Dead Rat Orchestra present Nanook of the North
The Pitt Rivers Museum presents a screening and live soundtrack to Roberty J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North at North Wall Arts Centre in Summertown on 9 May 2015. The score will be provided by Dead Rat Orchestra, who will revisit the film that inspired some of their earliest material, including Walrus Hunt, The Sentinel and Lullaby.
Nanook was released in 1922 and is often cited as the first example of documentary film. The director claimed it portrayed “love and life in the actual Arctic” as it followed the daily trials of its Inuit protagonist on the edge of the Arctic circle. In actuality, a combination of the bulky camera equipment and the conditions on location meant that many of the scenes were staged, but the film loses none of its power for that.
Following the performance, Professor Marcus Banks (University of Oxford) leads discussion into the film’s complexity, examining Flaherty’s romanticised construction of a “pre-industrialised” Inuit family, and other ethical issues of representation and identity. Joining in discussion will be members of the band and Dr Charlotte Gleghorn, University of Edinburgh.
Extracts from Nanook, performed in 2006, are available on the Palimpsest Festival 2006 CD, which is still available from our webstore.
