Moana (1926 film)

Moana pronouncedmo.ana is a 1926 American documentary film, or more strictly a work of docufiction, that was directed by Robert J. Flaherty, the creator of Nanook of the North 1922.

Hoping that Flaherty could repeat the success of Nanook, Paramount Pictures sent him to Samoa to capture the traditional life of the Polynesians on film. Flaherty reportedly arrived withtons of filmmaking equipment. This included both a regular movie camera and a Prizma color camera, as Flaherty hoped 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 blackandwhite film, rather than the orthochromatic film commonly used at the time in Hollywood feature films. Flaherty developed his film as he went along, in a cave on Savaii. In the process, he inadvertently poisoned himself and required treatment after drinking water from the cave that contained silver nitrate which had washed off the film stock. The silver nitrate also caused spots to form on the negative.As in the earlier Nanook and his later film, Man of Aran, Flaherty went well beyond recording the life of the people of Samoa as it happened. He followed his usual procedure of casting locals whom he considered potentially photogenic performers into roles, including creating fictitious family relationships. He also, as in the other films, on occasion set up scenes in which exotic earlier practices were reenacted as if still current. In Nanook and Man of Aran, this included setting up anachronistic hunting sequences. In Moana, at a time when Samoans were typically wearing modern Westernstyle clothing under the influence of Christian missionaries, Flaherty persuaded his performers to don traditional tapa cloth costumes made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree, in a process shown in some detail in the film the maidens went topless. He also staged a comingintomanhood ritual in which the young male lead underwent a painful traditional Samoan tattoo a practice that had already become obsolete by that time and for which the young man required to be generously compensated. Devices of this sort have led to F

Source: Wikipedia