Dan Snow's History Hit - ENDURANCE22: The Man Who Filmed the Expedition

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

The extraordinary story of Shackleton's doomed Trans-Antarctic expedition has captured audiences for over 100 years. It's not just because it's a dramatic tale of survival, but because there's visual evidence of it. Some of the greatest moments of history in the last century are etched into our minds because someone was there with a camera; for Shackleton's expedition, it was the tough and tenacious Australian photographer Frank Hurley. His photographs and footage became world-famous on the crew's return to England when they were turned into a remarkable feature-length film. 'South' told the story of the destruction of the Endurance and the survival of the men on the ice without a ship.Even today, the expedition footage remains breathtaking; to see the frozen world the Endurance crew found and the daily habits and behaviours of the men whose names are so well known in history books is nothing short of remarkable. The film has been remastered by the BFI and now for the centenary of Shackleton's death, 'South' is available to watch on BFI Player and is currently in cinemas. It will be released on DVD and Blu Ray at the end of February.In this episode, Dan speaks to BFI curator Bryony Dixon about how Frank Hurley managed to get the astonishing footage seen in 'South' and why it endures.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. I think one of the reasons that we are still so engaged and caught up with the Shackleton story is not just its inherent majesty, not just the fact that it is one of the greatest survival and escape rescue stories, but it's the fact there is surviving photographic evidence for it. We all know the power that documenting something has. Many times in this podcast, we've talked about how human history turned because film footage, audio archive, still images reach the rest of the world after some event and provoke some gigantic movement, backlash, welling of support. And I think that's true of Shackleton's expedition as well. He took Frank Hurley, a very tough, tenacious, resilient Australian who actually

proved himself to be not only a superb filmmaker but a vital member of the expedition. Shackleton compliments him several times in his diary he says that he was particularly useful whether it was hauling or coming up with innovations he helped design a small bilge pump for one of the boats in which Shackleton escaped. So Frank Hurley was an essential member of the expedition but he was there basically to film it to record it. Now I feel that I've got a little bit of affinity there because I'm currently on the expedition to find Shackleton's shipwreck. The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust are launching an expedition to find Shackleton's

shipwreck, the insurance, and my job is a little bit like Hurley's to just record it, to make as much noise as possible, to collect images, to create video in this case, and broadcast them all over the world. That's what Shackleton wanted. Shackleton wanted to grab the attention of the world and what he was doing in Antarctica. I suppose to a certain extent this expedition is trying to do the same. So maybe Frank Hurley should be my sort of inspiration for the next few weeks. Let's hope I don't end up being forced to fashion a bilge pump for an escape craft. It would look a lot like a bucket. Anyway, lots of people might not know that alongside the absolutely iconic prints that Hurley is famous for, the images of Endurance stuck in the ice,

the pictures of the men on Elephant Island, Hurley also took moving footage. He made film. It was not the first time film had been used in Antarctica. It was used once or twice before, but it was the most ambitious attempt ever. He was there to actually make a movie. He was there to make a feature-length film that could be shown all over the world and, well, frankly, pay the bills of the expedition and maybe, I can hope, the next one as well. And the BFI, the British Film Institute, has got that original moving footage. They have enhanced it. They have looked after it tirelessly over the century that intervened. They have cared for it and they have now remastered it and it is being shown. There was a big launch event in the IMAX in London. I was lucky enough to talk on that day to Bryony Dixon.

She's the expert in silent film at the BFI. So we talked about the big launch that night. And you can all go and see it in the cinemas now. It's also available on the BFI Player and it's on DVD and Blu-ray too. So please go and check out Frank Hurley's South wherever you can. And also don't forget to listen to our special Endurance 22 podcast.

We tell the story of Shackleton and that remarkable journey. We're releasing lots of other podcasts around Endurance. We're releasing television content, television content on our TV channel, History Hit TV. Just follow the link in the description of this podcast. Click on there, get two weeks free if you sign up today. So please head over there and do that.

But in the meantime, everybody, here is the very brilliant BFI National Curator, Bryony Dixon. Enjoy. Bryony, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. You are very welcome. Happy to be here. Well, I am happy you're here because it's unbelievably exciting. I mean, we've all heard of Shackleton and it strikes me the more I get into the story, maybe the reason we've all heard of him in particular is because if you want to do something amazing, make sure someone's taking pictures and videos of it, right? And it like is our memory of Shackleton tied up with this extraordinary coverage that we have of the expedition I really think it is um it's a story that has really almost never been

out of the public gaze since it was made it's amazing so it's been released and re-released and re-released over the years so the story's been told often and using these images as well. So we've got a sense of what he looks like, even what he sounds like, because he even recorded himself early on from the Nimrod expedition. But I think the endurance trip in particular is very solidly in our mind visually. You remember things better visually. And Shackleton was smart. He knew that this was the case.

