1. Flaherty and Grierson: A Symbiotic Relationship
John Grierson writes in his essay, FirstPrinciples of Documentary (1996),“Youmay, like Flaherty, go
for a story form,passing in the ancient manner fromthe individual to the environment, to the
environment transcended or not transcended, to the consequent honours of heroism. Or you may
not be so interested in the individual. You may think that the individual life is no longer capable of
cross-sectioning reality. Youmay believe that its particular bellyaches are of no consequence in a
world whichcomplex and impersonal forces command, and concludethat the individual as a self-
sufficientdramatic figure is outmoded” (p. 99). “Flaherty had apparently mastered—unlike
previous documentarists—the “grammar” of film as it had evolvedin the fictionfilm” (Barnouw,
1993, p. 39), with whichGrierson obviously took issue. He saw something different to be done. He
wanted to transcend that whichhe saw as his environment. Grierson continues, “Indeed you may
feel that in individualism is a yahoo tradition largely responsible forour present anarchy, and deny
at once both the hero of decent heroics (Flaherty) and the hero of indecent ones (studio)” (1996,
p.99). Despite all this, I would argue Robert Flaherty and John Grierson were more similar than
dissimilar in that they were two men in a certain field and of a certain era—the environment to
whichGrierson refers. The context of our subjectivetime will alwaysbe more powerfulthan its
internal debates, which weembody. And so from this vantage point, I see it as appropriate that two
giants of a budding industry might disagree. What is apparent before any historical ruminating is
their mutually exclusive immersive passions before any rhetoric, and passion itself inevitably
motivates strong opinions. But there’s no doubt they were certainly quite different as functioning
people.
“Robert J. Flaherty, in his early years, had no thought but to follow in the footsteps of his father, a
mining engineer. The boy grew up around mining camps of northern Michigan and Canada, with
miners and Indians as companions” (Barnouw,1993, p. 33). “WhenJohn Grierson (1898–1972),

2. son of a Scots schoolmaster and grandson of a lighthouse keeper, was studying at Glasgow
University and earning distinction in moral philosophy, he was already thinking about film. He
sensed that film and other popular media had acquired leverage over ideas and actions once
exercised by churchand school” (Barnouw,1993, p. 85). From different parts of the globe and
dealing with different mixes of people and culture, they certainly held plenty out of commonin
daily life while respectively making a name for themselves each as individuals—Flaherty as an
explorer and prospector in Canada (Barnouw, 1993, p. 33) and Grierson as a scholar and
documentarian (Barnouw,1993, p. 85). Flaherty, with whateverwealth garnered fromrelative
fame as an explorer, had the opportunity to first of all be where he already was familiar—a unique
and beautiful cultural setting—and to purchase filmmaking equipment with whichto make a film.
The whole scenario seems to have been somewhat serendipitous and organic. Grierson on the
other hand achieved through more traditional academic means his goals in pursuit of filmmaking
and study. He had a goal, and he found the means. Their individual drive to make a life out of
filmmaking is quite apparent in their personal histories, but it’s rather difficultnot to notice the
highly disparate fashion in which it came to be. From politics to economics to intellectual goals,
their personal histories read very differently.
Barnouw notes in reference to Flaherty, “During his next twoMackenzie expeditions, in 1914 and
1915, he shot many hours of film on Eskimo life. The film activity,begun casually, soon became an
obsession that almost obliterated the search forminerals” (1993, p.33). And thus began Flaherty’s
workon filming Nanookof theNorth during several expeditions up north. After years of shooting
and the accidental destruction of a large portion of his film to date, he remained unsatisfied and
planned to return. However,the War then halted any trips up north foryears (Barnouw,1993, pp.
35–36). Barnouw continues, “From 1916 to 1920—while three daughters were born to the
Flahertys—he kept at the fundraising efforts. He earned modest funds with articles and talks about

3. northern exploration. His in-laws talked about getting him a Ford agency; in his mid-thirties, he
seemed to them at dead end. Then, as the war ended, the fur company Revillon Frères began to
take interest in his proposals, and in 1920 Robert Flaherty finally headed north again” (1993, p. 36).
Flaherty’s undying drive of a decade was finally validated in 1922 when the Pathé organization
offeredhim a distribution deal, and the film opened in New Yorkto critical and popular success
(Barnouw,1993, p. 42).
Grierson was much more efficient in his pursuits. “A Rockefeller Foundation grant tookhim to the
United States in 1924 forresearch in social sciences. While studying at the University of Chicago he
crisscrossed the land interviewing film makers, scholars, politicians, journalists” (Barnouw, 1993, p.
85). While in New York,appreciative of socially minded Russian cinema of the time, he helped
enable the first American screening of BattleshipPotemkin by appeasing state censors witha re-edit
(Barnouw,1993, p. 86). “Early in 1927 Grierson was backin England, visiting the Empire
Marketing Board to call on its chief,Sir Stephen Tallents, whofound him “brimming withideas””
(Barnouw,1993, p. 87). Grierson was cunning in his attempts to find a way to bring his
documentary film ideas to the masses of Britain, and upon realizing he must persuade the Financial
Secretary of the Treasury in order to do so, he proposed the production of a film on the herring
industry, of whichthe Secretary, Arthur Michael Samuel, was considered the leading authority. The
resultant film (and only film Grierson ever directed), Drifters,coupled with the first British
screening of (the re-edited) BattleshipPotemkin,premiered in 1929 at the London Film Society, and
Grierson’s career never looked back. By 1933 his Empire Marketing Board Film Unit consisted of a
staff of over thirty (Barnouw, 1993, pp. 87–89).
From their very different beginnings, very different perspectives foreverwouldseparate the two
men in approach, process, and ideals. Despite this however,through this industry of fledgling

