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A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–19591924: Robert Flaherty

A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–1959: 1924: Robert Flaherty [In this chapter I examine one passage and, in particular, one key expression: “the aggie will come first.” This classical documentary dictum is drawn from Robert and Frances Hubbard Flaherty’s memoir, My Eskimo Friends “Nanook of the North” (1924). I initiate a discussion in which I show, step by step, how this “immortal enunciation”—seemingly uncontestable and one that certainly was never set by its author as a formal definition of documentary—was, more often than not, misinterpreted by the canonical documentary literature. My contention is that this inaccurate reading yields significant consequences for our assessment of Flaherty’s definitional gist of documentary. The chapter demonstrates how “the aggie will come first” was not Nanook’s énoncé, as is commonly believed. Rather, Flaherty’s words indicate that the expression was uttered by a third, anonymous, but all the same highly critical Eskimo figure who was present in Flaherty’s hut at the moment. My reading of this canonical documentary speech act claims that it is the physical and symbolic presence of this “third” person at this critical moment in Flaherty’s early career that unconceals—perhaps unconsciously, and surely for the first time—Flaherty’s Levinasian bent.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–19591924: Robert Flaherty

Geva, Dan
Springer Journals — Sep 16, 2021
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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
ISBN
978-3-030-79465-1
Pages
101 –111
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-79466-8_9
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[In this chapter I examine one passage and, in particular, one key expression: “the aggie will come first.” This classical documentary dictum is drawn from Robert and Frances Hubbard Flaherty’s memoir, My Eskimo Friends “Nanook of the North” (1924). I initiate a discussion in which I show, step by step, how this “immortal enunciation”—seemingly uncontestable and one that certainly was never set by its author as a formal definition of documentary—was, more often than not, misinterpreted by the canonical documentary literature. My contention is that this inaccurate reading yields significant consequences for our assessment of Flaherty’s definitional gist of documentary. The chapter demonstrates how “the aggie will come first” was not Nanook’s énoncé, as is commonly believed. Rather, Flaherty’s words indicate that the expression was uttered by a third, anonymous, but all the same highly critical Eskimo figure who was present in Flaherty’s hut at the moment. My reading of this canonical documentary speech act claims that it is the physical and symbolic presence of this “third” person at this critical moment in Flaherty’s early career that unconceals—perhaps unconsciously, and surely for the first time—Flaherty’s Levinasian bent.]

Published: Sep 16, 2021

Keywords: “the aggie will come first”

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