Presented at SFSFF 2011 with live music by the Matti Bye Ensemble, Photos by Pamela Gentile and Tommy Lau. Ponting’s own memoir is filled with regret over missed opportunities, lamenting his failure to capture the detail and scale of an enormous tabular iceberg, the Arch Berg that collapsed too soon, the colorful play of light in the Grotto, the aurora australis. The famed British explorer Captain Robert Scott chose photographer Herbert Ponting to accompany and document the Terra Nova expedition (1910–1913).In addition to his stunning and ground-breaking still photography, Ponting also shot short sequences with a cinematograph creating the first moving images on the Seventh Continent. Essay by Shari Kizirian. Read Full Synopsis Cast + Crew Previous Cast Members More Cast Members. He spent the rest of his professional life touring with his films and lantern slides, recounting the tale. Addeddate 2015-08-30 17:16:07 Identifier WhiteSilence Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.3. plus-circle Add Review. Musicians The Great White Silence. He staged the scenes of the select Pole expedition crew man-hauling their sledge, setting up their tent, cooking their meals. Outside the tent, all that remained of the sledge they had man-hauled for the 850-mile journey to the magnetic South Pole was a single bamboo mast. The film concludes with a sequence of the explorers pushing off from their base, and title cards reminding viewers of what, to the 1924 viewer, would have been the familiar story of the expedition's tragic conclusion. When a stereopticon company hired him to provide pictures for its viewing machines, he traveled the world taking images of places heard-of but unseen by many in the West: Burma, China, India, Japan, Java, Korea, Manchuria, Russia. His images of landscapes and domestic life, often accompanied by his own travelogue commentary, were published in commercial magazines, then proliferating thanks to efficient new printing presses. [1], Reviews of the re-release were significantly positive. [3] Cath Clarke of The Guardian gave the film four stars out of five and lauded the "beautiful" restoration work done by the BFI. After a failed fruit orchard enterprise and bad investments in gold-mining, he abandoned his San Francisco wife and their two children to pursue a life of adventure as what he called a “camera artist.”. 4 Comments Dwight Davis on December 17, 2020 at 2:55 pm . In 1904, he was accredited by the First Japanese Army to photograph the Russo-Japanese War for Harper’s Weekly, and, in 1905, he was admitted into the Royal Geographical Society. The Great White Silence. referencing The Great White Silence, 2xCD, Album, SOL 176 CD This is a highly minimalistic and very quiet ambient album, consisting of delicate ambiental soundscapes interspersed by sampled recordings of various nature (old radio and tape recordings, acoustic instruments, church bells, nature sounds etc). Ponting was a fastidious photographer. Without a doubt, The Great White Silence is a bold and daring documentary that achieves in telling an interesting story as well as providing some of the most genuinely beautiful shots of wildlife that I've seen to date. He had shot the footage in The Great White Silence at a time when the “cinema of attractions” was being eclipsed by the story film. During 2013, Turner provided the score for The Epic of Everest: a film made in 1924 by Captain John Noel. Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895) A Silent Film Review. Is The Great White Silence … Offers. Even as roll film had been in use since its invention in 1889, he, like other professionals, preferred the cumbersome glass plates, which produced higher quality images. He re-edited his film footage into a sound version, adapting his lectures for the narration, and released it in 1933 it as 90˚ South. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about silent film as an art form and as a culturally valuable historical record. After news of Scott’s death reached England in February 1913, Gaumont re-released the footage as The Undying Story of Captain Scott. silent-the-great-white-silence Scanner Internet Archive Python library 1.8.3. plus-circle Add Review. Herbert Ponting's The Great White Silence is the official record of Captains Scott's heroic journey to the South Pole, and Captain John Noel's The Epic of Everest is the official record of Mallory and Irvine's fateful 1924 expedition. 2 Songs. The last uncharted continent on earth, Antarctica’s landmass had been penetrated only a few times. See Full Cast + Crew for The Great White Silence Features Load More Features Movie Reviews Presented by Rotten Tomatoes. The Great White Silence [DVD + Blu-ray] Herbert G. Ponting (Director) Rated: NR. The Great White Silence is a film from 1924 by Herbert Ponting. 