Stubs - Moana (1926)

Moana. A Romance of the Golden Age (1926) starring Ta’avale Uni, Fa’amgase Súa-Filo, Pe’a Taulealea, Tu’ungaita. Directed by Robert J. Flaherty and Frances Hubbard Flaherty. Produced by Robert J. and Frances Hubbard Flaherty. Written by Robert J. and Frances Hubbard Flaherty. Black and White. Run time: 98 minutes. USA. Silent with sound, Documentary

If you ever wondered where the term "documentary" comes from, you need look no further than a contemporary review of this film. Scottish filmmaker, film theorist, and critic John Grierson, writing for The New York Sun under the name “The Moviegoer”, coined the term in his review on February 8, 1926, the day after Moana opened. Grierson is considered by many to be the father of British and Canadian documentary film. Despite that, many view the film as more docufiction.

Following the success of Nanook of the North, Paramount sent Robert J. Flaherty to Samoa to capture the traditional life of the Polynesians on film. Flaherty lived with his wife and collaborator Frances H. Flaherty and their three daughters, including Monica Flaherty, in Samoa for more than a year. Flaherty reportedly arrived with 16 tons of filmmaking equipment. This included both a regular movie camera and a Prizma color camera, as Flaherty hoped to film some footage in that color process, but the Prizma color camera malfunctioned. The Prizma color system was invented in 1913 by William Van Doren Kelley and Charles Raleigh.

Director Robert Flaherty.

Despite not having color, Moana was the second feature shot in panchromatic black-and-white film rather than orthochromatic. Panchromatic is an emulsion that is sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, and is used typically for black and white. Most modern commercially available film is panchromatic, and the technology is usually contrasted with earlier methods that cannot register all wavelengths, especially orthochromatic film, which has an emulsion that is sensitive to only blue and green light but not red light.

As with Nanook of the North, Flaherty went well beyond recording the life of the people of Samoa as it happened. He followed his usual procedure of "casting" locals whom he considered potentially photogenic performers into "roles", including creating fictitious family relationships.

He also on occasion set up scenes in which exotic earlier practices were reenacted as if still current. When he arrived in Samoa, locals were typically wearing modern Western-style clothing under the influence of Christian missionaries. However, Flaherty convinced them to don traditional tapa cloth costumes (made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree, in a process shown in some detail in the film); and the "maidens" went topless.

A "maiden" as depicted in Moana.

They arrived in Samoa in April 1923 and stayed until December 1924. Filming began in May 1923 and the film was completed in December 1925. The film premiered at the Rialto Theatre, New York on February 7, 1926 as “Moana: The Love Life of a South Sea Siren.”

Set in the village of Safune on Savai'i Island, Western Samoa, the film records, in documentary fashion, the fictionalized daily life of the male protagonist, Moana (Ta’avale Uni). Fa'amgase (Fa'amgase Súa-Filo), a maiden, Moana’s younger brother Pe'a (Pe’a Taulealea) and Moana's mother Tu’ungaita (Tu’ungaita) gather leaves; her son Moana collects taro roots.

Pe'a (Pe’a Taulealea) helps gather food for the family.

Later, Moana, Pe'a, and their father Lupenga (Lupenga Tau’ili’ili) set a snare for the only dangerous animal on the island, a wild boar. When it is captured, the boar is dispatched.

Fishing and swimming scenes follow: Moana, Pe'a and Lupenga in an outrigger canoe.

Moana (Ta’avale Uni), his brother Pe'a and their father Lupenga (Lupenga Tau’ili’ili) in the outrigger.

Moana dives in to spear fish. Fa’amgase gathers giant clams in the shallows.

Fa'amgase and Moana flirt as Fa'amgase eats a live fish.

What follow are a series of scenes, including Tu’ungaita and Fa’amgase prepare a lavalava, a traditional Polynesian garment made of a single rectangular piece of fabric wrapped around the waist and worn like a skirt or kilt from mulberry bark.

Pe'a climbs a tall palm tree and throws the coconuts down to Moana.

Further swimming scenes: Moana, Pe'a and Lupenga capture a sea turtle and bring it ashore to admire its beauty.

Moana and Lupenga attempt to fish along the rocky shore with crashing waves.

Pe'a starts a fire and smokes a “robber” crab out of its coral rock lair. Moana's mother and all prepare food - breadfruit, fish, taro, bananas and coconut custard - for a feast.

At day's end, Fa’amgase anoints Moana with oils and puts flowers in his hair; they dance. Moana is a fine Siva dancer.

Moana showing his dance moves after being oiled up by Fa’amgase.

