ENDURANCE

An edited version of material shot during Shackelton's 1914-16 Antarctic expedition. Quite apart from its undeniable historical value, we see how the camera has caught and preserved the raw and un-contrived drama of man's struggle against nature in a malevolent and treacherous mood. To see the ship "Endurance" gradually lifted out of water by the enormous power of the pack ice, and then rent to a useless mass of crushed timber, leaves us overawed not only at the impossible odds encountered by the explorers, but by the resourcefulness and devotion of cameraman Frank Hurley. Never is there a hint that technical difficulties with early forms of equipment and film stock in any way impaired the quality or the completeness of the record. Even the appalling voyage in the open boat from Elephant Island to South Georgia has been recorded - at least sufficient of if to make us wonder how men in such extremities of privation and suffering could possibly maintain the will to struggle on. And all this coverage from a single camera and operator!