137 Views . By the time The Great White Silence was released in 1924, the fiction feature dominated at the box office and Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) had raised the bar for documentary storytelling. Copyright © 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Privacy Terms, Copyright © 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Originally a silent film, the documentary was restored and re-released for public access. Soleilmoon Recordings is proud to release Simon Fisher Turner’s epic new soundtrack to Herbert Ponting’s silent film “The Great White Silence”. The expedition crew often complained about how long it took Ponting to photograph, and some were hurt in falls suffered while posing. “The Great White Silence” shares a title with a 1924 documentary about the Terra Nova expedition, the second attempt by Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the British Navy (a.k.a. Try it free. Scott recalled in his diaries that Ponting’s frustrations often echoed throughout the hut: “The noise of breaking glass in his darkroom was not uncommon, and usually heralded his reappearance, laden with cameras, once more, to go and take his subject over again.”, To help fund the expedition, the rights to Ponting’s film footage were pre-sold to Gaumont. Robert Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. Ponting’s first motion pictures screened in London in October 1911 as With Captain Scott, R.N. If Ithaqua, his Cultists, and his minions have their way, this great white silence of winter will be all that humanity knows for the rest of existence. He trained others to take still photographs for small scientific excursions and the long trek to the Pole, of which no motion pictures were shot. Filmmaker Herbert Ponting was the first known photographer to bring a cinematograph to the Antarctic continent and to take brief film sequences of the continent's killer whales, Adélie penguins, south polar skuas, Weddell seals and other fauna, as well as the human explorers who were trying to "conquer" it. Yet his images not only set new artistic standards for nature photography but also stoked the legend of Scott and his men, whose failure looms larger in our imaginations than Amundsen’s success. The Great White Silence – review 4 / 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars. 1 Favorite . (It took him two and a half hours to develop 50 feet of film.) The film, shot in 1911, is a documentary on Captain Robert F. Scott and his team’s doomed attempt to be the first men to reach the South Pole. Ponting was dissatisfied with the film and purchased back the rights for five thousand pounds. Scott himself had come within 460 miles of the South Pole during his first expedition launched in 1901. Captain Scott's doomed race to the South Pole is captured in a silent film from 1924, with a new score by Simon Fisher Turner The images are beautiful, the pacing is languid but it keeps the audience’s interest and it’s a rare chance to see important figures in exploration. He won Bausch and Lomb’s World Prize, and his “Mules at a California Roundup” went on display as part of the Kodak exhibition at the St. Louis World’s Fair. The Great White Silence is a 1924 documentary epic directed and captured by the esteemed Herbert Ponting. "[5], "SFSFF 2011: Polar Extremes – "The Great White Silence" and "The Blizzard, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Great_White_Silence&oldid=988780751, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 15 November 2020, at 05:41. To expand his film into a proper feature, Ponting incorporated illustrations, models, and rudimentary stop-motion sequences as well as inserted the stills taken by the doomed men. The story chronicles the travels of three people across the Northland Trail on the Yukon, as they try to reach civilization before spring. However, his work was eventually acclaimed as one of the highest-quality group of images surviving from the so-called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, and The Great White Silence was unearthed, restored, and re-released in 2011. Ponting had never before operated a movie camera. Inside, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and Chief Scientific Officer Edward Wilson were covered head to toe by their sleeping bags, “as if asleep.” The leader of the expedition, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, had his coat slightly open, his arm stretched out across Wilson, his closest companion on the expedition. When rescuers found the frozen bodies of three members of the 1910–1914 British Antarctic Expedition camped eleven miles from the nearest food depot, it had been almost a year since the explorers had died. His second and final attempt, begun in 1910, had been one of three South Pole expeditions undertaken that year. Dennis Lynch describes the hardships: “Camera lubricants froze; film had to be wound very slowly to prevent static electric sparks; and with a 100° difference of temperature between inside and outside the hut, condensation (and the subsequent freezing of the water produced on the inside of the camera) was a serious problem. The principal filmmaker was photographer Herbert Ponting. To prepare for the task, he took lessons from Arthur Newman of Newman-Sinclair, which supplied one of the two motion picture cameras that became part of Ponting’s 200-pound photography kit. " The White Silence " is a short story written by American author Jack London in 1899. The Great White Silence is a brilliant example of a silent documentary feature and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The Great White Silence is a documentary film regarding the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910–1913. Music composed and copyrighted by Edward Rolf Boensnes. 4.6 out of 5 stars 59 ratings. Out of the 100 applicants to be his expedition’s photographic officer, Scott chose Herbert G. Ponting, who fit the bill as a professional and seasoned traveler. It was restored by The British Film Institute, and was released on Blu-ray. The day he left London for Antarctica, copies of his first major book, In Lotus-land Japan, arrived at his door. 