Carney, James (2012) Homo Hibernicus : myth, ethnography and nationalism in Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran. Studies in Documentary Film, 6 (1). pp. 61-79. ISSN 1750-3280
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Why did Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran resonate so strongly with the cultural milieu of 1930s Ireland? I argue that Flaherty's documentary, despite its mimetic intentions, has, in fact, the semiotic form of a foundation myth. A consequence of this, I suggest, was that Flaherty's film would have been instrumental in activating nationalist narratives of self-determination and colonial oppression that were then current in the nascent Irish State. Additionally, a subsidiary (and related) goal of my discussion is to show, by way of Flaherty's film, that the documentary form is no less structured by normative cultural codes than its fictional counterparts.