British film producer Michael Balcon knew the quality of his country's motion pictures didn't compare to Hollywood's slick, well-made presentations. Working for the London studio of Gaumont Picture Corporation, he proposed to its Paris headquarters to hire noted documentarian Robert Flaherty to create a documentary on par with its United States competitors. What emerged from two years of filming in the Aran Islands off the coast of Ireland's Galway Bay was October 1934 "Man of Aran."
Judging from its critical response, the 76-minute movie gave exactly what Balcon had intended. Flaherty's focus on a fisherman's family reflects the hardships these isolated Irish islanders endured daily to survive the harsh elements of the rocky-dominated group of islands off the western Irish coast. Film critic Paul Rotha infused in his 1934 review, "There are moments in the film which are among the greatest things that cinema can show, which means at the least that they provide both a mental and a physical experience which is unforgettable."
For two years Flaherty and his small film crew set up a studio and processing lab, and shot over 200,000 feet of footage on the biggest of the Aran Islands, Inishmore. Using a long focal lens to capture sweeping shots of the family against the turbulent backgrounds, Flaherty captured in one breathtaking frame the mother trudging a huge bundle of seaweed by walking on precarious stone ledges while gigantic waves broke close by. Flaherty purposely shot his film without audio, creating sound effects and brief spoken passages in a post-production facility.
As the writer and director, Flaherty, known for his popular documentaries of the Inuit in 1922's "Nanook of the North" and the Pacific Ocean islanders in 1926's "Moana," has been criticized for manipulating a number of scene tableaus to create his narrative. Film reviewer Scott Tobias notes, "Flaherty was accused of being a showman who fudged authenticity for the sort of eye-catching cinematic spectacle and drama that could rope in crowds like a carnival barker." Instead, Tobias writes, he wasn't so much of a documentarian as he was a myth maker and imaginist. His work is a perfect example of poetic realism cinema.
"Man of Aran" was no exception to Flaherty's previous works. The family depicted in the movie consisted of 'actors,' known more for their photogenic faces than the actual genetic connections. One of the highlights of the film is when the fisherman, accompanied by several colleagues, hunt down a gigantic shark. The scene is thrilling at its core. However, shark and whale hunting for their oil had been non-existence for a number of years in the area. Flaherty brought a shark where they were accessible and dumped in it in the Galway Bay waters. Those 'actors' in his movie were taught by veteran shark hunters on the techniques of harpooning. Flaherty's limited his scope on the fishing of the islanders rather than other aspects of their daily lives, seeing the islands' frothing sea waves the most dramatic visuals he felt would make an exciting film.
Instead of an authentic documentary, many claim "Man of Aran" is more what is termed, "salvage ethnography." Flaherty was a circumstantial researcher, uncovering past cultural traditions that had no longer been practiced. He felt by recreating the past, he was preserving those vanishing and outdated primitivism. As S. T. Kimball wrote, "in a cosmic anthropological sense it could be counted as an artistic rendition of the struggle of man against nature." Looking at the lasting images Flaherty captured, "Man of Aran" effectively gets that message across.
Judging from its critical response, the 76-minute movie gave exactly what Balcon had intended. Flaherty's focus on a fisherman's family reflects the hardships these isolated Irish islanders endured daily to survive the harsh elements of the rocky-dominated group of islands off the western Irish coast. Film critic Paul Rotha infused in his 1934 review, "There are moments in the film which are among the greatest things that cinema can show, which means at the least that they provide both a mental and a physical experience which is unforgettable."
For two years Flaherty and his small film crew set up a studio and processing lab, and shot over 200,000 feet of footage on the biggest of the Aran Islands, Inishmore. Using a long focal lens to capture sweeping shots of the family against the turbulent backgrounds, Flaherty captured in one breathtaking frame the mother trudging a huge bundle of seaweed by walking on precarious stone ledges while gigantic waves broke close by. Flaherty purposely shot his film without audio, creating sound effects and brief spoken passages in a post-production facility.
As the writer and director, Flaherty, known for his popular documentaries of the Inuit in 1922's "Nanook of the North" and the Pacific Ocean islanders in 1926's "Moana," has been criticized for manipulating a number of scene tableaus to create his narrative. Film reviewer Scott Tobias notes, "Flaherty was accused of being a showman who fudged authenticity for the sort of eye-catching cinematic spectacle and drama that could rope in crowds like a carnival barker." Instead, Tobias writes, he wasn't so much of a documentarian as he was a myth maker and imaginist. His work is a perfect example of poetic realism cinema.
"Man of Aran" was no exception to Flaherty's previous works. The family depicted in the movie consisted of 'actors,' known more for their photogenic faces than the actual genetic connections. One of the highlights of the film is when the fisherman, accompanied by several colleagues, hunt down a gigantic shark. The scene is thrilling at its core. However, shark and whale hunting for their oil had been non-existence for a number of years in the area. Flaherty brought a shark where they were accessible and dumped in it in the Galway Bay waters. Those 'actors' in his movie were taught by veteran shark hunters on the techniques of harpooning. Flaherty's limited his scope on the fishing of the islanders rather than other aspects of their daily lives, seeing the islands' frothing sea waves the most dramatic visuals he felt would make an exciting film.
Instead of an authentic documentary, many claim "Man of Aran" is more what is termed, "salvage ethnography." Flaherty was a circumstantial researcher, uncovering past cultural traditions that had no longer been practiced. He felt by recreating the past, he was preserving those vanishing and outdated primitivism. As S. T. Kimball wrote, "in a cosmic anthropological sense it could be counted as an artistic rendition of the struggle of man against nature." Looking at the lasting images Flaherty captured, "Man of Aran" effectively gets that message across.