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. The exhibition Endurance and the Great White Silence at Atlas Gallery brings together the most famous and most influential photographs of Antarctica ever taken in superb new platinum-palladium prints. Our house in southern Maine stands high on a headland overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The Sprinkler Sprinkled (1895) A Silent Film Review. Choku Shirase, an admiral in the Japanese navy, turned back because of harsh weather. Reviews There are no reviews yet. Originally a silent film, the documentary was restored and re-released in 2011 by the British Film Institute with a musical soundtrack by Simon Fisher Turner.[1][2]. Be the first one to write a review. Marc Lee of The Daily Telegraph called the film "deeply moving" and "startlingly powerful". He played concerts in Europe performing both BLUE and THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE, live with the Elysian Quartet. The Great White Silence is a 1924 English documentary that contains brief cinematograph sequences taken during the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910–1913. Born in 1870 to a wealthy banker in Salisbury, England, Ponting left home at 22 and headed for the American West. This is the BFI double feature boxset collecting The Great White SIlence and The Epic of Everest. Originally a silent film, the documentary was restored and re-released in 2011 by the British Film Institute with a musical soundtrack by Simon Fisher Turner. [4] Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reporting from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, gave the film a glowing review. The Great White Silence is one of the jewels in the crown of the BFI National Archive fully justifying this stunning tinted and toned restoration with new score by electronic musician Simon Fisher Turner. Scott did not choose cinematographer Ponting to accompany him to the South Pole. Outside the tent, all that remained of the sledge they had man-hauled for the 850-mile journey to the magnetic South Pole was a single bamboo … Format: Blu-ray. Post navigation. The Great White Silence stream Deutsch The Great White Silence ist ein Geschichts-Dokumentation aus dem Jahr 1924 von Herbert G. Ponting mit Robert Falcon Scott und Herbert G. Ponting. image link. Available with an Apple Music subscription. Topics silent. The world is relying on you and your team of investigators to defeat the wind-walking Ancient One and ensure that spring returns. From a technical perspective, The Great White Silence is simply … [1], The Great White Silence, and a successor film with a soundtrack based upon some of the same film sequences, 90° South, were not great commercial successes, and Ponting, the director, died impoverished. It is also the first time these images by three legendary Antarctic names – Scott, Ponting and Hurley – have been exhibited together. The Great White Silence also includes scenes of everyday life at the expedition's base camp. Even the ship's cat, playing with a crew member, gets … The Great White Silence (silent) by Edward Boensnes. Ponting remained on base and survived with his film sequences, eventually returning to England. Learn about our incredible musical partners, SFSFF Preservation restores and preserves silent era films. The expedition, led by Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott, had hoped to be the first to reach the Pole. Among the belongings recovered were Scott’s three diaries, which he maintained until the end, and some undeveloped photographs. He later considered the time spent lecturing and promoting the films a waste, even calling his decision to join the expedition “the great error of my life.” The camera artist Ponting might have preferred new subjects. He cabled Scott, already southbound: “Beg leave to inform you preceding Antarctica.” Amundsen eventually beat Scott to the Pole by 34 days. The Great White Silence soundtrack from 1924, composed by Simon Fisher-Turner. Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who originally set out to conquer the North Pole, changed course mid-sea on hearing that the American flag had been planted there April 6, 1909. The equipment had to be stored outside the hut. to the South Pole and, later in August 1912, as With Captain Scott in the Antarctic. 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. X. In addition to the basic issue of survival in Antarctica’s harsh climate, Ponting confronted challenges particular to polar photography. According to scholar Dennis Lynch, Ponting “took up photography seriously in 1900,” quickly gaining recognition for his work. The Great White Silence is a 1924 English documentary that contains brief cinematograph sequences taken during the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910–1913. The frozen film had to be thawed very slowly before use to prevent condensation; the elaborate process took two days.”, All told, he came away with more than 1,000 glass-plate photographs and shot 25,000 feet of nitrate film, which he had processed on the spot. Scott and his immediate support group of four companions never returned from the Pole.[1]. The Great White Silence Synopsis. Released in 2011 containing music from The Great White Silence (1924). The expedition’s geologist Griffith Taylor invented the verb “to pont,” meaning “to pose until nearly frozen in all sorts of uncomfortable positions.” (The penguins Ponting disturbs in their nesting grounds might have come up with another definition.) 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