This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Moana is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
| Moana | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Robert J. Flaherty |
| Produced by | Robert J. Flaherty |
| Written by | Robert J. Flaherty |
| Starring | Fa'amgase Pe'a Ta'avale T'ugaita |
| Cinematography | Robert J. Flaherty |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January 7, 1926 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 85 min. |
Moana (1926) is a documentary film, the first docufiction in the history of cinema, directed by Robert J. Flaherty, the creator of Nanook of the North (1922). Contemporary to Robert Flaherty, the Portuguese José Leitão de Barros is with him one of the first filmmakers to explore docufiction and ethnofiction as forms of dramatic narrative: Maria do Mar (1930) is the second one.
Trying to get Flaherty to repeat the success of his earlier project, Paramount Pictures sent Flaherty to Samoa to capture the traditional life of the Pacific islanders on film. Flaherty arrived in Samoa in April 1923 and stayed until December 1924, with the film being completed in December 1925. Flaherty took both a regular movie camera and a Prizmacolor camera, hoping to film some footage in that color process, but the Prizmacolor camera malfunctioned. Moana is thought to be the first feature film made with panchromatic black-and-white film, rather than orthochromatic film.
However, Flaherty was always one step behind Western influences. Finally ending up in the village of Safune on the island of Savai'i, he found that the missionaries had been there before him, and the native population had already abandoned their traditional clothing for Western styles.
Furthermore, the island was a virtual paradise so that unlike Nanook, he could not build on the theme of "Man against Nature" for the storyline of his film. Therefore, while the film was visually stunning, it failed at the box office, leaving Flaherty to attempt to find other locations more like the treacherous Arctic for his next film. In the book Call it Courage it was known as the God of the Sea.
The word "documentary" was first applied to films of this nature in a review of this movie written by "The Moviegoer", a pen name for John Grierson in the New York Sun on 8 February 1926.
| Robert J. Flaherty |
|---|
|
Nanook of the North (1922) • Moana (1926) The Twenty-four Dollar Island (1927) • Tabu (1931) Man of Aran (1934) • Elephant Boy (1937) The Land (1942) • Louisiana Story (1948) |
 |
This documentary film-related article is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 17 November 2008, at 00:51.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Moana".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.