The Movie Screen Scene

What on earth induces people to go exploring in hostile climates? Are there not safer environments for the adventurous person? Cannot the patriot find an easier and more productive way to honour their country than to place their flag in a vast expanse of snow?

How we feel about the world’s great explorers is a matter of opinion. Robert Falcon Scott is a figure that particularly divides those who read about his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition. Scott’s intention was to be the first person to reach the South Pole. He set off with four members of his team, and endured some of the most terrible weather in one of the worst places in the world.

Ultimately Scott’s endeavours proved both futile and tragic. When Scott and his men finally reached the Pole, they discovered that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it, arriving 34 days earlier. “Great God! This is an awful place!” declared Scott. His problems were not over. Hemmed in by an unhappy change in the weather, Scott and his men all died.

For many years, Scott was viewed as an intrepid tragic hero. There is a streak in the nature of British people that causes them to admire a plucky loser. Herbert Ponting’s film The Great White Silence, though not widely known for many decades, served only to bolster Scott’s status as a noble failure.

In later years, there has been more criticism of Scott’s leadership, with some people contrasting his efforts with those of Sir Ernest Shackleton, a man whose resourcefulness and quick action helped to save the lives of his own crew when their ship was trapped and destroyed by the ice.

I suspect there is an element of luck in this. Both men were dealing with an unprecedented situation. If Shackleton’s gamble had not paid off, perhaps he would be remembered more critically. If the weather had been better, perhaps Scott would have returned victorious, albeit not the first to make it to the South Pole, and he would be the more highly praised leader.

Was Scott a hero or an arrogant man who sacrificed his team? I don’t think he has to be either. His men chose to come with him, and he was unfortunate in his endeavour. There is always something both admirable and foolhardy in exploring extreme parts of the world, and both praise and criticism are understandable.

Whatever the case, Herbert Ponting’s film looks at Scott, and not Shackleton. There is another impressive 1919 documentary called South, which covers Shackleton’s expedition, and which shares many similarities with Ponting’s. I highly recommend watching that too. Personally I think Ponting’s work is the better one, and that is the focus of this blog.

Ponting was an explorer, a photographer and a dabbler in creating cinematographic equipment. He did not run away from home to join the circus, but he did defy his father’s wish that he should become a banker. Ponting joined Scott on his expedition to the Antarctic, and we must praise him for the quality of the footage that he took.

While the film was released in 1924, it was filmed much earlier. (Scott’s expedition took place between 1910 and 1913.) Ponting’s movie is an early example of a film-maker working in the difficult conditions of the Antarctic, where equipment can easily freeze, and where it is difficult to transport and operate cameras. In order to film the ship cutting through sheets of ice, Ponting was tied to a platform clutching his camera.

We can also praise Ponting’s post-production work. He tied the film together into a narrative structure. While some viewers struggle with the nature footage, Ponting did at least put this in the middle of the film, rather than bathetically tacking it on the end, in the way that Frank Hurley did in his Shackleton documentary, South.

Ponting also employed methods that are now familiar in documentaries, including photographs, stills, stop motion, and an animated map showing lines along the route. Certain scenes were staged for the camera, a complaint still levelled at documentaries today, but as old as the medium itself. Ponting does at least confess as much. The film is also notable for Ponting’s quirky and humorous intertitles that add a little colour to the story.

In the end, Ponting was not chosen to join Scott on the final part of the journey, so Ponting survived the ordeal, and was able to bring back his footage. Like Scott, Ponting suffered a failure of his own, albeit less dramatic. The Great White Silence was unsuccessful on its release, and Ponting died poor.

His film was forgotten until the BFI gloriously restored it. The images are brilliantly clear, though some may object that the colour tinting in many scenes lends an unnatural shade to the frozen landscape. Still it is good to see the film returned to a state where we can admire its beauty and detail.

While our knowledge of the final outcome of Scott’s expedition casts a sad shadow over the whole documentary, The Great White Silence is a surprisingly cheerful and uplifting work for most of its running time. Ponting sees Scott’s mission as part of the “proud heritage of our race”, a great patriotic adventure. Despite the final tragedy, Ponting clearly has many fond memories of his time with Scott.

