Shackleton - The Greatest Survival Story of All Time [VHS] Overview
Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success." -Ernest Shackleton The 27 men who joined his expedition found that Ernest Shackleton was true to his word. They had drifted with the pack ice of the Weddell Sea for ten months, their ship-- the Endurance-- had sunk, and they were castaways in one of the most hostile environments on earth, hundreds of miles from land. And so, with his dream of becoming the first man to cross Antarctica long abandoned, Shackleton set his mind to a far greater challenge: bringing his crew safely home. Based on the detailed diaries and first-person accounts of expedition members, SHACKLETON tells the true story of their extraordinary ordeal, and the death-defying, 800-mile journey in an open boat across the world's worst seas that made their rescue possible. Written and directed by Charles Sturridge (Longitude, Brideshead Revisited), SHACKLETON stars Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, Hamlet) as the legendary explorer.
Shackleton - The Greatest Survival Story of All Time [VHS] Specifications
Shackleton is not a biopic of the great Anglo-Irish explorer but a dramatization of the failed trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914-1916. As written and directed by Charles Sturridge (
Longitude), the production, filmed on real ice floes in Greenland, stays remarkably close to the facts, capturing the look of the surviving expedition photos by Frank Hurley (collected in the book
South with Endurance) with great fidelity. Kenneth Branagh makes no attempt at an authentic accent but otherwise gives a powerful impression of a most commanding personality. When the expedition ship
Endurance became locked in the Antarctic ice, Shackleton vowed to bring every man home alive, and against virtually impossible odds, including a 700-mile journey in an open boat through some of the worst seas in the world, he did just that. This superlative miniseries realizes the story with production values and cinematography that would not disgrace a big-budget feature (
South, Hurley's 1919 silent movie featuring some motion-picture footage from the expedition, is also available on video). Intense physical drama, strong performances, and Adrian Johnston's fine score combine here to deeply moving effect, marred only a little by a rushed conclusion. With Roland Huntford, author of the definitive Shackleton biography, as production advisor, this easily stands as the benchmark for all future comparable films.
--Gary S. Dalkin
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