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A posed photograph of one of Scott’s sledging parties. There would have been little room in the tent for everything, but the cooker’s heat was always welcome. Photograph by Herbert Ponting, February 1911.
Sledging rations (per day)
6 THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE
ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION AND FILM
by Luke McKernan
In his account of the list of equipment taken on board the Nimrod as it set sail for Antarctica in 1907, Ernest Shackleton concludes with a novel addition and explains its possible uses: ‘We took also with us a cinematograph machine in order that we might place on record the curious movements and habits of the seals and penguins, and give the people at home a graphic idea of what it means to haul sledges over the ice and snow.’
This is a strikingly cautious assessment of the value of a motion-picture record, and it indicates in a number of ways the particular apprehension over the role of the cinematograph that came to characterise its use in the ‘heroic’ era of polar exploration. In sharp contrast, just a few years later the words of King George V after seeing Herbert Ponting’s film of the Scott expedition reveal an overwhelming belief in the power of motion pictures: ‘I wish that every British boy could see this film. The story should be known to all the youth of the Nation, for it will help to foster the spirit of adventure on which the Empire was founded.’ The two visions of the Antarctic exploration film given here – one the suggestion of possible light entertainment, the other professing a belief that such a film expressed a special adventurous and noble spirit – were central to the production and exhibition of Antarctic exploration films during the comparatively short period of their existence.
The classical era of polar exploration and the start of motion pictures took place at almost exactly the same time. Motion-picture films, projected on a screen, became known to the public in 1896 and they rapidly spread the world over. Film was developing primarily as an entertainment medium but its value as a tool for scientific discovery was appreciated in some corners in the 1890s. Dr Doyen, a French surgeon, filmed his operations; German botanist Wilhelm Pfeffer used time-lapse photography to record plant growth; Cambridge ethnologist AC Haddon took a cine-camera on his pioneering trip to the Torres Straits; and it was reported that Carsten Borchgrevink’s expedition to Antarctica was going to take a Newman & Guardia 35mm camera, ushering in the age of the polar film.
There is no evidence, however, that the expedition’s photographer, Louis Bernacchi, used the cine-camera, nor is there any record of such films being exhibited. All that exists on film today is a single shot of the expedition’s financier, publisher Sir George Newnes, bidding them farewell – a record made by a commercial film company. Film was in its infancy as a medium of record. Film technology was still being developed and standardised, although the Newman camera selected by Borchgrevink was already noted for its dependability and a later model would be the choice of Herbert Ponting. Most films in the 1890s were no more than a minute in length and thought of as ‘animated photographs’ rather than as something with duration or great documentary value. A film record therefore played no part in Scott’s 1901 Discovery expedition but by the time Shackleton set sail for Antarctica in August 1907, the film industry, and more importantly film exhibition, had moved on considerably.
The film of Shackleton’s 1907–1909 expedition, when he came to within 156km (97 miles) of the Pole and returned home a national hero, is not known to survive. Although this film only covered activity at the base camp and did not follow Shackleton and his team on their journey south, it was nevertheless a substantial record. Dr Eric Marshall, the expedition’s surgeon, cartographer and novice cine-cameraman, shot more than 1,220 metres (4,000 feet) of film (approximately 70 minutes), which was shown extensively over Britain on Shackleton’s return, sometimes accompanying his own lectures and sometimes exhibited in its own right as Nearest the South Pole. Films in 1909 could now be much longer but, crucially, there were more places, and places of a suitable nature, in which to show them. There were no cinemas in the 1890s, when films were first shown. Instead, they were exhibited as part of theatre variety programmes, in photographic salons or on fairgrounds. As the medium developed and became progressively popular, special auditoria designed solely for films began to be built and 1909 was at the start of a great boom in the construction of cinemas in Britain. Shackleton’s films were a success primarily because of his popularity but also because there existed the means of exhibiting them to a wide audience.
Films of travel and exploration were becoming popular as audiences came to see the world around them brought to the local cinema and were told of the thrilling exploits involved in bringing such pictures to the screen. The Shackleton film therefore appears to have been a commercial success (something that would soon grow to become a major consideration in Antarctic expeditions to come) but its value as a record was probably minimal. The public may have discovered the ‘curious movements and habits of seals and penguins’ and may have been a little wiser about what it took to haul a sledge, but Marshall’s film probably had little further real documentary value. However, two photographers would emerge whose skills and vision matched the grand expeditions on which they found themselves: Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley.
Men dressed in polar furs advertising one of Shackleton’s lantern-slide lectures, December 1909. In total, Shackleton undertook at least 123 public lectures on two continents about the Nimrod expedition.
