“Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?” and Nanook of the North

Today begins the tenth anniversary of Today‘s annual program “Where In the World Is Matt Lauer?” This is perhaps my all-time favorite segment of the Today show, and here’s why:

• It’s interactive! During the cold open, Matt always offers the viewer a clue/riddle about where he might be. This year, producers are even dropping hints on Twitter.
• It’s informative! e.g., Water is so scarce in Namibia, women have learned to bathe in smoke! Also, people there ski and snowboard on sand dunes! Whaaaa?
• It’s always, always breathtakingly shot! Just look at this video of today’s show from Namibia (fabulous!) or check out this colorful slideshow of Matt’s journeys from the past decade.

My love for all this globe-trotting, I’ve come to realize, derives from my interest in documentary films. In my introductory cinema classes, I only have three hours to teach documentaries, but it’s three hours I always look forward to. Seeing the looks on the students’ faces when they discover the “truth” about March of the Penguins (2005) or Religulous (2008) — that it’s a mediated reality or as our film textbook puts it, a “non-narrative film that presents presumably real objects, persons, and events, from sensational news to everyday routines” (258).

For first-timers, I like to emphasis that word presumably. Yes, it freaks out students and subsequently pisses them off; but now, they’re equipped to analyze critically any documentary, History Channel fare, local news story, or reality TV show. Then, after everyone’s properly fired up, we discuss Nanook of the North, a silent documentary to which Matt Lauer owes a great deal of gratitude. After all, he’s essentially riding its coattails.

Almost 100 years ago, American explorer and filmmaker Robert Flaherty trekked to Northern Quebec to document the lifestyle of the Inuits (Eskimos). This year-long excursion and gobs of film footage would ultimately become the first feature-length documentary ever made, Nanook of the North (1922).

As your cinema history professor likely beat into your head, Nanook of the North is a ground-breaking film. It was the first of its kind to allow viewers actual insight into a foreign world, a culture drastically different from their own. Moreover, Nanook is considered the first ethnographic documentary since it was the first to reveal a people in their most authentic terms via social rituals and cultural habits. For example, in the film, the Inuits — including the primary subjects, Nanook, his wife, Nyla, and their children — are shown hunting, fishing, building kayaks, starting fires, constructing igloos, and playing with their dogs. For the most part, these customs are depicted accurately, but as many have pointed out over the years, some are not. For instance, rather than allowing Inuit hunters to wield a nearby shotgun to shoot a walrus, Flaherty insists they use a harpoon, which although keeping with the romantic feel of the film, put all of the men in considerable danger. Additionally, Nanook’s real name isn’t Nanook but Allariallak, Nyla is not his wife, and at the time, some kayaks had motors even though Flaherty depicts them with paddles.

Despite its few staged events and name changes, Nanook of the North “blazed cinematic trails,” as this Criterion Collection essay puts it. Indeed, the silent film portrays an exotic culture that many contemporary viewers had never seen, films from a distant location rather than a facsimile with actors and props on a studio set, and shows many traditional Inuit customs with accuracy. This is something that, with a shorter timeline yet more resources, Matt Lauer and the producers of Today have attempted and arguably succeeded in doing with “Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?” Sure, some of the events are reenactments, some “facts” are apparently embellished, and some locations, it seems, are tailored to Lauer’s individual interests (e.g., skiing in the Swiss alps, proposing to his fiancee on a Venetian gondola). But overall, the program follows closely in the footsteps of Nanook, bringing to the masses other cultures, customs, and worlds.

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