Format: DVD from Southern Illinois University Morris Library through WorldCat on laptop.
I can’t say I was overwhelmingly excited to spend time with The Great White Silence as a part of this project. I’ve already seen Nanook of the North, a documentary about the Arctic, so a different documentary about the other end of the world didn’t seem that thrilling a prospect. I’m not entirely sure why I held this opinion, because the two parts of the world are very different. The Arctic, for instance, is inhabited (see Nanook) while the Antarctic may well be the most inhospitable place on the planet.
The Great White Silence is the story of the doomed expedition of Robert Falcon Scott to reach the South Pole. Filmmaker Herbert Ponting accompanied the journey at least partway, and should be relatively glad he did not go all the way with Scott, since he and his party never returned from their final journey. That knowledge—the surety that the men we are watching are on their way to their deaths--is sobering.
