The prisoner
The documentary describes the life and persecution of an individual accused of plotting an assassination.
The trailer makes use of several visual and auditory elements to se the tone of the documentary. The use of home video humanizes the individual and is shown first in order to establish his character, additionally first person narration is used to further validate his credibility. News footage, as well as situational b-roll serve to establish the setting and the issues or conflicts of the time. The use of official documents serve to tie the personal moments depicted in the beginning to the scenes of war found in the news footage. The trailer also makes careful use of illustration and sound in order to capture scenes they don’t have video evidence of or to recreate scenes that would otherwise be impossible to capture, an example being the torture scene involving quick cuts between firsthand accounts and illustrations of weapons in order to depict a scene they could not capture firsthand.
Three key scenes define the tone of the film. The first being the intro, consisting of first-person narration and home video, this portion of the trailer defines the main character and his background. The scene describing torture via interview, illustrations, and sound effects serves to setup the primary conflict of the film. Additionally, this sequence depicts a stark departure from the innocence depicted in the beginning of the film. The trailer’s conclusion, as the individual jokingly point to the camera and mimes a gun with his fingers serves to juxtapose his personal life and innocence with the violence surrounding him.
Nanook of the north
The trailer depicts an exploration of the hardships faced by native people in the Arctic.
The defining elements of the trailer include the use of title cards to serve as limited narration to supplement the footage. Being a silent film, there is no audio and thus relies heavily on visual storytelling. The trailer is made up of several close up shots, serving as portraits of the individuals living in the arctic, along with wider shots of the family engaged in everyday life, including eating, boating, and scenes of families gathered together.
Three defining scenes depict the topics and emotions explored in the film. The trailer opens on two portraits with brief captions. These close up shots establish a personal connection with the characters and their lives. This sequence introduces the “who” of the story. Another significant scene involves a family gathered together doing various day to day tasks; changing a child’s clothes, eating, capturing a domestic scene. This scene serves to create a connection between the viewer and the characters as they reflect on universal human experiences despite the extreme environment and different ways of life. This serves as an example of mundane living not associated with the dangerous climate found in the Arctic. One of the final shots of the trailer, a scene depicting dogs frozen to death serves to contrast the family shot preceding it. This scene depicts the grim and dangerous realities of life in the Arctic, something one could almost forget after seeing the images prior.
1. The trip to the trade post to exchange furs for tools and candy.
2. Building the igloo while the children play.
3. Taking shelter in the abandoned igloo and the dogs caught in the storm.
The interaction between Nanook and the Canadian at the trade post is immediately juxtaposed to Nanook hunting in a traditional fashion, this serves to depict the changing ways of life in the Arctic, though this sequence is largely scripted. Before the igloo is built, the family is seen traveling across the barren landscape, highlighting the inhabitable climate. Prior to discovering the abandoned igloo, the family is facing a dangerous wind storm and freezing temperatures, this is the conflict that the film concludes on, highlighting the hardships faced by Nanook and his family.
The film is narrative. The filmmaker frames a story around the life of Nanook and his family. He uses scenes of hunting, family interactions, and hardship in order to create an image of what life is like in the Arctic. The film is chronological and attempts to portray what everyday life consist of in this harsh environment. The filmmaker’s decision to stage scenes along the way further contributes to a narrative he wishes to portray rather than documenting the realities of life. He seeks to capture how life used to be vs how it is changing, rather than capturing how it was at the time of filming.
The filmmaker structures images in a way so that they appear to be a chronological sequence of events. The transition from scene to scene feels logical and so regardless of the actual time line, the film feels as though time is passing per usual and that the events portrayed are a normal occurrence. Most scenes are quick, and follow a brief caption to give context to the sequence. Cuts between two locations such as the igloo and the outdoors serve to establish relationships.
The camera is sturdily on a tripod the length of the film, there is little movement beyond a slight pan shot. For the longer sequences, particularly those around hunting, several different angles are used to capture the action from different perspectives. This varied from shots out to sea focused on walrus, to wide shots of the individuals pulling on the harpoon, to close ups of them eating raw meat off their knives. The shots are varied throughout the film. Title cards provided necessary context to the sequences that follow, wide shots capture the harsh landscape, and intimate close ups capture the emotion and connection between the family.
The film is rather slow at times, particularly hunting sequences. Individual shots during the seal and walrus hunting lasts well beyond 10 seconds, though they may be briefly separated by a quick cut to a different angle. At other points in the film, the pacing is much quicker, such as the fast cuts during the building of the igloo to emphasize speed, or the cuts between the family inside while the dogs howl and freeze in the cold.
The progression of the film is logical and appears to document a chronological sequence of events. There are no cuts to clearly different times, and the shift between seasons is introduced in a transition card. The filmmaker edits sequences together through the use of similar time scales, themes, and text supplements in order to create a nature progression.
The film presents itself as an observational documentation of life in the Arctic. The filmmaker appears to be ignored throughout, and is only acknowledged when an individual looks into the camera during a close up. With no outside information, one could image the film is designed to highlight the unique culture and lifestyles of native people in the north, it goes so far as to correct some misconceptions held by the audience regarding like for the natives. The subjects are depicted as being traditional, using the same tools as their ancestors, and being amazed by the technology found in the trade post. The film highlights desperation, hardship, and strength as the family constantly faces starvation. The goal of the filmmaker appears to be to catalogue the unique lifestyle and obstacles faced in living somewhere that is otherwise uninhabitable. The family is presented as almost superhuman in their ability to survive the harshest conditions.
Ignoring the realities of how the film was scripted to appear more similar to traditional ways of living for the natives, and continuing as if the the film was genuine in its depictions, the filmmaker would best be described as an observer. The filmmaker is never addressed beyond individuals looking into the camera during a close up, nor does he interfere with the obstacles faced by the family. He does not appear to assist as Nanook struggles to pull up the seal, and allows him to fall several times, nor does he assist in the building of the igloo. The filmmaker is depicted as a passive observer, with no influence over the events unfolding in front of his camera. If this was the case, that the filmmaker did not intervene and instead served only to capture the true experiences of natives in the Arctic, then there is no evidence of unethical practice, it is perhaps the most authentic and ethical practice in documentary filmmaking to capture the realities of the world in order to share their stories without trying to shape a narrative around it. In reality however, it is known that the filmmaker was not a passive observer, he instead scripted sequences to portrayed the Inuit people as closer tied to their ancestral practices. He consciously shaped a narrative around a people who at the time made use of firearms and western clothing in their everyday life, in an attempt to capture how life used to be. This is unethical filmmaking, it is not the contemporary truth, but a forced narrative.
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