Man of Aran

Man of Aran (1934)

A documentary on the life of the people of the Aran Islands, who were believed to contain the essence of the ancient Irish life, represented by a pure uncorrupted peasant existence centred around the struggle between man and his hostile but magnificent surroundings. A blend of documentary and fictional narrative, the film captures the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands.

Date of release
1934-05-06
TMDB
7.3 / 10 (56)
Runtime
1h 16m
Genres
Documentary, Drama
Director
Robert Flaherty

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Aran Islands

Man of Aran is a 1934 Irish fictional documentary (ethnofiction) film shot, written and directed by Robert J. Flaherty about life on the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland. It portrays characters living in premodern conditions, documenting their daily routines such as fishing off high cliffs, farming potatoes where there is little soil, and hunting for huge basking sharks to get liver oil for lamps. Some situations are fabricated, such as one scene in which the shark fishermen are almost lost at sea in a sudden gale. Additionally, the family members shown are not actually related, having been chosen from among the islanders for their photogenic qualities.

Production

Stung by criticism that British films were flaccid imitations of those being produced in Hollywood, Michael Balcon of Gaumont British hired the acclaimed writer/director Robert Flaherty and his wife Frances (Nanook of the North (1922), Moana (1926), Elephant Boy (1937), The Land (1942), Louisiana Story (1948)) to prove the British film industry's cultural excellence as well as commercial success.

Like most 1930s documentaries, Man of Aran was shot as a silent film. The intermittent voices, the sound effects, and music are only accompaniments to the visuals and not considered integral to the production. Paul Rotha in Documentary Film says, "Man of Aran avoided all important issues raised by sound".

Flaherty continued to experiment with cinematography especially the long focal lens that he first used in Nanook. He used a variety of lens sizes, even a seventeen-inch long lens, which was twice the size of the camera. He used a spring driven camera that "was simpler in operation than any I have seen and not much heavier to carry than a portable typewriter".

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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