4. significance they each helped lift up in very significant ways, they were inextricably linked.
Barnouw writes, “Drifters made clear the Grierson deviation from Flaherty. The herring fisheries, a
subtitle tells us, used to be a thing of quaint old villages; the men still lived in the old villages, but
the fishing had meanwhile become “an epic of steam and steel”” (1993, p. 88). The processes by
whichthey made films happen, in many ways couldnot have been more opposite on paper. Their
respective paths, spawned from a common film obsession, rarely would ever have met again had
their respective statuses not been what they were; and when they did in fact collaborate,their
differences were apparent. In 1933, the EMBFilm Unit brought in Flaherty forphotography work
on IndustrialBritain,and as Flaherty inched closer to his maximum budget, Grierson fired him
(Barnouw,1993, p. 90). Economically,Flaherty,fought for one giant film forseveral years, and the
payoff was huge. Grierson on the other hand worked diligently and efficiently,and his content-
obsessed political agenda alwaystrumped that of aesthetics. Not to imply EMB Film Unit
productions were not often beautifully shot, but the schedule and mechanized process kept the
team afloat. Flaherty lived to realize his vision, whichwas filmic, whereas Grierson utilized film as
a tool with whichto spread his socio-economic and politicalideas about post-war society. The main
area in which their ideas were discernibly similar was aesthetics, and I’d imagine there is a case to
be made this exists as testament to the greatness of Flaherty’s cinematic vision. After all, Nanookof
the Northalready existed as point of cinematic reference for the EMB Film Unit.
Their intellectual goals as filmmakers were equally wrapped up in a sort of opportunism required
of people in pursuit of seeing their ideas come to fruition. The written record goes down in history,
and these twomen were likely rather different characters; but the rhetoric alwaysremains
unfinished, frozen in time. No less, the underlying subtext is unavoidable. Flaherty, in his
obsession with the past and more primitive lifestyles and cultures, implies the assumption that the
world today continues moving away from a truly better yesterday. Grierson on the other hand

5. takes up arms with documentary film as a weapon against the evils of individualistic excess and
proactively believes it willget better. His character is that of the progressive-minded head to
Flaherty’s relativist heart; and the factthat Grierson ultimately removed himself from the hands-on
rolls of film production serves to further illustrate the greatest difference between the two: they
filled very different rolls with respect to the tool of documentary.
Consider the basic point of reference that is the early days of cinema and how vastly different an
experience it must have been to see Nanookofthe North or Drifters as compared to the experience
of seeing the original Lumiere productions for the first time. On the surface, surely the former two
exist as more exciting viewing experiences on the whole forthe layperson today; however,outside
of the context of the time in whicheach was created, it’s quite difficultto know but perhaps more
likely that the opposite in factwas more often true. For most after all, the Lumiere films provided
the very first moving picture experiences for those lucky enough to have witnessed them—a
potentially mind-altering revelation we today are simply unable to fathom in the same way. And
while this may in factpose a somewhat significant differentiation from the outset (Flaherty
conceivably wouldhave been old enough to have experienced a substantial amount of conscious life
before having first seen any film whatsoever whereas Grierson would have been born fully amidst
the era of moving pictures), I believe the time in whichthey were born dictates an unavoidable
similarity more significant than their contemporaneous dissimilarity. And that similarity is this
unique context of time in the early days of cinema. Ideas were allowed to be lofty in a very real way
because this was something withwhich no one really knew what was possible. Film was not yet
fully taken forgranted. Its inherent meaning in life was both elevated and unexplored in many
ways,so while weall likely intuitively side with one or the other—Grierson or Flaherty—the other
serves as complementary.

6. Grierson writes in FirstPrinciples of Documentary,“Questionof theory and practice apart, Flaherty
illustrates better than anyone the first principles of documentary. (1) It must master its material on
the spot, and comein intimacy to ordering it. Flaherty digs himself in for a year, or two maybe. He
lives with his people till the story is told ‘out of himself’. (2) It must follow him in his distinction
between description and drama. I think we shall find that there are other forms of drama or, more
accurately,other forms of film, than the one he chooses; but it is important to make the primary
distinction between a method whichdescribes only the surface values of a subject, and the method
whichmore explosively reveals the reality of it. You photograph the natural life, but you also, by
your juxtaposition of detail, create an interpretation of it” (1996, pp. 98–99).