Shackleton was so smart. He's like the kids today. If he didn't post it, it didn't happen, right? So his decision to take a filmmaker, a photojournalist, was that kind of unusual at the time? It was only, I think, the second or third time it had happened. Scott, of course, had taken Herbert Ponting with him on his last voyage when he died. I think Armisen had taken a camera and filmed himself and one of his other expedition members

filmed as well, but much shorter. So it didn't make up into a very satisfying film. It was just used as a lecture. But the Hurley footage was more exciting. It was better footage, I think. I mean, well, it's stood the test of time. It's filling an auditorium with you guys at BFI. Who was this guy Hurley? Tell me about him. So Frank Hurley was an Australian. And very early early on he went into photography. He made things like postcards.

He was also a good traveller and he got in touch with Douglas Mawson, went to the Antarctic, realised the sort of possibilities of these very rare images that people, you have to remember, had not seen Antarctica except in illustrations and a few photos. So he then went to Antarctica with Mawson, made some film, and that brought him to the attention of Shackleton. He was looking for a professional. The key thing is he was looking for a professional, somebody who was a really good photographer and knew how to use a film camera. And presumably he was tough and kind of able to operate in high latitudes. He was Australian, wasn't he? Sort of quintessential Australian,

very tough, but good company. Everybody liked him. He was very daring physically. So you see him up the top of the ship, taking mad angles from the tops of ships and you know laid out on a plank over the ice so he could see get shots of the ship there's an amazing shot in the film where you see the ship coming at full speed straight for the camera so he must have had to jump out of the way so it's real derring-do and And we should say that whilst he got back, he went to work with the Australian force in particular during the First War and took some of the classic shots, which I, amazingly, I didn't know were him. But I mean, some of those shots everyone will have seen, whether it's the reflection shot of the men, the line of men

on the mound, on the shattered battlefield. He had an extremely distinguished career after Shackleton as well. Certainly did, yeah. And he was fearless, completely fearless. And he went all over the world. First World War battlefields, yeah, he was there. He saw what would make a good image, what would last the test of time. And they still are used. Particularly, there's one of men marching through a kind of pool of mud where they reflected precisely.

And it's one of the most arresting images of the First World War. Coming back to Antarctica, moving images of Antarctica. This was something nowadays we get very excited. The equivalent, I suppose, is when the Mars rover sends us images of Mars and we can explore them on social media feeds or wherever else. But this was the equivalent. I mean, people had never seen these things before. Absolutely. And they had all sorts of fantastic notions of what was inside Antarctica

because they'd only nibbled at the edges at this time. I think they thought there was something in the interior. You know, there'd be a kind of hidden Shangri-La kind of world. But yeah, it was really astonishing, I think, for people because it was a blank bit on the map. Just nobody knew what was there. What about the technology? Had there been a recent breakthrough that allowed these images to be captured and sort of allowed him to shock the world like this moving images uh were quite new at the time so they left in 1914 so cinema had been around um well film for about 20 years more or less so it was still in its infancy cinemas were just opening so before that

you'd seen film in theaters and what have you, or fairgrounds. But by this time, it was becoming established, so you got the first feature-length films. So the technology was similar, but films were getting longer, and this is the crucial thing, that a longer film was not part of a mixed programme. So it was an attraction in its own right, so it got its own marketing, and you know, it was a product. But films were also used for lectures. So this film in particular, Hurley's Footage, was used for Shackleton, specifically, the man himself, to lecture to. So he used film, pictures, those glass slides from the expedition, the 120 he was allowed by Shackleton to keep,

and paintings, music. There's a big multimedia kind of presentation, quite interesting. And the film, when you look at it, is kind of slightly unbalanced. You get all this story and then you get wildlife which feels odd after this very intense story but the wildlife is what everybody really really wanted to see they wanted penguins and specifically they wanted penguins in movement because it's all very well seeing them on the photo but the thing about penguins is they are amazing when they move. Hence the little Charlie Chaplin comment, I think, in one of the intertitles. He goes with a very different ambition, a whole level up from just grabbing snatches of film now and then to creating a kind of feature movie. What challenges does he face?

Well, what challenges doesn't he face in a way? It's very difficult to shoot film in those extreme temperatures. The mechanisms don't work very well. The lubricant freezes, which is a problem. So the film won't carry through the camera. There's all kinds of real issues just with shooting the film. You have to acclimatize it. So you have to sort of, you know, hold the film next to your body almost to warm it up. And apart from that, you've got, you know, just the problems of light levels,

you know just the problems of light levels very extreme contrast in light which he deals with very very well it's a very good photographer then of course the expedition got into trouble the ship became frozen in and they had to abandon the ship and travel over the pack ice to open water get in a boat and row off to land they landed on elephant island now shackleton allowed hurley to take the film with him which tells you all you need to know about how shackleton valued those images he valued them more over than food clearly shackleton regarded those images as absolutely essential as essential as food and shelter how did he manage to get them back safely well with difficulty i mean he was allowed uh as i say by shackleton to take them with him on the boat when he was um stranded on elephant island hurley that is was stranded on Elephant Island, Hurley, that is, was stranded on Elephant Island, he buried the film cans in the permafrost.

