Nanook of the North (USA, 1922/1947/1976/1998) and film exhibition in the classical silent era. A document unbounded?
| Pages | 916-929 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2015-0078 |
| Published date | 12 September 2016 |
| Date | 12 September 2016 |
| Author | Roswitha Skare |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Nanook of the North
(USA, 1922/1947/1976/1998)
and film exhibition in the
classical silent era
A document unbounded?
Roswitha Skare
UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsoe, Norway
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion on whether more traditional
documents like a film of the classical silent era can be discussed as an unbounded document.
Design/methodology/approach –By taking Gérard Genette’s concept of the paratext as point of
departure and focussing on the exhibition of Nanook of the North during the silent era, the paper
discusses elements neglected in most of the academic writings about the film, thereby illustrating the
highly problematic notion of film as one original or authentic document that comes as a repeatable unit
with clear borders.
Findings –More a “one-time performance”(Hansen, 1991, p. 93) than identical repetition of the film is
one argument for talking about a document unbounded. Genette’s concept of the paratext provides a
tool to handle the fluid character of these performances and makes us conscious about the complexity
of elements both outside and inside the document and on the border between the inside and the outside.
In documentation studies the concept of the paratext provides us with a terminology that allows us to
place and name elements of a document belonging to its materiality.
Originality/value –In providing a case study based on archival material that has not been used
before and is not available to a wider public, this paper shows the relevance of investigating films not
as a repeatable unit with clear borders, but rather as an unbounded document.
Keywords Archives, Films, Documentation, Analysis, Documents, Audiovisual media
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Traditional documents like printed books (independent of genre) or films (either in
cinema, on television or on DVD) are usually considered as self-contained, complete
units with clear borders. New media[1], often a shorthand for digital documents, on the
other hand are more often discussed in terms of their complicated materiality and
whether they have borders or not. The annual meetings of the Document Academy
(DOCAM), an international network of scholars, artists, and professionals in various
fields, who are interested in the exploration of the concept of the document, might
illustrate this development. While the notion of document, different definitions and the
relevance of definitions, as well as analytical concepts, and oral documents can be
considered “classical DOCAM themes”(Latham and Lund, 2014), the last two
meetings have focused on Documents without Borders (2014) and Documents
unbounded (2015)[2], foregrounding “the unbounded nature of new media, including
social media”(Scifleet et al., 2015). The present paper is the revised version of a
presentation g iven at DOCAM’15, discussing the border between the inside and the
outside of Robert J. Flaherty’s first film Nanook of the North that premiered at the
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 72 No. 5, 2016
pp. 916-929
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-06-2015-0078
Received 26 June 2015
Revised 29 March 2016
Accepted 3 April 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
916
JDOC
72,5
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