The widely distributed video cassette of Nanook of the North prefaces the film with a title that states, accurately enough, that the film “is generally regarded as the work from which all subsequent efforts to bring real life to the screen have stemmed.” The implied contrast is with ordinary movies, of course – so-called fiction films with scripted stories, actors, and directors. Presumably these are something other than “efforts to bring real life to the screen” – efforts, perhaps, to bring to the screen the life of the imagination, the imaginary life of fantasy and myth.

Yet ordinary movies, too, may be said to bring “real life” to the screen. For example, in Griffith's True Heart Susie, a film contemporaneous with Nanook of the North, the character Susie and the world she inhabits may be imaginary, but it is the real-life Lillian Gish who is the subject of the camera. And so-called “documentaries,” too, may be said to bring the life of the imagination to the screen, as we shall be reminded throughout this book.

Such facts have led some theorists to deny that in the medium of film there is a meaningful distinction between what we call “fiction films” and “documentaries.” Without denying the truth in this suggestion, it is also important not to deny that there are, in fact, significant differences between them. And Nanook of the North is an appropriate place to begin reflecting on those differences.