Robert Flaherty

American film director Robert Flaherty is seen here examining a reel of film. One of the first documentary-makers to record ordinary people going about their everyday business, Flaherty’s approach of editing down hours’ worth of film is a time-consuming process still employed today. Films such as Nanook of the North (1922) and Man of Aran (1934) gained wide audiences, and Flaherty was immensely influential on later documentarists, although his technique of filming staged episodes has now fallen out of favour, largely replaced by the “fly-on-the-wall” or cinéma verité approaches.

Hulton Getty/Liaison Agency

Appears in these articles

Documentaries; Flaherty, Robert J(oseph)

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