The Film
The Endurance Locker
FEATURE LENGTH DOCUMENTARY
on TV and in Cinemas
The feature-length documentary made by National Geographic, which reveals the FMHT organised expedition to find Sir Ernest Shackleton’s missing ice ship, the Endurance, has started streaming on Disney+ and National Geographic Channels, and Hulu, after its world premiere as part of the London Film Festival on 12th October 2024.
The film alternates between the polar explorers’ legendary 1914 expedition, using original black-and-white footage that has been colourised for the first time and the 35-day 2022 hunt for the missing ship. Amongst exclusive footage in the documentary are deep sea underwater drone shots of the sunken vessel and digital images of the wreck itself as it lies on the seabed.
Film Review
FMHT Trustee WILLIAM FEATHERSTONE watched the film when it was first shown at the Royal Festival Hall in London. This is his review:
“Please understand from the outset that this is not an objective review, written, as it is, by one of the four Trustees of the Falkland Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT) who planned and managed the successful 2022 expedition to locate this iconic ship. Even making allowances for that natural bias, it would be hard not to be enthusiastic about this documentary film.
This film is a highly complex and technical achievement. It tells two stories – that of Shackleton’s 1914/15 Expedition, and of the 2022 Expedition to locate the ship lost in the ice of the Weddell Sea. Although the stories are interwoven, both are clearly delineated and there is no doubt about which story is being told. To do this the film-makers used the restored, and for the first time colourised, films and stills taken by Frank Hurley, the extensive film taken of the 2022 Expedition (including some of the 25,000 images taken during the survey of the wreck, and producing extraordinary 3D images of it), new sequences shot in Iceland and Denmark, the purchased clips of the Kenneth Branagh Shackleton film, and specially commissioned interviews. In a world-first, one of several associated with the expedition, AI has been used to create the authentic voices of Shackleton and six of the crew.
Since the London premiere, the film has been released in 42 UK cinemas and reports speak of sell-out audiences and a very good reception. Press reviews have been almost entirely positive (a few have mentioned the “fakery” of the AI voices, surely the wrong word for such a unique creation). So far as the Falklands are concerned, there were two special showings at the cinema in Stanley for schoolchildren and two screenings at the Museum. The latter, for the more senior in the community, included drinks and nibbles sponsored by FMHT. Lewis Clifton, one of our Trustees spoke at both.
I said I was biased but is it worth seeing? Yes, it very definitely is! I promise it will grip you and enthral you – best on the big screen but good however you can get to view it.”
BILL FEATHERSTONE.
For further information visit: films.nationalgeographic.com/endurance
FOR THE FIRST TIME
Endurance in Colour
As the ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition found itself trapped in the Weddell Sea ice in January 1914, one man kept his distance from the frantic efforts to break free. His name was James Francis Hurley, known as ‘Frank’. A Sydney-born Australian photographer and adventurer who had been hired by Sir Ernest Shackleton as the mission’s official photographer who would receive 25% of the monies received from the sale of all film and stills.
So, as his leader and fellow 27 crew members did their best to extract Endurance from the Weddell Sea icefloes, Frank Hurley was behind his camera for much of the time filming or photographing their every move. Frank was 28 at the time, but already a master as staging scenes and manipulating photographs. He had bought his first camera, a Kodak Box Brownie, at the age of 17 for 15-shillings, which he paid off at the rate of a shilling a week.
He taught himself how to use it and quickly gained a reputation for putting himself in harm’s way to produce stunning images to adorn postcards (the business he was in). His sense of adventure, danger and talent would take him to Antarctica numerous times and, in all, he would spend a total of four years on the continent.
For Shackleton’s expedition he took along a ‘cinematograph machine’, a plate ‘stills’ camera and several smaller Kodak cameras, along with various lenses, tripods, and developing equipment. Most of his gear and the almost 600 glass-plate negatives had to be left behind once the Endurance was abandoned. He smashed around 400 of the negatives, keeping only 120 to take with him on the long trek to safety. The only camera he kept was a ‘vest-pocket’ Kodak and three rolls of film – enabling him to shoot just 38 images of the great escape, which left him stranded on the desolate Elephant Island for more than four months in 1916.
Standing back to observe and record paid dividends, and not just of a financial nature. Frank Hurley’s work was turned into an epic 88-minute silent film called “SOUTH” which was glorious black-and-white and monochrome account of Shackleton’s voyage and the destruction of the Endurance. It established Hurley as one of the greatest photojournalists of the age. He died at the age of 76 in January 1962, the day after completing a photographic assignment.
Now, as part of the National Geographic documentary about Endurance, and the equally epic hunt for her wreck beneath the Weddell Sea, Frank Hurley’s silent film has been ‘colourised’ for the 21st century, using a variety of techniques and sources, including some filmed recreations in California and Iceland. In particular the filmmakers had to work closely with the British Film Institute, who are the guardians and owners of the original Hurley footage and don’t usually allow it to be manipulated.
According to the Nat Geo editor in charge of the production, Bob Eisenhardt: “We added a bit of color to it, and it jumped off the screen. While editing, I had been looking at the same footage of Shackleton’s crew for eight months, and suddenly, I said, ‘Oh, they’re eating peas on the ice!’ It was extraordinary. I saw it finally. We felt very strongly that this was the way to go.”
This work allows us to compare, for the first time, some of Frank Hurley’s original black-and-white/monochrome shots with the newly colourised versions.
