The Film “Man of Aran”, Essay Example

The film “Man of Aran” was dubbed in English rather than in Irish because the director of the film, Robert J. Flaherty, is an English citizen. Therefore in this fictional documentary, he presents the living conditions of the people living on the Aran Islands from a biased point of view. Anthropologists term the tendency for an individual to study another culture while assuming their own culture’s rules should apply as ethnocentrism. Since the goal of the film was to ultimately entertain English speaking people, Flaherty chose to have his actors speak in his native language to ensure that the film would be successful. Despite the lack of authenticity that the movie held pertaining to the language used, the film itself appeared accurate for both its setting and time period.

I agree that one of the reasons that Flaherty wanted the film to be in English is to reach a broader audience. A lot of people don’t enjoy reading subtitles when they watch movies, and while avoiding accuracy results in an unauthentic style, doing so allowed this documentary to be accessible to English speaking people all over the world. I also agree that Flaherty attempted to remain authentic in the sense that the English speaking that occurred in the film was not emphasized. It would have been challenging to complete the filming in Irish, and it is helpful that the actors in the film were very talented and able to convey the message of the story through their actions rather than their words. It think this film would have been less effective if more speaking took place, and about equally effective if the language used was Irish rather than English.