Nanook of the North, The Wedding of Palo and Other Films of Arctic Life (1913-1959), black & white and color, 281 minutes total, not rated, including Nanook of the North (1922), black & white, 79 minutes, not rated, with Captain Kleinschmidt’s Arctic Life (1913), black & white, 15 minutes, not rated, Primitive Love (1927) [excerpts], black & white, 32 minutes, not rated, Dwellings of the Far North (1928), black & white, 11 minutes, not rated, The Wedding of Palo [Palos Brudefaerd] (1934), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, Eskimo Hunters of Northwest Alaska (1949), black & white, 20 minutes, not rated, Face of the High Arctic (1959), black & white, 14 minutes, not rated, and Nanook Revisited (Saumialuk) (1988), black & white, 64 minutes, not rated.

Flicker Alley, FA0028, UPC 6-17311-67809-7, ISBN 1-893967-80-8.
Two single-sided, dual-layered, Regions ABC Blu-ray Discs, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in pillarboxed 16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels) progressive scan AVC (MPEG-4) format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 29.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 192 Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 8-bit 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 15 chapter stops; standard two-disc BD keepcase; $44.95.
Release date: 19 March 2013.
Country of origin: USA

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from the 1972 35mm restoration print materials, from which many of today’s prints have sprung. The restoration was conflated from Robert Flaherty’s personal 35mm print which was struck from the original negative now held by the British Film Institute, and nitrate prints held by the Museum of Modern Art and the Royal Film Archive of Belgium, and fine-grain nitrate materials used to produced the 1946 sound rerelease. The materials themselves are very-good to almost excellent, with some footage surviving in slightly rougher form and some footage, which is sharper than the bulk of the print, is compromised by deep, nearly plugged up, shadow details. Additional digital restoration was done to balance the greyscale ranges of the various prints and to remove dust, speckling, processing flaws and print damage.

The results are very-good, with some differences in the amount of film grain which is generally less pronounced than in other silent films on recent high-resolution home video.

The film is accompanied by a small orchestra music score composed and compiled by Timothy Brock, who directed the Olympia Chamber Orchestra in 1998.

This edition of Nanook of the North is highly recommended as it has never looked better on home video.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Nanook of the North (1922), black & white, 79 minutes, not rated.

The Criterion Collection,
CC1549D, collection number 33, UPC 7-15515-00982-9.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles; 12 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $29.95.
Release date: 26 January 1999.
Country of origin: USA

Robert Flaherty (1922-1948), black & white, 278 minutes total, not rated, including Nanook of the North (1922), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, with Man of Aran (1934), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, The Land (1942), black & white, ? minutes, not rated, and Louisiana Story (1948), black & white, ? minutes, not rated.

Nanook of the North (1922), black & white, 55 minutes, not rated.