The Cinematic Race to the South Pole At BFI Southbank in March 2012

 

2012 marks the centenary of the death of famed Antarctic explorer Captain Scott. In commemoration, BFI Southbank presents three specially curated programmes of archive material that presents the cinematic record of the race for the South Pole. Audiences will be offered another opportunity to see the BFI National Archive’s critically acclaimed major restoration of The Great White Silence (1924) that charts Captain Robert Scott’s fateful last expedition that will be packaged with a selection of rarely seen news footage of the expedition from 1912-13.

 

The programme also focuses on two other of the important figures in Antarctic exploration of the era, Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundesen. Frank Hurley’s extraordinary South (1919) documents Shakleton’s final expedition that will be screened alongside rare footage of the expedition and the huge crowds that gathered for his lying in state in Uruguay, whilst the National Library of Norway’s restoration of the almost unknown expedition footage of the man who first reached the Pole, Roald Amundsen, will be presented alongside a further selection of archive material from the less-well-known expeditions of the Scots, the Australians and the Japanese that will offer an unrivalled insight into many of the trials and triumphs of Antarctic exploration in the early 20th Century.

 

The ‘heroic era’ of Antarctic exploration – from the 1890s to the death of Shackleton in 1922 – coincided with the development of filmmaking practice and the rise of commercial cinema. Many polar explorers saw potential in using this new technology and their sponsors saw the huge entertainment value of such a record. The story of these films has as much to tell us about the development of the film business as it does about the extraordinary achievements of the first polar explorers and their pioneering cameramen.

 

On the release of The Great White Silence in 1924 The Times wrote: ‘One of the greatest achievements of the Kinematograph to-date has been to make Captain Scott’s expedition imperishable. The story of Scott’s death will, of course, be told as long as the English language is spoken, but it is wonderful to think also that 100 or 500 years hence future generations will be able to see this pictorial record and gaze upon Scott and his comrades trudging over the ice to glorious death. It is to be hoped that Mr Ponting’s own share in obtaining this record for posterity will not be overlooked’. The restoration of Ponting’s silent film goes a long way to achieving that wish; appropriately, just as his original camera negatives head back to sub-zero temperatures in the BFI’s new vaults.