USA,
2000, 93 min
Shown in 2001
CREDITS
- dir
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George Butler
- prod
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George Butler
- scr
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Caroline Alexander, Joseph Dorman
- cam
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Sandi Sissel
- editor
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Joshua Waletzky
- mus
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Michael Small
- source
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White Mountain Films, 165 East 80th Street, New York, NY 10021. FAX: 212-794-2993. EMAIL: shackleton@mindspring.com
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COMMENTS
George Butler in person.
OTHER
It’s the failed expeditions that seem to really capture our imaginations, and Earnest Shackleton’s attempt in 1914 to traverse the Antarctic continent failed spectacularly. Shackleton and his crew never even made landfall—their ship ground to a halt amidst pack ice just 100 miles short of their destination. Their ship, the Endurance, never moved again, and the crew spent two years in increasingly desperate attempts to escape the pitiless ice and sea. But, in a priceless boon for armchair explorers everywhere, they brought a movie camera! Their flabbergasting saga has enjoyed a resurgence in the last couple of years thanks to cowriter Caroline Alexander’s recent book and a marvelous multimedia exhibit at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, as well as a renewed appreciation for Shackleton’s extraordinary leadership skills. Narrated by Liam Neeson, The Endurance turns the gripping story into a palpable here-and-now experience, with fascinating interviews with historians and the crew members’ surviving families, splendidly read excerpts from crew journals, the eerie silent footage shot by crew member Frank Hurley—ghostly black figures floating in a horizonless field of pure white—and newly shot footage of the actual locations that brings to bone-chilling life the stark majesty of Antarctica and the heroic feat of their simply surviving it. You may want to bundle up for this one.
—Tod Booth
FACTOID #210
When Ginger Rogers appeared for a tribute at the SFIFF in 1984 (’sporting hair with the color and richness of whipped butter,’ wrote the Examiner), she shocked the packed Castro Theatre crowd at her 1984 tribute when she griped, ’The filthy mouths we’re hearing in films today’I won’t pay to see these movies. I’d rather stay home and make jam.’