The ancient rite of male passage commences: Moana is tattooed by Tufuga, using ancient means, like needles made from bone. It is clear that Moana is in pain during the ritual. The men of the village dance and sing "Courage to Moana!"

Moana goes through a painful tattoo process for the film.

The village chiefs prepare and drink kava, a beverage made from ground roots, known to calm muscles and enhance mild moods.

Following the three-week tattoo ordeal, Moana and Fa’amgase dance in nuptial dress with a view of mountains and clouds in background.

Fa'amgase (Fa'amgase Súa-Filo) and Moana dance their nuptuals.

Screenings of the still unfinished film began in May 1925. In the Spring of 1925, New York World stated: “Moana had no titles and was cut 2,000 feet more when [first] I saw it. Yet, as it was, it must be the best motion picture ever made…the photography is without parallel.” In January 1926, Film Digest asserted it rare for its “artistic effect,” and declared that with Moana, “a new art form is revealed.”

I’ve read different reports as to how well the film did at the box office. Moana broke box-office records at the Rialto Theatre in New York City for both Sunday and Monday showings, grossing $6,100 on the previous Sunday, and $3,100 on Monday. However, it is also reported that it was a failure at the box office.

 

The version of the film, which I viewed, is known as Moana With Sound. This version originated with the youngest daughter of the Flahertys, Monica, who was three when the family moved to Samoa to make the film.

In 1975, Monica Flaherty returned to Savai'i to create a soundtrack for the film, including recording ambient sounds of village life, dubbed Samoan dialogue and traditional singing. With the help of filmmakers Jean Renoir and Richard Leacock, the film was finished in 1980 and shown in Paris in 1981. However, the film’s visual quality had suffered. This version used Monica’s 16 mm copy of the film, as the original negative no longer existed. The result left much to be desired. This version was not released, not because of the visual quality, but because Monica and Paramount did not reach an agreement on the proceeds.

However, the story doesn’t stop there. Bruce Posner, a film preservationist, and Finnish filmmaker Sami van Ingen, a great-grandson of the Flahertys, using the best surviving 35 mm copies of the film to prepare, with the assistance of restorer Thomas Bakels, a digitally restored print on which was matched to Monica’s soundtrack by sound expert Lee Dichter. The restored "Moana with Sound" was shown at the New York Film Festival on September 30, 2014.

The criticism that the film is more docufiction than documentary is emphasized in the coming-into-manhood ritual in which Ta’avale Uni underwent a painful traditional Samoan tattoo. Flaherty found that living off the land and the ocean in Samoa was comparatively easy, leaving limited scope to draw on his favored theme of "Man against Nature" as he had in Nanook. In order to bring some drama to the film, he had them recreate the tattoo ritual, which they had stopped doing. Apparently, Ta’avale Uni required a generous compensation.

You’re not really seeing how Samoans lived at the time Flaherty made the film, but rather a staged version of what his audience would come to think is how they lived. He recreates a past in order to romanticize life for the people of Samoa.

To be honest with you, the visuals of the restored version are beautiful. It’s hard to believe that you’re watching film shot over 100 years ago. I put that down to the Posner restoration. On a purely aesthetic scale, seeing it much as it was seen in public for the first time as it might have been in 1926 is a little awe-inspiring. The film was released long before we had mass communication, so an audience watching Moana would definitely believe this was a true depiction of life in the South Seas.

The soundtrack, to be honest, is sometimes more of a distraction than an enhancement. You hear Samoan being spoken but often don’t know what they’re saying, and it’s hard to know if the native songs being sung are appropriate for what is being depicted on the screen. The experience of watching a silent film is somewhat negatively impacted.

Overall, I didn’t find the film to be all that engaging. A synopsis is good to tell you what happened in the film, but while you’re watching it, it’s hard to gauge what is happening. I think more interstitial title cards or subtitles, in the restored sound version, might have allowed me into what was going on. As an example, you see Moana and Fa’amgase together but you don’t get a real sense they’re in love, but more just put together to tell a story. Again, title cards would have helped.

Also, much of the film is told in static shots, as if once the camera is set, it couldn’t be moved. As an example, during the tattoo sequence, which we’re told took three weeks, more variety in the chosen shots would have been better. Perhaps that was okay for contemporary audiences, but it’s unengaging for modern ones, who expect more fluidity in shots.

This is a film that only people who love documentaries would probably enjoy. It is historic, I’ll grant you, and the film for which the word "documentary" was invented. But even then, you have to know going in that it’s more docufiction than a true depiction of life in Samoa in 1926. That said, the film would have some influence on the Disney animated and live action films of the same name. Moana, which means “ocean”, “sea” or “deep water”, was transitioned from a boy’s name in the documentary to one for a teenage girl in the Disney films.