The Land, the least typical, least known, and most controversial of Robert Flaherty's films, depicts a vast and vague territory across the southern and midwestern United States. Here, in the period between the Depression's end and the beginning of World War II, abandoned farmhouses lined dusty roadways, and forgotten farm people had almost ceased to hope for a better life. On the face of it, The Land might have become the earthly counterpart to Pare Lorentz's The River, easily the best known and most widely praised American documentary film. But as it turned out, The Land pleased few people, least of all Flaherty himself.