Page "Robert J. Flaherty" Paragraph 5

In 1913, on his expedition to prospect the Belcher Islands, his boss, Sir William Mackenzie, suggested that he take a motion picture camera along.

Flaherty brought with him a Bell and Howell hand cranked motion picture camera.

He was particularly intrigued by the life of the Inuit people, and spent so much time filming them that he had begun to neglect his real work.

When Flaherty returned to Toronto with 70, 000 feet of film, the nitrate film stock was ignited in a fire started from his cigarette, in his editing room.

His film was destroyed and he received burns on his hands.

Although his editing print was saved and shown several times, Flaherty wasn't satisfied with the results.

" It was utterly inept, simply a scene of this or that, no relation, no thread of story or continuity whatever, and it must have bored the audience to distraction.

Certainly it bored me.