A Creative Treament of Reality
A Creative Treament of Reality
Embedded Files
by Jared Howard
Creative treatment of reality, fakery in allegiance to truth, “[beginning] with actuality then creating his own expressive synthesis,” propaganda or aesthetic integrity - it goes by many names, but documentary tries to deal with one thing: reality, truth, actuality, integrity. Since the dawn of filmmaking and cinema, filmmakers have been obsessed with representing what is right in front of us. Beginning with early photography and expanding into early filmmakers, like the Lumière Brothers, humans have been obsessed with showing the here and now. This obsession has since expanded from everyday life, 1-minute scenarios, to larger than life social and global issues. With this expansion of subjects, has also come the expansion of technologies and techniques. From better cameras and film to sets to intellectual montage, filmmakers developed many different ways of depicting reality without depicting reality.
https://www.criterion.com/films/574-nanook-of-the-north?srsltid=AfmBOorz08vRWXSDnaQXY1YcejXF0dHEivjdW77IlsGfs-of70PQt8JB
For example, Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North is a great example of creative treatment of reality. Flaherty’s depiction of Itivimuit life was a manipulation of true reality to show a different kind of reality, to preserve what once was true. There are many examples to choose from. First, Nanook’s name wasn’t really Nanook, it was Allakariallak (The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle. Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. 104). The seal-hunting scene was more difficult in real life than we saw in the movie. According to Flaherty, the men struggled to wrestle and reel in the seal by themselves and called to Flaherty to shoot it with a rifle, (Documentary: A history of the non-fiction film, p. 37). According to Nichols, “[Nanook’s] hunting methods date back to a period thirty years or more before the time the film was made. The story is of a bygone way of life that Nanook embodies in what amounts to heroic role-playing more than a representation of the nature of everyday life at the time of filming,” (Introduction to Documentary, p. 20). Respectfully, Nanook was an outdated depiction of Inuit life. They had rifles. They were accustomed to trade with white people. And most importantly, they were accustomed to shooting ‘the aggie,’ meaning movie. In a interaction between Flaherty and Allikariallak: “‘Suppose we go,’ Flaherty said to him, ‘…your men may have to give up making a kill, if it interferes with my film?…Yes, yes,’ Nanook assured him. ‘The aggie will come first,’” (Documentary: A history of the non-fiction film, Barnouw, p. 36).
https://www.innersense.com.au/petertammer/nanook.html
In Flaherty’s creative treatment of reality, he pursues “salvage ethnography” to capture “the nature of rapidly vanishing cultures,” (Documentary, p. 45). By displaying reality as it used to, not what it currently was is to evoke a sense of wonder, history, preservation, and authenticity. Flaherty looked outside of the present moment in order to show the audience what life was “truly like” for the Inuit people. He marketed as such, with “The truest and most human story of the Great White Snows” on the movie poster.
In opposition with Nanook and Flaherty, we have works like Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov. Vertov and Soviet ideology behind cinema could be summarized in Vertov’s manifesto: “the cinema eye works and moves in time and in space, seeing and recording impressions in a way quite different from the human eye. Limitations imposed by the position of the body, or by how much we can see of any phenomenon in a second of seeing - such restrictions do not exist for the cinema-eye…” (Documentary, Barnouw, pg. 58) This was evident in his work. With less-fabricated shots, static-shots, but masterful editing, Vertov shows us that reality itself should not be manufactures, but the presentation of it should be. This was Vertov’s fakery in allegiance to truth.
Both demonstrations of a synthesized reality are valid. To compare and contrast them, is to understand the power that documentary has in not only preserving history as it was but preserving history as it was experienced, implied, and felt. From propaganda to ethnography, the creative treatment of reality of documentary has the power to inform, inspire, and invigorate. Blessed be the fakery in allegiance to truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtTlgxtoqhg
Works Cited
Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. Oxford University Press.
The Criterion Collection. Nanook of the North (Criterion Collection page). Accessed 8 Oct. 2025. https://www.criterion.com/films/574-nanook-of-the-north
Nichols, Bill, and Jaimie Baron. Introduction to Documentary, Fourth Edition. Indiana University Press.
Peter Tammer / Innersense. "Nanook of the North Resource Page." Accessed 8 Oct. 2025. https://www.innersense.com.au/petertammer/nanook.html
Rony, Fatimah Tobing. The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle. Duke University Press, 1996.
"Man with a Movie Camera (2014 Restoration trailer) In UK cinemas 31 July 2015 | BFI Release." Uploaded by BFI, 15 July 2015. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtTlgxtoqhg.
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