Closing the Loop on Never-Completed Robert Flaherty Film Shot at RISD

Back in the 1940s, renowned documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty—maker of such seminal films as Nanook of the North (1922), Moana (1926) and Man of Aran (1934)—was looking for a new project. The RISD Museum’s director at the time was Gordon Washburn, a relative of Flaherty’s, who approached him with the idea of making a piece about then RISD Professor John Howard Benson (designer of the RISD seal), an Old World–style craftsman who produced meticulous calligraphy and stone-carved lettering in his historical Newport, RI shop.

Flaherty traveled to Rhode Island and—with the help of a young cameraman named Ricky Leacock, who would go on to be a pioneer in the realms of direct cinema and cinéma verité—shot literally miles of 16-mm film depicting Benson in his shop, setting sail with his young children, cutting his own calligraphy quills, designing type and carving at his workbench for hours at a time. 

According to those involved in the project, the styles of the two creatives could not have been more different. Flaherty charged ahead on every project with no blueprint, feeling his way and leaving the scripting and editing to professionals hired after the fact like Helen van Dongen. Benson’s approach was almost puritanical in comparison. He worked slowly and carefully and considered wasting time to be a grievous offense.

After months of filming and more than 10 years spent arguing about what the film should be and who the intended audience was, the project was shelved. The budget had all been spent, and the two men were at an impasse that could not be crossed. The only thing to come from the many hours of footage was a nine-minute short called Cutting a Quill (which showed Benson doing exactly that) released in 1959, eight years after Flaherty’s death and three years after Benson’s.

Decades later, in 1976, a young film student at RISD, Rebecca J. Miller 78 FAV, discovered the lost footage in the RISD Museum and set out to make her own film about the project. Miller combined the material with her own footage: of Washburn, then living in New York, discussing his role in the project; of Leacock sharing his insights into Flaherty’s working style; of Benson’s widow, Esther Fisher Benson, who sadly recalled the failed project’s effect on her husband’s spirit.

Two years later, when Miller graduated from RISD, the project was once again shelved. Although she did complete her senior thesis project and earn her degree, Miller never finished her own film, and the weight of that lost opportunity nagged at her for years. “When I graduated, I put it all in a box and got a job with WJAR-TV 10 in Providence,” she recalls.

Then, in 2023, Brown University film study faculty member Regina Longo, then film archivist in Brown’s Modern Culture and Media department, began working with an even larger collection of materials from RISD’s archives. Her students organized the reels and other materials and, in Miller’s words, “brought the whole story back from the grave.”

Now, almost exactly 50 years after starting her film, Miller has completed the piece. Her 30-minute documentary, Robert Flaherty Look Again: The John Howard Benson Film (Optik Nerve) was officially released earlier this summer and will soon be making the rounds at documentary film festivals across the country.

At the premiere screening in RISD’s FAV Screening Room, Benson’s grandson—third-generation stonecutter and RISD Honorary Degree recipient Nicholas Benson HD 24—and his family; retired RISD faculty members Peter O’Neill MFA 73 FAV and Lindsay French; faculty member Winifred Lambrecht (who is interviewed in the film); Dean of Libraries Margot Nishimura; Library Director Aliza Leventhal; Alex Maxwell, one of Longo’s 2024 students who helped to resurrect the project; and other key players in the film’s revival gathered to watch the restored, never-before-seen Flaherty footage.

“The new documentary examines the approaches of the two artists to their work: the scripted, the ungoverned, the planned and the spontaneous,” says Miller. “My goal has always been to take a fresh look and bring their story back to life.”

Learn more on the film’s official website, including plans for an October screening at RISD.

Simone Solondz / images courtesy Rebecca Miller
July 23, 2025