Building of an Igloo

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  • Topic: Igloo, Inuit, Nanook of the North
  • Pages : 3 (1173 words )
  • Download(s) : 128
  • Published : March 26, 2013
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2. Compare the presentation of the building of an igloo in Nanook(1922) and the presentation in How To Build an Igloo (1949) Consider the performers and their techniques in each film. Why does The Living Stone go beyond both in its vision of culture.

Building of an Igloo in Nanook (1922) and How To Build an Igloo (1949) shared similar characteristics even though the two films were more than two and a half decades apart. Within these time frames, many technological advances had been established and a handful were up and coming. Nanook might have been an isolated area, but missionaries and explorers intervened and tried to stray the Nanook from their ancestral ways towards a more technical, westernized society. So why did the two documentaries on Nanook life show little variation during a time of great change? I believe that it was due to the filmmakers and how they wanted to show an authentic experience for the viewers. It seemed as if Building of an Igloo In Nanook, showed how simple life was for its people. The documentary started off by showing the male participants preparing packed snow with an ivory knife coated with spit for a smooth cut. The men and women were wearing seal and caribou skin for protection from the earths tundra. The process of building the igloo showed very little attention to the details and could not be duplicated. Because the documentary was shot in 1922, there wasn’t much room for interpretation due to the lack of extensively representing the people. How to Build an Igloo, showed similar attire with its actors. They didn’t show much of an expression on camera, which made the process of understanding behavior a bit more difficult. However, this documentary showed a detailed depiction of “how to build an igloo”. The film explains that Igloo means snow house because of its use of heavily packed snow. The igloo itself is built in a spiral that works from the inside out. If you are right handed you would move the spiral in an...
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