http://landscaping-ideas.the-mnm.info/

“No, I decidedly don’t agree about the alligator – precisely because Flaherty is not asking us here to see the revenge as justified. Sure, there’s an incursion of ‘action cinema’, but when Nanook hunts the seal or the Man of Aran pulls up – whatever it was he pulls up, I haven’t seen that yet – it’s a similar kind of action, the thrill of man against beast for its own sake. It’s not necessary for food in this case, so maybe the hunt isn’t so ‘morally acceptable’, but it’s just as much from impulse – to ‘revenge’ the raccoon, or to catch a big alligator, preferably all by himself, to prove himself and show off to the oilmen who spend most of the day fishing for not very much, or just for the excitement of it. Accepted but not approved: remember the earlier shot of the hatching alligator-egg: there too we’re with the boy and his instinctive reactions, and we know the two instincts are incompatible. It’s the irrational way we relate to animals. Incidentally the raccoon reappears if I recall.

I do agree about the packaging of capitalism; but sadly, and with hindsight. Flaherty still thinks that the oil rig can leave. In fact I don’t think you make enough of the fact that when we first see it (with its geometry etc etc) it’s moving. Was Flaherty being entirely disingenuous in suggesting that industry and nature could coexist, or did he genuinely believe it? Should he have blamed the family for being pleased to have a new saucepan?”