L'Éternel Silence, carnet de route du capitaine Scott

This film, shot from 1910-1912, is a documentary about Captain Robert Scott's journey to the South Pole. The Great White Silence (1924), is an incredible documentary, that carries the audience across the expanse of Antarctica to the South Pole. Title cards tell the story, as images of cold, treacherous landscapes glide past the screen. This is a great film to watch in January. The cold January days help emphasize the brutal conditions seen in the film. The film begins with the men loading their ship and setting across the southern hemisphere into the iceberg leaden waters of Antarctica.

I can take Antarctica off of my bucket list, because The Great White Silence (1924), showed me everything I'll ever need to know about Antarctica. The film is that good. It covers every aspect of the expedition from the route they took, the animals they brought along and a story, about the Penquins they saw, that started to get a little too lengthy. Think, March of the Penquins (2005), 1910 style. I can't imagine people doing this today, let alone 115 years ago. The fact that this film was even shot, recovered, edited together and released, is remarkable itself.

PMTM Grade: 8.7 (B+) = 8 IMDB.

British documentary detailing the ill-fated Antarctic exploration journey of Capt. Robert Scott, circa 1910. Filmmaker Herbert Ponting journeyed with the icebreaker ship from New Zealand south to Antarctica. He filmed the men aboard ship and the attendant hardships, as well as the ship in action tearing through the ice. Once on land, Ponting films the men as they prepare to head for the South Pole, as well as footage of the local fauna, such as seals and penguins. Ponting did not journey with Scott and his party for the Polar attempt, which is good considering how things turned out.

The footage is amazing, especially when one considers the technology of the time, and Ponting's editing and titlecard writing help form a true narrative arc. This is one of the 1001 Movies to See Before You Die. Recommended.

Explorer Robert Scott harbored high hopes of becoming the first person to reach Antartica's South Pole. Seeking private and public funding for the Terra Nova Expedition, Scott came up short of the monies to fully finance the exploration. He turned to photographer Herbert Ponting to bring still and moving cameras to record part of what later was called the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. The intention was to collate and present the trove of film once Scott accomplished his goal for the explorer to use during his fundraising lectures. Ponting recorded every highlight of the journey beginning with the expedition's departure from England in the summer of 1910.

The cameraman seemed to take pictures of everything that moved, from the Terra Nova ship slicing through the thick Antarctic ice to animals living on the icepack. He also recorded setting up the base camp as well as showing the transport of supplies throughout the route Scott and his team were going to take on their journey to the South Pole. After 14 months at Cape Evans, Ponting with eight others left in February 1912 just before Scott began his trip to the pole. He returned to England to get a jump start on the visuals when the explorer came back from his triumphant return.

Trouble was Scott was beaten to the South Pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his team by 34 days. Disheartened, Scott and his men trudged back before they were caught in a blizzard and perished. Ponting's photographs and snippets of his movies were made available to the public once the tragedy was known as a financial appeal to pay the bills for the expedition. The photographer then assembled his moving images and produced a dramatic documentary of the ill-fated trip. Since no camera crew accompanied Scott to the South Pole, Ponting filled in the blanks with reenacted painted images. He released "The Great White Silence" in 1924 to a curious English audience. Personally giving his recollections, Ponting continued his lecture circuit in 1933 when he inserted sound. Despite a North American series of lectures, the documentarian died in 1935 at his home in poverty.

The British Film Institute worked along with The Scott Polar Research Institute to restore the stunning "The Great White Silence," which has since gained critical praise, including its inclusion in '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' reference book.

The Great White Silence (1924) : Brief Review -

In one word, THRILLING! One of the greatest Storytelling I've ever seen for a documentary and One of those Documentaries you Must Watch before you die. When i saw Robert Flaherty's 'Nanook Of The North' (1922), i thought i am done watching great documentaries of old time. I had already heard about 'The Great White Silence' even then but i kept skipping it for some reasons and Today when i am done watching it, I feel ashamed of myself. Nanook Of The North wasn't the end, here is great next chapter in the documentaries world. So, it contains brief cinematograph sequences taken during the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910-1913. The principal filmmaker was photographer Herbert Ponting. The Terra Nova Expedition was an effort, by governments and concerned citizens of what was then the British Empire, to plant the Union Jack on the South Pole by means of men, ponies, dogs, and primitive snowmobiles hauling sledges from a base located on the Antarctic coastline. The documentary portrays expedition leader Robert Falcon Scott and his ship, the Terra Nova, and men as they leave Lyttelton, New Zealand, to sail into the Southern Ocean and its ice floes. This restored version (2011) was in so good quality and the background score was so thrilling that it looked better than many thriller genre classics of 40s and 50s decades. I was hooked to it, i didn't move for a second and i was so immersed into it that i forget i am watching a documentary that released 97 years ago. What a beautiful storytelling it was. The intertitles are so well written and has that narrative values to make a Normal footage as interesting as any feature film. This is a Must See stuff, no matter how old it is and what some duffers have to say in review. You better experience it yourself than making a choice after somebody's review (including mine).

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest.

The Great White Silence is a very interesting silent documentary about an expedition to the Antarctic back in the early 1910s, and the age of the footage and the documentary itself makes it all weirdly eerie and a bit sad. Maybe part of the sadness came from listening to Sigur Ros while watching this - I was trying to think of wintery music without lyrics, or with minimal vocals, and that band came to mind first. Their 2002 album simply known as "( )" paired well with the visuals on offer.

It's a pretty straightforward historical document, with many title cards being used throughout for context, and little by way of story. It almost didn't need any narrative - much of the documentary is just spent on wildlife and simply how human beings are to live in freezing cold conditions, and so eventually, I forgot about the whole expedition thing, until the film seemed to remember that was the point all of a sudden and then got back to covering it.

Some might find it all a bit boring, but I think for its time, this was pretty amazing, and for capturing so much footage on Antarctica from this long ago, I'd say The Great White Silence certainly has merit. It's a shame it falls into the Dambusters and H. P. Lovecraft camp of giving a pet a very racist name (that whole segment was more than a bit awkward), and I feel like they're also kind of mean to the animals (scaring a mother away from her newly-hatched chicks every hour to document their process of growing, and a "game" played with young penguins really just involves chasing/frightening them all over the place), but that's the 1910s for you, I guess. Speaking of the 1910s, it's crazy to think all this footage was shot before the Titanic disaster, and the director filmed plenty of icebergs.

Anyway, documentary fans should check this out. I feel like it's a classic/definitive title within the canon of documentary cinema.