Editing Nanook of the North (section)

===Hoax claims===
"Nanook" was in fact named Allakariallak ({{IPA|iu|al.la.ka.ɢi.al.lak|pron}}); Flaherty chose "[[Nanook]]" ("polar bear" in Inuktitut mythology) because he felt its seeming genuineness made it more marketable.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle |author= Fatimah Tobing Rony |page=104 |year=1996 |publisher=Duke University Press |location=Durham and London}}</ref> The "wife" shown in the film was not really his wife. According to Charlie Nayoumealuk, who was interviewed in ''Nanook Revisited'' (1990), "the two women in ''Nanook'' – Nyla (Alice [?] Nuvalinga) and Cunayou (whose real name we do not know) were not Allakariallak's wives, but were in fact [[Common-law marriage|common-law wives]] of Flaherty."<ref>{{cite book |title=Defamiliarizing the aboriginal: cultural practices and decolonization in Canada |author= Julia Emberley |page=86 (citing Fatimah Tobing Rony, Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography: Robert Flaherty's ''Nanook of the North'')}}</ref> And although Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting, Flaherty encouraged him to hunt after the fashion of his recent ancestors in order to capture the way the [[Inuit]] lived before [[European colonization of the Americas]]. Flaherty also exaggerated the peril to Inuit hunters with his claim, often repeated, that Allakariallak had died of starvation less than two years after the film was completed, whereas in fact he died at home, likely of [[tuberculosis]].<ref>Pamela R. Stern, ''Historical Dictionary of the Inuit'' (Lanham, MD:Scarecrow Press, 2004), p. 23.</ref><ref>Robert J. Christopher, ''Robert and Frances Flaherty: A Documentary Life, 1883–1922'' (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005), pp. 387–388</ref>

Furthermore, it has been criticized{{by whom|date=November 2022}} for portraying Inuit as without technology or culture, and situates them outside modern history. It was also criticized for comparing Inuit to animals. The film is considered by some to be an artifact of popular culture at the time and also a result of a historical fascination for Inuit performers in exhibitions, zoos, fairs, museums and early cinema.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle |author= Fatimah Tobing Rony |year=1996 |publisher=Duke University Press |location=Durham and London}}</ref>

Flaherty defended his work by stating, "one often has to distort a thing in order to catch its true spirit."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gray|first=Hugh|title=Robert Flaherty and the Naturalistic Documentary|jstor=1209484|journal=Hollywood Quarterly|year=1950|volume=5|issue=1|pages=47|doi=10.2307/1209484}}</ref> Later filmmakers have pointed out that the only cameras available to Flaherty at the time were both large and immobile, making it impossible to effectively capture most interior shots or unstructured exterior scenes without significantly modifying the environment and subject action.<ref>[[Molly Dineen]] and AA Gill in BBC Archive on 4: The Camera Never Lies, 2016</ref>