01x02 - Kunuk Uncovered

[bunniefuu]

[lively instrumental music]

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Good evening.

I'm helen mirren, And you're watching documentary now!

For the past 50 years, Documentary now!
Has presented audiences With the world's most thought-provoking cinema.

This season, to celebrate our golden anniversary, We take a look back at the films That helped shape, change, and innovate The world of documentary.

We begin with a story of an inuit, a director, And how you can't always believe what you see In the 1985 film kunuk uncovered.

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male narrator: in 1922, director william h. Sebastian Introduced american audiences to an eskimo named kunuk In the now-classic film kunuk the hunter.

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It was groundbreaking cinema, a box office success, And has been credited with creating the genre That we now call documentary.

But questions about kunuk have always lingered.

What was the relationship between filmmaker and subject?

Were the actions depicted real or staged?

Was the first documentary a documentary at all?

Or was it something else?

Now, with new interviews and recently recovered footage, We can finally know the answers.

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You have to understand that in the early 1920s, Everyone had eskimo fever.

[laughs]

If you were hosting an exposition And your exposition had an eskimo in it, People would line up around the block For a chance to see it.

I remember my william saying That seeing an eskimo in london or new york Would never be as exciting As seeing them in their natural settings.

If he could find a way to do that, he said, He could make a fortune.

[harp and flute music]

At the time, I had just finished sh**ting a film Called passing train.

It was playing to much fanfare in europe.

[train horn blows]

And sebastian saw the film, and he contacted me.

No one had ever sh*t a film In the conditions he was proposing, But I could tell he had a vision.

He would use words like "realism" and "truth,"

And at that time, those words meant a great deal to me.

And, uh, two weeks later, we arrived in canada.

I just took the job.

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man: "dearest meredith, tomorrow we reach st. George. I am trembling with excitement. the very idea of committing these funny little monsters to film Brings a smile to my face even as my heart aches for you."

scott: when we finally arrived at the trading post, He told me to set up my camera And rounded up some local hunters.

Now, sebastian thought a good scene for his film Would be eskimos being puzzled By where the sound came from a gramophone.

This really delighted him.

He thought that was a funny idea.

They all thought he was some sort of clown.

I mean, these eskimos were--were laughing, And he didn't care for their laughter.

See, sebastian is so-- a dude of his size advantage, He could impose his will physically on the eskimo.

But they were a wiry lot, I tell ya.

They just kicked the crap out of him.

They shoved snow in his mouth.

They'd shove it in his butt.

They cold-cocked him, Where they put his member in a block of ice And then stomped on it.

The letters from sebastian at this time Were very dire.

He was intent on coming home With nothing to show for his travels.

scott: he told me he wanted a drink, And I was against it, but I'll admit I gave it to him, 'cause that's the kind of guy I was.

I was a big enabler, And if you were trying to kick a habit, I gave you the thing you wanted.

Anyways, then we noticed the men in the village Leaving en masse, And we were told that they were departing For a months-long hunt.

And it was at that moment I saw, amongst the womenfolk, A solitary man waving.

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And that was pipilok, and he saved our film, yeah.

man: "my dearest meredith, "fortune has smiled upon us.

"I have discovered the star of our film.

"he is slow of mind, but this makes him a malleable subject That I can make do what I wish."

scott: there was an eskimo girl who spoke a little english, And we hired her to be our translator.

I agreed to translate, but I told them it was a mistake To work with pipilok.

The gods had cursed him in the head.

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scott: pipilok was everything sebastian wanted and more.

If you handed him a prop of any kind, He would take it and use it as something else.

[cheerful string trio music]

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Sebastian always insisted He wanted the film to have comic moments.

That was a phrase he used, "comic moments."

Pipilok, he was perfect at those.

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But if you needed eskimos doing eskimo things, He was not your guy.

I mean, there was a reason pipilok wasn't on the hunt With the rest of the men in the village.

He wasn't just bad at being an eskimo; I mean, there was something fundamentally wrong With this guy.

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I figured, "well, the game is up."

We tried, but this wasn't an eskimo to make a movie about.

But sebastian, he-- he didn't agree.

He tied pipilok's wrists to the handles, And he nailed the soles of his boots To the bottom of the sled.