Herbert Ponting was a masterly photographer. His work in Japan in the 1900s alone would have won him a worthy note in photographic history, had he not joined Scott’s 1910– 1912 expedition, where he was to produce some of the most enduring images of polar exploration. What is remarkable is that his skills should likewise so readily have transferred to the cine-camera. Ponting had never used one before but film historian Kevin Brownlow has given him the highest accolade by declaring that ‘Herbert Ponting was to the expedition film what Charles Rosher [Mary Pickford’s cameraman] was to the feature picture – a photographer and cinematographer of unparalleled artistry’. Ponting’s skill in picture composition was evident from his earlier photographic work, but he also brought a dramatic sense to the filming from his experience as a lecturer. Throughout the Scott expedition, Ponting imagined how he would present such scenes to an audience back home and selected, composed and arranged his material accordingly. Scott himself humorously coined the verb ‘ponting’ and ‘to pont’ to describe being ‘directed’ for the benefit of the camera. Ponting had also thought ahead when it came to his film’s commercial value. An agreement was drawn up assigning 40 per cent of the profits to the expedition, 40 per cent to the company producing and distributing the film (Gaumont), and 20 per cent to Ponting.
The Prestwich 35mm cine-camera used by Herbert Ponting on Scott’s 1910 expedition. In 1924 the footage was used to create The Great White Silence, a film commemorating Scott and his expedition.
The release structure of Ponting’s films was determined by the nature of the expedition and a need to keep up audience interest over the two years that it would take. Ponting joined the Terra Nova in New Zealand in November 1910 with both a Prestwich and a Newman-Sinclair cine-camera whose manufacturer, Arthur S Newman, had given him intensive instruction in its use and had added special ebonite fittings to prevent Ponting’s fingers from freezing to it. He also took an initial 15,000 feet (4, 572m) of negative film, 8,000 feet (2,438m) of which he had shot and developed on site before the Terra Nova returned to New Zealand from the Antarctic in January 1911. This film was delivered to Britain and edited by Gaumont into a 2,000-foot (610m) release, lasting around 30 minutes and entitled With Captain Scott, R. N. to the South Pole. This was first shown in November 1911.
This postcard advertised the original 1911–1912 film instalments, using Ponting’s footage, released before it was known that Scott and his companions had died.
Ponting’s second batch of film was released by Gaumont as the ‘second series’, und
er the same title, in two 1,500-foot (457m) parts, which were first shown in September and October 1912, respectively. They featured the final scenes of the Polar Party, including sequences where they demonstrated sledge-hauling and life inside their tent. By this time, of course, Scott and his final four companions were all dead and, though their bodies were not found until November 1912, news of Amundsen’s success in winning the race to the Pole dented the film’s commercial appeal. Ponting then began to devote his life to the promotion of the Scott legend and to recouping the investment he made in 1914, when he purchased all rights in the film from Gaumont for £5,000. This he did against a waning audience interest and much of the bitterness of his later years was due to the public’s insufficient awe at the story, which he progressively built up and romanticised, as the Scott tragedy evolved into myth.
The film came to be released in a bewildering variety of forms. Originally it had been three short films, each around 30 minutes long. These were re-edited and released in America in 1913, after Scott’s death had been reported, as The Undying Story of Captain Scott. Ponting then constantly lectured with the films, giving a Royal Command performance in May 1914 (where he elicited the comments by King George V, already quoted) and then throughout the First World War, emphasising the call to patriotic sacrifice but now to dwindling audiences. In 1924 Ponting re-edited the films once more as a feature-length documentary, The Great White Silence, which followed on from the 1921 publication of his book The Great White South. This version, which exists today (while the original 1911/1912 releases do not), was 7,300 feet long (2,225m) – that is, of around two hours’ duration – and was released by the New Era company. Reviews were complimentary, marvelling at the hardships endured and praising both the film’s patriotic virtues and ‘extremely clever studies of Antarctic life’, while pointing out that the final scenes were, of necessity, heavily dependent on still pictures, diagrams and subtitles. Scott’s adventures were already of another age and the film was not a notable success.
‘Ponko’, a toy penguin named from Ponting’s expedition nickname. Designed by him, based on his studies and photographs of Adélie penguins, they were made to promote The Great White Silence and are among the earliest examples of film merchandise.
Ponting failed in his subsequent attempts to sell his films to the nation, an appropriate film archiving body not existing at that time, and in 1933 he produced a sound version of them entitled 90° South, again released by New Era and lasting 75 minutes. Ponting himself provided this film’s commentary, and years of lecturing to its images are evident in his polished and succinct words. This time the reviews were more enthusiastic, as reviewers newly aware of the documentary as an art form rightly praised Ponting’s skill in it. But Ponting’s problem, and that of any of the polar exploration films, was in attracting a mass cinema audience that was primarily interested in the escapism of fiction. Appeals to patriotism have never been enough when it comes to selling a film to the public. Ponting was a great film-maker but he invested too much faith (and too much money) in his Antarctic footage and remained with it too long. However, his film survives in its 1924 (silent) and 1933 (sound) versions and, with the passing of time, it grows in stature as one of the certain masterpieces of documentary in the earliest years of cinema.
