Nanook of the North

Nanook of the North is a 1922 film credited as the first feature length documentary to achieve commercial success, proving the genre's financial viability and inspiring many films that followed; it was directed, filmed, edited and produced by Robert J. Flaherty and was added to the United States National Film Registry in 1989 as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. Its documentary status is complicated by extensive staging: Flaherty built a special three walled igloo to let enough light reach his camera for interior shots, scripted a scene in which his subject appears bewildered by a gramophone despite already knowing what it was, and had his subject hunt with traditional weapons rather than the gun he normally used. The film's central figure, credited on screen as Nanook, was actually named Allakariallak; Flaherty chose the more marketable screen name himself.