Yeah, I saw this.

[dramatic music]

It's one of the most famous sh*ts In one of the most famous films ever made, And all I ever remember are the sounds of his screams.

Boy, he was howling across the tundra and back, Screaming.

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah."

[light classical music]

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qamaniq: sebastian would brag to the women That he was making a real film with real people, But everything they did was fake.

scott: for the famous spear-hunting scene, Sebastian would have several eskimo women Submerged underwater.

When pipilok put his spear in, They had to stick a fish on the end of it.

I was a little anxious and, uh, distressed By the direction I thought the film was going, And I tried to speak to sebastian, But at this point, he--you know, he was drinking even more, And he started taking up With many of the local village women.

He always talked about how fat they were And how they looked like guys.

Ugly women, the eskimo.

My god, they were ugly.

I [bleep] about three of 'em.

man: "my dearest meredith, "we are capturing the true eskimo tradition Like no one ever before."

meredith: he was very pleased with how it was going, But he wanted to make certain That it looked as good as he hoped.

Sebastian had sent the film to be developed, And the first few reels made their way back to us.

[flute music]

qamaniq: when sebastian showed us the film, We all laughed.

How silly it was that pipilok looked like a hunter.

But pipilok was not laughing.

scott: after we watched the footage, I asked pipilok what he thought.

He told me there was no pipilok.

There was only kunuk.

Whoa.

man: "dearest meredith, the most adorable thing happened at the screening last night. pipilok now believes he is the hunter we have made him out to be. he has started referring to himself as kunuk And insists we do the same."

scott: we all thought it was funny that night, But the next morning, as we were setting up For a sh*t of pipilok emerging from his igloo, He wouldn't come out.

qamaniq: pipilok explained that he thought he looked too old In the footage he had seen the night before.

There was a prost*tute in town who painted her face.

He suggested sebastian hire her to make his face look younger.

scott: took me upwards of an hour to explain That we wanted to pay her for something that wasn't sex.

Kunuk was such a sweet man.

Simple, fragile, but sweet.

[lilting string music]

scott: the sh*ts we did get that day were completely unusable For obvious reasons.

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And that was just the beginning of things going south, I tell you.

man: "the whore has convinced pipilok that we shouldn't have to wait until the end of the day to eat. now he insists that we have a table with coffee and other craft services To enjoy in the downtime between sh**ting."

qamaniq: you could sense That sebastian felt he was losing control over his film.

But he was stronger than pipilok, So he used that to his advantage.

claudette: sebastian was, if nothing else, a bully.

For the next hour, things went smoothly Until marie's pimp showed up.

Oh, boy, now, this guy.

[dramatic music]

He called himself chacal, Which is french for "jackal."

It turns out after sebastian hit pipilok, Marie went straight into town to get him.

meredith: he felt outraged that the eskimo wasn't being compensated.

Sebastian said, "that's not how it works."

And the man struck him across the face.

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scott: from that day on, Chacal became pipilok's manager.

Making matters worse, chacal decided That marie needed to be in the film.

qamaniq: I remember overhearing sebastian say to chacal, "what would she play, anyway?"

Chacal said, "she can play the [bleep] queen of the eskimos "for all I care, But she's going to be in the picture."

[soft classical music]

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scott: at that point, it was getting very difficult to sh**t.

Pipilok would only work four hours a day.

I mean, I was about to tell sebastian, "hey, I'm leaving."

And then the men came back from the hunt.

Remember them?

[dramatic bassoon music]

Now, sebastian had left pieces of his clothing In pretty much every igloo in the village, And I figured he was a dead man.

Sebastian had to leave in the dark of the night.

The women gave him some blankets and some food But assumed he would just die in the woods.

That was okay.

At first, it was fun for them To be sleeping with a fancy white man, But they told me he needed a lot of positive feedback sexually.

That got tiresome.

scott: when I realized sebastian had gone, I once again thought, "well, hey, that's it. End of that. I'm going home."

But then chacal approaches me, and he says, uh--he says, uh, "I want to speak to you about my client."

I say, "go ahead."

And he tells me that pipilok would like to direct.

I just laughed in his face.

But I tell you, what I saw next completely changed my mind.