The other great figure in Antarctic cinematography is Frank Hurley. Hurley was an Australian who had begun to build up a local reputation as a picture-postcard photographer of initiative and style, when he persuaded Douglas Mawson, veteran of Shackleton’s 1907–1909 expedition, to take him as the photographer and cinematographer on Mawson’s own first Antarctic venture in 1911. This expedition landed at Commonwealth Bay in January 1912 and eventually divided into two parties. Hurley joined Bob Bage and Eric Webb to secure an accurate position for the South Magnetic Pole, while Mawson went eastwards with the ill-fated Lieutenant Belgrave ‘Cherub’ Ninnis and Dr Xavier Mertz. Ninnis died by falling into a crevasse and Mertz probably from vitamin-A poisoning caused by eating dog livers. Hurley discovered all the virtues of Antarctic filming – the tonal values of the ice-bound landscape, the sharp southern light and the exotic animal life – and its many disadvantages: these included the agonies of threading the film or operating a hand-turned camera with frostbitten fingers, the need to melt huge blocks of ice in the developing process, and the constant need to keep the equipment clean and in working order.
Hurley posing with his camera and cine-camera. The photographic equipment taken by Ponting and Hurley was bulky and heavy, limiting where they could travel. However, their photographs and films opened the Antarctic to a new audience. Unknown photographer, January 1915.
In total, Hurley recorded the departure from Hobart in the Aurora, the journey south, wildlife at Macquarie Island and Cape Denison, the 600-mile (965km) trek to locate the South Magnetic Pole and the desperate return, with both Bage and Hurley afflicted by snowblindness. Hurley had recorded Mawson, Ninnis and Mertz in their tent prior to their departure but later had to leave in the Aurora before he knew of the fate of Mawson’s party. Only Mawson survived but was forced to spend another winter in the Antarctic ice, while the Aurora (compelled by conditions to return home rather than rescue the others at that time) returned to Australia. The expedition’s finances did not allow for a second relief voyage and Hurley’s film, swiftly released by West’s Pictures in July 1913 as Life in the Antarctic, both proved greatly popular and helped raise much of the money needed to fund the rescue of Mawson and his men later in the year. The finished film, which Hurley later retitled Home of the Blizzard after Mawson’s book of the expedition, was some 4,500 feet long (1,372m), lasting 75 minutes. It was also screened in Britain, thereby ensuring Hurley’s presence on the next Antarctic expedition, that of Sir Ernest Shackleton.
Hurley’s participation in Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1916 in fact enabled it to go ahead. Shackleton was only able to complete the necessary financing when he secured a deal with a Fleet Street syndicate that put forward the money in return for press, photographic and cinematograph exhibition rights. Hurley was an essential part of this deal, as his Mawson film and an exhibition of his photographs had made a strong impression in Britain. Shackleton’s aim was to cross Antarctica via the South Pole from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. His ship, the Endurance, however, became stuck fast in the pack ice within sight of land before the expedition proper could begin, and what had been planned as the last great journey of polar exploration turned into an epic of survival. Hurley recorded all that he could (naturally, during the polar winter when there was total darkness he was unable to film at all), enlivening the necessarily static nature of a ship trapped in the ice with plenty of shots of the expedition’s dogs, certain to be popular with audiences back home. He also recorded the death throes of the Endurance, capturing the precise moments when her masts and yards cracked and collapsed.
What happened next says much about both Hurley and Shackleton. As the ship finally started to sink beneath the ice, Shackleton ordered that all but the most essential gear and supplies be left behind on board, as they prepared to set out on foot. Since this included all of Hurley’s cine-film and photographic plates, Shackleton thereby abandoned the very items that had raised the funds for the expedition to take place. There was an immediate physical logic to the decision but not a longer-term one. The attempt to continue across the ice by dragging sledges and boats soon proved impractical and they stopped within easy reach of the ship. Hurley then resolved to rescue his work. The photographic plates and cine-film were held in hermetically sealed tins within the ship’s now submerged refrigerator and Hurley ‘bared from head to waist’ probed beneath three feet of ‘mushy ice’ in the hold to retrieve them.
Initially, this heroic act was greeted with anger by Shackleton, but Hurley reminded him of the commercial value of his work and a compromise was reached. Together they made a selection of 120 photographic plates, smashing the other 400 on the ice to avoid entirely the tempta
tion to keep them all. Hurley then kept with him these surviving plates, his developed cine-film (around 5,000 feet/1,524 metres), a pocket still camera and three spools of unexposed film. His cine-camera and all other photographic equipment were left on the ship. Thus, Hurley’s film record ended with the early stages of the sinking of Endurance.
The remainder of the expedition – the months spent drifting on ice floes, the crossing in three boats to Elephant Island, the start of Shackleton’s boat journey to South Georgia and Shackleton’s eventual rescue of his men – Hurley had to record with the little photographic still film he had with him. Since he remained with the party on Elephant Island, he could not record the voyage to South Georgia at all. This made the resultant film record something of an oddity. However, what most concerned the film’s backers when Hurley arrived back in London in November 1916, was that he had no film of Antarctic wildlife. As had been proved by earlier polar films, especially Ponting’s of Scott’s expedition, which Hurley saw and greatly admired, what especially drew the public were quaint scenes of animal life. In the middle of a world war (in which he would afterwards serve with distinction as an official photographer and cinematographer in Palestine and on the Western Front) Hurley was quickly sent back to South Georgia to film the essential wildlife shots and provide other moving pictures to fill the unavoidable gaps in his cinematic narrative.