how stories fuel the campfire
Filmmaking is not a simple process and the conventions of the industry too often overpower the storyteller. The technology sometimes dictates the content and controls the creative process. It is as if the campfire has become too big, too hot, and too voracious for any one storyteller to control. The goal should not be to create the biggest fire. Rather we ought to be caring for one that will last forever.
The solution to this sophisticated high-tech spiral comes from the most remote and primitive source imaginable. We recently saw the release of the astonishing film Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), directed by Zacharias Kunuk and produced by the co-operative Igloolik Isuma Productions. The film is based on a traditional legend of the Inuit people in the far north of Canada, and it has all the best elements of storytelling: love and jealousy; the real and the supernatural; murder and revenge.
Inuit have inhabited the region for at least 4000 years. Throughout these millennia, with no written language, untold numbers of nomadic Inuit renewed their culture and traditional knowledge for every generation entirely through storytelling. Atanarjuat is part of the Inuit oral history, and it successfully unites ancient storytelling skills with the most modern filmmaking technology. Ê
It is successful because the story always takes priority. The production co-operative carefully resisted the temptation to alter the story in any way to suit southern expectations. The myth is allowed to be told without dressing it up in the trappings of any other culture. The Isuma filmmakers describe the process of making Atanarjuat: Our objective was not to impose southern filmmaking conventions on our unique story, but to let the story shape the filmmaking process in an Inuit way. For this reason, we wrote our script by a unique process of cultural authenticity. First we recorded eight elders telling versions of the legend as it had been passed down to them orally by their ancestors. Isuma's team of five writers then combined these into a single detailed treatment in Inuktitut and English, consulting with elders for cultural accuracy... The Inuit storytellers have regained control of the campfire, and by so doing, can nurture the flame rather than be destroyed by it.
The story was never meant for Inuit alone. The language of the film is Inuktitut. Since there are likely fewer than 40,000 Inuktitut speakers in the world, this film would need to have broader appeal than the limited Inuit community. It was clearly intended to be shared with all of us. But shared on Inuit terms. Audiences are finding this approach powerful and captivating. The New York Times said: "The Fast Runner"... is not merely an interesting document from a far-off place; it is a masterpiece. [It] is much more than an ethnographic curiosity. It is, by any standard, an extraordinary film, a work of narrative sweep and visual beauty that honors the history of the art form even as it extends its perspective.
These Inuit storytellers are sharing more than the legend. They are demonstrating the eternal art of storytelling. Storytelling will survive, and storytellers will be heard. We will continure to tell our stories around the campfire. We will continue to invent culture. To define our humanity.