Pipilok had put the camera on a sled.

I asked him what he was doing, and he explained That if that sled ran alongside the sled he was on, It would make for a more interesting sh*t.

And he was right, of course.

[harp flourish]

After we finished sh**ting, I slapped him on the back, And I told him He had just changed the way films were gonna be made.

And the next thing he said to me was so jarring, I had to have aglatki translate it twice.

"we can grab each other's asses later.

Let's make a film."

scott: there were more filmmaking innovations made In the next three days Than there were in the previous three years, I tell you.

qamaniq: pipilok felt strongly That the camera should see what he was seeing.

He kept calling it his point of view.

scott: he strapped the camera To the front of the sled, facing out.

We flipped it around so it was facing pipilok.

For the seal-hunting scene, He wanted the camera having the point of view of the seal.

I told him there was no way I was getting in the water with my camera.

He laughed at me, and he said, "we'll build a set."

And we did, and it was amazing, of course.

But no one knew that more than he did, I tell you.

I was on assignment With the bureau of american ethnography.

We were traveling across country, Interviewing indigenous people at the time.

I had just arrived at st. George When I heard a film was being sh*t.

I was intrigued, of course, and found my way to their set.

Pipilok wanted to record sound for the film, Not music but actual dialog.

I said, "pipilok, that's not how it works."

I explained who I was, and his eyes went wide.

I started immediately.

When pipilok fired marie, She was very surprised.

He told me he was making a film with realism and truth And that a white woman had no place in it.

qamaniq: marie had told chacal She had been fired from the film.

He came to the set to put pipilok straight.

[suspenseful music]

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Being a director turned him into a tyrant.

qamaniq: pipilok hired nuka to be his leading actress.

He wanted a sh*t of her holding a baby In such a way that the sun would hit her just right.

scott: pipilok didn't like the way nuka was doing it.

He kept telling her that it was artless.

He was very angry.

scott: he was becoming completely unglued.

He started working with his shirt off Despite the bitter cold, And when we asked him about it, He would say things like, "I am the cold.

"I am the northern wind.

I am kunuk."

And you have to remember his name wasn't kunuk.

It was pipilok.

[dramatic percussive music]

The day of the blizzard, I said, "well, he's not gonna sh**t."

And he did.

He kept yelling at us that we were cowards.

He was going out there with or without us.

He kept saying the blizzard would fix all of the--

What was the term?

The third-act problems.

Alexander said, "well, he's an eskimo.

At least he knows what he's doing."

And I remember thinking, "he's not an eskimo.

"he's an idiot.

He's gonna die."

[dramatic music]

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krauss: it was the worst storm in half a century.

Ships in the dock had been unmoored And lost to the sea.

He never stood a chance.

scott: we never found him or the camera, no.

But we had the film.

Thank god I had that film.

I kept the film.

How about that?

When barnabas left, he asked If there was anything he could do for me.

scott: what she wanted was an associate producer's credit.

I didn't know what that was, so I said yes.

I walked barnabas to the docks to wish him good-bye.

And while we were waiting for his ship, We were approached by the most filthy beggar.

scott: despite the beard and the hair, I knew it was sebastian immediately.

I mean, he was covered in feces, his own.

When I asked him why, he said, "to keep the wolves away."

I mean, he had really gone nuts.

krauss: barnabas cleaned him up And bought him a ticket home.

It's more than I would have done; I'll tell you that much.

scott: we returned home, And I tell you I was so excited For sebastian to see what pipilok had sh*t.

[sweeping music]

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And he hated it, Said it was too unsettling, Told me to burn it all, to burn it!

The only thing sebastian kept, of everything pipilok did, Was the name kunuk.

He liked the name kunuk.

[musical fanfare]

meredith: it was a hit.

When the film ended the opening night, People leapt to their feet And demanded they start it again from the beginning.

scott: there's no accounting for taste, is there?

Here was a film not a tenth as good As the one we could have showed them, And they ate it up.

Audiences-- they're [bleep] useless.

meredith: he didn't live long enough to enjoy his success.

He d*ed two weeks after the premiere With what the physician said was...

[sighs]

"all the gonorrhea."

He was a silly man.

Made a great film, though.

[gentle music]

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