Robert J. Flaherty

Flaherty went on to co-direct the narrative feature "White Shadows of the South Seas" (1928) with W.S. Van Dyke and to collaborate with F.W. Murnau on "Tabu" (1931), though he withdrew from both projects before completion. In 1931 he immigrated to England, where he exerted a significant influence on John Grierson and the British "social documentary" movement of the 1930s. Flaherty's best-known British film was "Man of Aran" (1934), a lyrical study of an Irish fisherman and his daily struggle for survival. Flaherty later returned to the US and made two more highly acclaimed documentaries, "The Land" (1942), for the US Information Service, and "Louisiana Story" (1948), for Standard Oil.