5 January 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Sir Ernest Shackleton, who died while embarking on another expedition. His death in 1922 is said to mark the end of the “heroic age” of Antarctic exploration. 2022 is also the centenary of Britain’s first attempt to summit Mount Everest. The BFI’s To the Ends of the Earth season explores tales of human hardship and endurance focusing on extreme environments such as the poles and high altitudes. I spent my Sunday at the BFI Southbank watching two films from this season.
South: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Glorious Epic of the Antarctic (1919)
South is the film, photographed and filmed by Frank Hurley, of Shackleton’s famous Endurance expedition of 1914-1916, during which the ship was crushed by ice, leaving Shackleton and five of his men to embark on a risky journey to South Georgia in a lifeboat. Today it is considered the world’s first documentary feature, and has been restored for the centenary with a new score by Neil Brand.
The film is engrossing and rather magical, with moving footage of the key players in the expedition, the journey to Antarctica, exercising the dogs and life on the ice. Once the men have to abandon the ship there is no more video footage until Shackleton reaches South Georgia, but vivid photographs take their place. Watching this film, I feel incredibly glad that Hurley insisted the negatives be saved when so much else was abandoned.
The Red Tent (Krasnaya palatka) (1969)
I’d never heard of this intriguing film, which looks at the 1928 Italia airship disaster by means of a series of ghosts haunting Commander Nobile, the leader of the expedition, later in life. Peter Finch plays Nobile and none other than Sean Connery plays Roald Amundsen, who went missing trying to rescue the stranded crew. The film was gripping and very well-made – it really evoked the frozen wastes of the Arctic. There was definitely some artistic licence taken in the reenactment of events, but it was broadly based on fact, and was an interesting examination of what makes a leader.