And permafrost is about minus five degrees centigrade, which weirdly is the temperature that is ideal for the preservation of film. So the BFI's master film volts are minus five degrees. So he did exactly the right thing without knowing it. And then the film was taken back when they were rescued. And at the very moment of rescue, Hurley writes in his memoirs, the boss has arrived. It's fantastic. Everybody is shouting and screaming and waving. And then he says, and the films will be safe at last. So he was thinking of them all the time.

You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about the silent film showing Shackleton's doomed expedition on the insurance. More coming up. How can toilet training cows help save the planet? Should we start renting our clothes? And why on earth is Bez from the Happy Mondays now keeping bees? I'm Jimmy Doherty, TV presenter, farmer and conservationist.

And these are just a few of the questions we'll be answering on my new podcast on Jimmy's Farm from History Hit. Join me on the farm to hear from the likes of the founder of the Eden Project, Sir Tim Smit. It is only people who don't know what they're doing that can do marvellous things in some areas, because received wisdom will sometimes, you'll talk yourself out of it if you've got lots of people who've done it before. Professor Dieter Helm on how to stop climate change. There may be all sorts of products like avocados and everything will have palm oil in it, etc. And these have not just long distances involved in it, but they're not actually producing what could be produced on the land and the frame that it's set.

And my old friend, Jamie Oliver. I think I was stupid enough, naive enough, and unspoiled enough about the world that we live in. Listen to On Jimmy's Farm now, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history.

We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to

Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Now, one thing that lots and lots of people have asked me when I've told them I'm going on this expedition, they say, will you be able to recover any of the other photographs that Hurley left behind? Now, we're not actually allowed to touch anything on the wreck because it's protected, so we're just there to observe. But also tell us, why are there not lots of photos lying around on the seabed?

Well, in fact, the glass plates that Hurley took, these are the still images, he rescued from the ship without permission, it has to be said. But he dived into the boat and rescued the images. And then he was asked to choose because they couldn't carry all of them because of the weight. And they had to manhole the lifeboats across some very rough pack ice. So he had to make a choice. And he and Shackleton sat together. They smashed the images that they couldn't take. So he picked the best ones and the rest was smashed so that they couldn't be tempted to sneak a few more on board. Tantalizing to imagine what he had to break

up, what he had to leave behind. Oh no. When he got back, how were these pictures, how was the film received? Oh, with great interest. Shackleton lectured with the film and some of the images from the glass slides and some pictures were used to make up the rest of the story, the story of the actual journey after they left the Endurance. He lectured, I think, sometimes twice a day for months. So clearly it sustained an audience over a very long period of time. The footage is now under the care of the BFI. How do you restore old footage like that? And what goes on to make sure you can now project it on this enormous screen like the IMAX there? Yeah, isn't it great? It's going to be absolutely massive. It was quite a difficult job. So most of the restoration work was done in the 1990s. So this is pre-digital days. And it was like a huge jigsaw puzzle of bits of film that survived from these different iterations. It was put together from all these different bits.

And we used contemporary vintage prints from the 1920s, which were in the Netherlands, as a guide for the edit and for the coloring. So that was all put together as a big jigsaw puzzle. And in 2017, I think we made a digital copy. And it's since been remastered for the 21st century really and for this show in particular so generations of BFI archivists have been looking after this film so it's quite an achievement it's one of our great treasures and thank you guys for looking after it so well and so carefully. It is a national treasure. I find it very, very compelling. I'm very immersed in the story,

but why do you think it still endures the film that people would pay to see even today, well over a hundred years after it was first released? I think it's just, apart from being a very beautiful film, it's just putting yourself in those,'s so immersive you can put yourself in the shoes of those men as they were on this journey with with no none of the modern facilities that we have no communications not even radio nobody was going to rescue them if if things went bad so it's really man against nature and the huge achievement to get back to civilization i mean it was really extraordinary well well we're filming out in the antarctica we'll do our best so maybe you're maybe in a hundred years time our descendants will be talking about this expedition to antarctica maybe i don't. I am very excited about it.

I mean, you know, the idea of actually finding the endurance, I find unbearably exciting. And for these two things to come together at this particular moment, you know, in the centenary of Shackleton's death, I think is very, very exciting. It is. So good luck. Thank you very much.

Thank you for all the support and collaboration with the BFI. How can people find out more about you, more about the film? Oh, log on to the BFI website, search for South. There's all sorts of information about the film and blogs and films. They can see the film on BFI Player and come and see it in the cinemas, And it will be released in the cinemas from the end of January. And the DVD Blu-ray edition is out at the end of February. Bryony, thank you very much for coming on. Thank you very much.

I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours,'s History. I really appreciate listening to this podcast. I love doing these podcasts. It's a highlight of my career. It's the best thing I've ever done. And your support, your listening is obviously crucial to that project. If you did feel like doing me a favor, if you go to wherever you get your podcasts and give it a review, give a rating, obviously a good one, ideally, then that would be fantastic. And feel free to share it. We obviously depend on listeners, depend on more and more people finding out about it, depend on good reviews to keep the listeners coming in.

Really appreciate it. Thank you.