Last night I saw a screening of The Great White Silence, Herbert Ponting's 1924 silent film shot on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's second (and last) voyage to Antarctica in 1910-1912. The imagery was hauntingly beautiful and remarkable for its time, and even though I knew what would become of Scott and his expedition, I still found myself hoping for a happy ending. It really has to be one of the most tragic stories: his party made it to the South Pole just 34 days after their Norwegian competitors, and then starved/froze to death on the return not 11 miles from the supplies they needed to survive. The determination and patriotism that comes across in Scott's journal entries- quoted considerably in the title cards- is heartbreaking. I'm really looking forward to seeing some of these journals and documentation in person this summer at the National History Museum in London.
What is it about arctic exploration that is so fascinating? A while back, I read Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris (a collection of essays about books and reading), and was struck by her collection of books related to this subject. And there is no shortage of iceberg imagery to be found on design blogs these days; I myself have posted many of them, which I've gathered here.
from my own collection
best made co, via all the mountains
philipp schaerer, via dear ada
the bs report via bonnie tsang
rojan via 50 watts
francois delfosse via junk culture
shackleton's ship via teenangster
jeremy miranda via the jealous curator
1 comment:
Oh, neat.
Post a Comment