Where the Blizzard is Born: Limits and Resources to Represent Polar Reality in Two Documentaries from the Silent Era
This paper analyzes the ways in which two documentary features from the silent era—Nanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922) and The Great White Silence (Ponting, 1924)—maintain a sense of authenticity within their discourse even though certain parts of their composition may be constructed as fake or fab...
Published in: | Nuevas Poligrafías. Revista de Teoría Literaria y Literatura Comparada |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | Spanish |
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Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
2020
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Online Access: | http://revistas.filos.unam.mx/index.php/nuevaspoligrafias/article/view/1379 https://doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2.1379 |
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ftuninamexicoffl:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/1379 2023-05-15T13:56:02+02:00 Where the Blizzard is Born: Limits and Resources to Represent Polar Reality in Two Documentaries from the Silent Era Where the Blizzard is Born: límites y recursos para representar la realidad polar en dos documentales de la era silente Arce García, Daniel 2020-08-29 application/pdf http://revistas.filos.unam.mx/index.php/nuevaspoligrafias/article/view/1379 https://doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2.1379 spa spa Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras http://revistas.filos.unam.mx/index.php/nuevaspoligrafias/article/view/1379/1673 http://revistas.filos.unam.mx/index.php/nuevaspoligrafias/article/view/1379 doi:10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2.1379 Derechos de autor 2020 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 CC-BY-NC-ND Nuevas Poligrafías. Revista de Teoría Literaria y Literatura Comparada; No 2 (2020); 72-103 Nuevas Poligrafías. Revista de Teoría Literaria y Literatura Comparada; Núm. 2 (2020); 72-103 2954-4076 10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Artículo evaluado por pares 2020 ftuninamexicoffl https://doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2.1379 https://doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2 2023-01-15T19:23:41Z This paper analyzes the ways in which two documentary features from the silent era—Nanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922) and The Great White Silence (Ponting, 1924)—maintain a sense of authenticity within their discourse even though certain parts of their composition may be constructed as fake or fabricated according to the positivist criteria which have plagued photography and cinema from their start. Due to the limitations of early cinema, as well as the particular difficulties of shooting in the Arctic and Antarctica, both filmmakers had to make use of a wide range of discursive and material resources (such as intertitles, built sets and rehearsed scenes) in order to represent what they perceived as true about polar regions; these resources will be analyzed with reference to Michael Renov’s four discursive functions, as described in “Towards a Poetics of Documentary”, with particular emphasis on the first one, that of registration/preservation. Since the concept of documentary film as a genre was conceived in 1926, a consideration of the resources employed for the construction of truth in these earlier films may be useful to rethink—from a practical standpoint—the relationship of all documentary art to fiction, representation, and the ontological reality of filmed objects, thus transcending positivist values and permitting a more flexible understanding of the cinematographic techniques which allow the filmic registration of something perceived as truthful, but which cannot be represented without artistic artifice. Este estudio analiza la forma en que dos largometrajes documentales de la era silente —Nanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922) y The Great White Silence (Ponting, 1924)— mantienen una sensación de autenticidad en el discurso a pesar de que ciertas partes de su composición pudieran considerarse falsas o fabricadas de acuerdo con los criterios positivistas que han plagado a la fotografía y el cine desde sus albores. Debido tanto a las limitaciones del cine temprano como a las dificultades particulares ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctica Arctic Revistas de Investigación de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) Arctic Nuevas Poligrafías. Revista de Teoría Literaria y Literatura Comparada 2 72 103 |
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Open Polar |
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Revistas de Investigación de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) |
op_collection_id |
ftuninamexicoffl |
language |
Spanish |
description |
This paper analyzes the ways in which two documentary features from the silent era—Nanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922) and The Great White Silence (Ponting, 1924)—maintain a sense of authenticity within their discourse even though certain parts of their composition may be constructed as fake or fabricated according to the positivist criteria which have plagued photography and cinema from their start. Due to the limitations of early cinema, as well as the particular difficulties of shooting in the Arctic and Antarctica, both filmmakers had to make use of a wide range of discursive and material resources (such as intertitles, built sets and rehearsed scenes) in order to represent what they perceived as true about polar regions; these resources will be analyzed with reference to Michael Renov’s four discursive functions, as described in “Towards a Poetics of Documentary”, with particular emphasis on the first one, that of registration/preservation. Since the concept of documentary film as a genre was conceived in 1926, a consideration of the resources employed for the construction of truth in these earlier films may be useful to rethink—from a practical standpoint—the relationship of all documentary art to fiction, representation, and the ontological reality of filmed objects, thus transcending positivist values and permitting a more flexible understanding of the cinematographic techniques which allow the filmic registration of something perceived as truthful, but which cannot be represented without artistic artifice. Este estudio analiza la forma en que dos largometrajes documentales de la era silente —Nanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922) y The Great White Silence (Ponting, 1924)— mantienen una sensación de autenticidad en el discurso a pesar de que ciertas partes de su composición pudieran considerarse falsas o fabricadas de acuerdo con los criterios positivistas que han plagado a la fotografía y el cine desde sus albores. Debido tanto a las limitaciones del cine temprano como a las dificultades particulares ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Arce García, Daniel |
spellingShingle |
Arce García, Daniel Where the Blizzard is Born: Limits and Resources to Represent Polar Reality in Two Documentaries from the Silent Era |
author_facet |
Arce García, Daniel |
author_sort |
Arce García, Daniel |
title |
Where the Blizzard is Born: Limits and Resources to Represent Polar Reality in Two Documentaries from the Silent Era |
title_short |
Where the Blizzard is Born: Limits and Resources to Represent Polar Reality in Two Documentaries from the Silent Era |
title_full |
Where the Blizzard is Born: Limits and Resources to Represent Polar Reality in Two Documentaries from the Silent Era |
title_fullStr |
Where the Blizzard is Born: Limits and Resources to Represent Polar Reality in Two Documentaries from the Silent Era |
title_full_unstemmed |
Where the Blizzard is Born: Limits and Resources to Represent Polar Reality in Two Documentaries from the Silent Era |
title_sort |
where the blizzard is born: limits and resources to represent polar reality in two documentaries from the silent era |
publisher |
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://revistas.filos.unam.mx/index.php/nuevaspoligrafias/article/view/1379 https://doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2.1379 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica Arctic |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica Arctic |
op_source |
Nuevas Poligrafías. Revista de Teoría Literaria y Literatura Comparada; No 2 (2020); 72-103 Nuevas Poligrafías. Revista de Teoría Literaria y Literatura Comparada; Núm. 2 (2020); 72-103 2954-4076 10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2 |
op_relation |
http://revistas.filos.unam.mx/index.php/nuevaspoligrafias/article/view/1379/1673 http://revistas.filos.unam.mx/index.php/nuevaspoligrafias/article/view/1379 doi:10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2.1379 |
op_rights |
Derechos de autor 2020 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2.1379 https://doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.nuevaspoligrafias.2020.2 |
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Nuevas Poligrafías. Revista de Teoría Literaria y Literatura Comparada |
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