| The Great White Silence | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Herbert Ponting |
| Produced by | Herbert Ponting |
| Starring | Robert Falcon Scott |
| Music by | Simon Fisher Turner (re-release) |
| Cinematography | Herbert Ponting |
| Studio | British Film Institute (re-release) |
| Release date(s) | 1924; restoration re-released in 2011 |
| Running time | 108 min. |
| Country | U.K. |
The Great White Silence is a 1924 English documentary that contains brief cinematograph sequences taken during the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910—1913. 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]
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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 London to sail into the Southern Ocean and its ice floes. Safely landed on the icy coastline of Ross Island, the filmmaker follows the men as they set up tents, practice skiing, and prepare to probe southward toward the Pole. 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. Scott and his immediate support group of four companions never returned from the Pole.[1]
Filmmaker Herbert Ponting was the first known photographer to bring a cinematograph to the Antarctic continent and to take brief video sequences of the continent's orcas, penguins and other fauna, as well as the human explorers who were trying to "conquer" it.
Scott did not choose cinematographer Ponting to accompany him to the South Pole. Ponting remained on base and survived with his film sequences, eventually returning to England.[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. 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.[1]