We get to see Scott’s preparations for his journey to the Antarctic, and later to the South Pole. The men set up tents, go skiing, play instruments, dance, box with one another, and play football in the cold. The men have their hair cut very short, and Ponting has fun joking about this. When they set off, the pier is heaving with crowds of well-wishers.

Scott and his men are not the only travellers on the ship. The expedition is equipped with Siberian dogs and ponies. It is hard not to feel a little pity for the animals, as many of them would perish in the cold, and unlike the crew members they had no choice in the matter. The ponies and dogs will help to transport the men across the ice, since the only advanced equipment the men possess are some primitive snow-mobiles.

There is also a black cat with a name that will make the modern reader cringe, and which reminds us that racial attitudes have improved somewhat since Scott’s day. The cat performs amusing little jumps for the camera.

We follow the ship through the early icebergs and the pack ice. The ship passes the Great Ice Barrier, an area the size of France from which icebergs originate. The massive ice edifices are impressive, and Ponting films them with human figures in the foreground to emphasise their remarkable size. One of them resembles a castle.

The film conveys a full sense of the awe and danger of the mission. The Antarctic is a bleak desert covered in white sheets of snow. There are few living plants or animals to be seen, leaving only silence around the men. The area is larger than Europe. Ponting observes that only ten people have trod there “since God made the Earth”.

These scenes impress the modern viewer. The middle section of the film is the part that comes under most criticism, as Ponting concentrates on the fauna of the Antarctic. Ponting has a great affection for nature. He shows us the eager Siberian dogs pulling the sleigh. He includes footage of skuas, penguins, killer whales and seals. (The seals proved to be a useful source of fresh meat for both the men and the dogs.)

Do these scenes cause the documentary to sag in the middle? I suppose it depends on how you choose to regard them. We should remember that many audience members in the 1920s had few chances to see filmed footage of polar wildlife, compared to today, so these scenes were probably of more interest then.

Additionally Scott’s expedition was intended as a scientific study as well as a fete of exploration. Indeed it was this that eventually killed Scott and his men, as they stayed too long at the Pole collecting samples that proved invaluable to scientists later. Ponting’s footage of the animals can be seen as part of this scientific work, a chance to witness the behaviour of creatures that were not often seen at the time.

Personally I enjoy the scenes. They are an interesting forerunner of the nature documentary. We might also note that some of methods used by Ponting and the other members of the expedition would be criticised heavily today, and not just because Ponting enjoys anthropomorphising the behaviour of the cute penguins.

This was a time when the rules for making a decent nature documentary had not been laid out. Some of the methods used to get the footage might outrage viewers and nature lovers today. Ponting gets so close to his subjects that he is chased off by a seal, and attacked by birds. He is not above scaring away a mother for a few minutes so that he can capture images of her young. He strokes mother penguins as they rest on their eggs.

The members of Scott’s expedition also engage in behaviour that might make some viewers feel uncomfortable. They intervene to save a mother seal and her baby by harpooning a killer whale. Just for fun they chase the penguins around on the ice.

If you have not much patience for these scenes, Ponting eventually returns to Scott and his men making the final preparations for their last expedition to the South Pole. The cold becomes so extreme that men’s faces are blackened by frostbite. Scott and his men set off on a journey that spans 850 miles there and 850 miles back.

There is something chilling about the sight of the men disappearing into the distance, and becoming mere dots against the snow. They were destined never to return. Edgar Evans was the first to die after falling and suffering concussion to the brain. Lawrence Oates fell next. Lamed by frostbite, he choose to sacrifice himself by going out in the snow to give the other men a chance of getting back.

His sacrifice was in vain. Hemmed in by a terrible blizzard, Scott,  Edward Adrian Wilson and Henry Robertson Bowers perished just 11 miles away from a supply dump that might have helped to sustain them.

In contrast to South, The Great White Silence ends sadly on this tribute to the unhappy men whose gamble to reach the South Pole first, and then return safely home had not paid off. Whatever our opinions of Scott and his expedition, it is easier to admire in an unqualified way the work of Herbert Ponting, a man who captured a living record of many of the events on the Terra Nova Expedition, and who has left an enduring legacy for our time.