing environmentalism: pesticides, energy crisis, recycling programs, sustainability; nature as foreign, as wilderness 1980s: biodiversity and global issues; nature as fragile, easily disrupted by humans; respect of nature, of its wisdom/moral authority 1990s: nature under siege; people, and science, part of the problem; acid rain, ozone hole, South Moresby, Temagami; attention to consumption, lifestyle; deep unity in nature

18. The Salmon Forest (2001) directed by Caroline Underwood for CBC�s The Nature of Things A project of Tom Reimchen, Department of Biology, University of Victoria, funded by the Suzuki Foundation Rotting salmon contribute about 120kg of nitrogen per hectare

19. IV: Conclusions

Changing role of science/authenticity in understanding �nature� and human relationship to the �natural� world Representations of �nature� and wildlife as vehicle for understanding human-non-human relations Changes in the representations of nature reflect changes in culture, geography, economy, science and politics