Dawson City: Frozen Time

Bill Morrison, the director and writer of Dawson City Frozen Time, is my new hero. Through an odd set of circumstances he landed at the National Archives in Canada and learned about the stash of silent films discovered as part of a landfill site in the Yukon. Early films were made on highly flammable celluloid, and in a new industry (the first film was in 1895 in France) creating an archive was definitely not considered. So, discovering over 500 "lost" silent films from the early 1900's was like discovering gold all over again. (A gold rush was how the city of Dawson initially came into being !!) Mr. Morrison has woven together the story of silent film, the Klondike gold rush and the creation of a city. If you have the opportunity to see this film, please do so. I expect it is going to win a few awards !!

If you like this sort of thing... Photographs and snippets of film from the late 1890s lead to a wonderful series of films of very tough/hard people who encountered their own Bitcoin bubble in the shape of the Klondike gold rush. And there are some very interesting names in the history of this little gold rush town. It's a matter of taste but I am fascinated by films of long dead people who once thought they were at the forefront of civilization. Old time photos are good for imaginings, but films of people going about their business causes a lot more 'connectedness' between the viewer and the subjects. "I know someone who acts just like that!" We are presented with photos and film footage that makes one think "Deadwood" probably wasn't really such an exaggeration.

This is a must see documentary. It is a fascinating story of both the gold rush and the silent film era. As a film buff I was impressed by the story telling that included photos, film footage of that era and the film that was recovered in Dawson City. The music score blended perfectly with the story telling. This film has "Best Documentary" Oscar written all over it.

Frozen Time is a sophisticated documentary and an astonishing feat of film editing that combines still images and previously lost footage from the silent film era that was literally unearthed by archaeologists in Dawson City in 1978. Used as back-fill and buried for fifty years, over 500 reels of highly combustible nitrate film lay forgotten in an abandoned swimming pool, over which a hockey rink was constructed. Using clips from these restored films and newsreels, as well as early still images, Morrison retells the story of the 1890s Gold Rush and the history of Dawson City and its people within the context of world events (Klaus Ming December 2017).

A documentary that tries to do just a little too much. The story itself is fascinating - the discovery in 1978 of a trove of lost silent films preserved in the permafrost of Dawson City, Canada. To me, the 'star of the show' in the documentary needs to be the films, and I would have liked the focus to be there, after an introductory explanation of context. Instead, director Bill Morrison rewinds us all the way back through the history of Dawson, from its founding, the Yukon gold rush, and the subsequent changes to the town over the years. He also takes us through various news stories and social movements from the 1910's and 1920's, as they relate to footage that was discovered.

I like history and some of this was interesting to me, and at its best he matches photos to footage (for example, a socialist agitator being deported back to Russia). At its worst he gets into minutiae of Dawson's history, and instead of just showing some number of the silent films fragments themselves with explanation of the actors, attempts to match footage to what people in the present are talking about. For example, one of the discoverers of the trove says he had to call someone up to come have a look at it, so as he's describing that, we see footage of someone on the phone in an old movie. The background music is awfully eerie and odd in places too. It was interesting enough to watch and a lot of research and care went into the production, so depending on your interests, you may like it better.