Flaherty << FLAH uhr tee >>, Robert Joseph (1884-1951), was a pioneer American filmmaker. He is considered the father of documentary motion pictures. Flaherty became noted for his treatment of the lives of isolated peoples in the silent films Nanook of the North (1922) and Moana (1926) and in the sound film Man of Aran (1934). His short film The Land (1942) showed the effects of erosion. Louisiana Story (1948) portrayed the impact of the discovery of oil on a poor family that lived in the bayous of Louisiana.
Flaherty was born on Feb. 16, 1884, in Iron Mountain, Michigan. He codirected the feature films White Shadows of the South Seas (1927) with W. S. Van Dyke, Tabu (1931) with F. W. Murnau, and Elephant Boy (1937) with Zoltan Korda. Flaherty’s wife, Frances Hubbard Flaherty, worked on several of his documentaries. Flaherty died on July 23, 1951.
