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Robert Flaherty

Robert Flaherty

Director · Born 1884-02-16 · Iron Mountain, Michigan, USA

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Biography

Robert Joseph Flaherty (February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, Nanook of the North (1922). The film made his reputation and nothing in his later life fully equaled its success, although he continued the development of this new genre of narrative documentary with Moana (1926), set in the South Seas, and Man of Aran (1934), filmed in Ireland's Aran Islands. Flaherty is considered the "father" of both the documentary and the ethnographic film. Andrew Sarris in his influential book of film criticism The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 included him in the "pantheon" of the 14 greatest film directors who had worked in the United States.

Directed

  1. Nanook of the North (1922) — Director
  2. Man of Aran (1934) — Director
  3. Louisiana Story (1948) — Director
  4. Moana (1926) — Director
  5. Elephant Boy (1937) — Director
  6. Twenty-Four Dollar Island (1927) — Director
  7. Industrial Britain (1931) — Director
  8. The Titan: Story of Michelangelo (1950) — Director
  9. The Pottery Maker (1925) — Director
  10. The Land (1942) — Director
  11. The English Potter (1933) — Director
  12. A Night of Storytelling (1935) — Director
  13. The Eskimo (1916) — Director
  14. Guernica (1949) — Director

Also appeared in

  1. The Land (1942) — Narrator (voice)
  2. Monica in the South Seas (2023) — Self (archival footage)
  3. A Boatload of Wild Irishmen (2010) — Self (archive footage)
  4. Cast of Shadows (2025) — self (archival)