Shots From the Canon #9: ‘Man of Aran’ (Robert J. Flaherty, 1934)

Every week or so, filmmaker and writer Robert Greene will attempt to push for a new canon of cinematic nonfiction.

When pioneering nonfiction filmmaker/thinker John Grierson reviewed his friend Robert Flaherty’s Moana in 1926, he not only coined the term “documentary” but he also defined succinctly the fundamental nature of the new medium. After praising…