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<\/a>Amer\u00adi\u00adcan film\u00admak\u00ader Robert Fla\u00adher\u00adty found fame pro\u00adduc\u00ading and direct\u00ading what we would today call \u201cdocu\u00add\u00adra\u00admas\u201d, about peo\u00adple in exot\u00adic places. His first film, Nanook of the North (1922) <\/em>about an Inuk hunter in the Cana\u00addi\u00adan arc\u00adtic, was a world\u00adwide suc\u00adcess. The film was act\u00aded out and staged in a way that dis\u00adqual\u00adi\u00adfies it as a \u201cdoc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary\u201d in the sense we use the word today \u2014 Nanook was real\u00adly named Allakar\u00adi\u00adal\u00adlak, his \u201cwife\u201d was\u00adn\u2019t his wife, and so on, but there were no rules about such things at the time. It real\u00adly amount\u00aded to what his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal re-enac\u00adtors do today. Fla\u00adher\u00adty fol\u00adlowed this suc\u00adcess, over the years with Moana <\/em>(1926), set in Poly\u00adne\u00adsia, Man of Aran<\/em> (1934) set on an Irish coastal island, and Ele\u00adphant Boy <\/em>(1937), which turned a young Kan\u00adnadi\u00adga boy from Mysore, Sabu Dasta\u00adgir, into a Hol\u00adly\u00adwood movie star.<\/p>\nFla\u00adher\u00adty prepar\u00ading Joseph Boudreaux for a scene.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"06-05-09](\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/05\/06-05-09-VIEW-Flaherty-1948-Louisiana-Story-pic-2.jpg\")
<\/a>But to my mind, Fla\u00adher\u00adty\u2019s great\u00adest achieve\u00adment was his last fea\u00adture film, Louisiana Sto\u00adry <\/em>(1948). It was com\u00admis\u00adsioned by the Shell Oil Com\u00adpany to con\u00advey the \u201cromance\u201d of the intro\u00adduc\u00adtion of an oil rig to the Louisiana bay\u00adous. This is the sort of idea that would leave an audi\u00adence cold today, but it no doubt was com\u00adpletely sin\u00adcere in 1948. But Fla\u00adherty wasn\u2019t much inter\u00adested in oil rigs. He was inter\u00adested in the exot\u00adic atmos\u00adphere of Cajun life in the bay\u00adous and in the inno\u00adcent won\u00adder\u00adment of the boy. Fla\u00adherty usu\u00adally took real peo\u00adple and made movies about them. But in this case, a nar\u00adra\u00adtive was con\u00adtrived, and a local boy, Joseph Boudreaux played a char\u00adac\u00adter in rea\u00adson\u00adably true-to-life scenes. He was so pho\u00adto\u00adgenic that the cam\u00adera hard\u00adly ever left him. The cin\u00ade\u00admatog\u00adra\u00adphy, by Richard Lea\u00adcock, was crisp and evoca\u00adtive, all the more impres\u00adsive because the light\u00ading con\u00addi\u00adtions must have been dread\u00adful. The swamps of the bay\u00adou loomed like some fan\u00adtas\u00adtic, alien land\u00adscape. A bonus was the superb music by Vir\u00adgil Thomp\u00adson, a com\u00adposer who once loomed large in Amer\u00adi\u00adcan con\u00adcert halls, but is unfor\u00adtu\u00adnately neglect\u00aded today. Boudreaux, by the way, grew up to be an oil rigger.<\/p>\n![\"06-05-09](\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/05\/06-05-09-VIEW-Flaherty-1948-Louisiana-Story-pic-9.jpg\")
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