The restoration of The Great White Silence
The remarkable The Great White Silence, now beautifully restored by the BFI National Archive, is the official film record of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13 to the South Pole under the leadership of Captain Scott, shot by the expedition's photographer, Herbert Ponting. Scott's decision to include a cameraman in his expedition team was a remarkable one for its time, and it is thanks to his vision - and to Ponting's superb eye - that, a century later, we have an astonishing visual account of his tragic quest.
The film started life as reportage, tracking the Scott Expedition as it was in progress - there was a huge public interest in polar exploration and, especially, in the high drama of the race to the South Pole against the rival party led by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. After the death of Captain Scott and his companions on their return from the Pole, Ponting repurposed his footage, incorporating his own stills, maps, models and pictures, to construct a narrative of the tragic events. After Ponting's death the material was sent for preservation to the National Film Archive - now the BFI National Archive - where it holds pride of place as one of our great national treasures.
Work on this complex restoration commenced in 1993 under a European funding scheme known as the Lumiére Project, for collaborative film restorations between members of FIAF. Then, the restoration work reconstructed The Great White Silence by identifying all the shots from among the multitude of film rolls shot by Ponting. All the necessary camera negatives were printed and assembled in the correct order, incorporating a few short scenes from British and Dutch release positives where the negative no longer existed.
Some years later the BFI National Archive returned to this project, prompted partly by the approaching centenary of the Scott Expedition but also by changes in restoration technology which made it viable to go back to the original materials and to reintroduce the tinting and toning without expensive hand dyeing of the print. The best of the original elements were scanned digitally and conformed using, as a guide, an original release print - the so called 'soft print' (i.e. low-contrast positive) - which is the most authentic edit for Great White Silence. Careful grading matched shots of different quality before digital restoration was carried out to stabilise the image and clean up dirt and damage. The tinting and toning was recreated digitally using the original instructions written on the negative, while the titles were remade as replicas of the original design and lengthened where necessary.
The results are exceptional - details once barely visible in the image are now clear and sharp. The individual members of the Expedition (who we have come to know well) are recognisable, and you can even discern something of their character, which to Polar enthusiasts will be a revelation. The tints and tones are expressive and carefully chosen. These were not intended to represent real colour as such, but rather to suggest lighting effects, time of day, bright sunlight on snow, the purple and pink of the midnight sun or the blue of evening and of the ice sea below the pack-ice.
The restoration team is led by Kieron Webb with Angelo Lucatello, Peter Marshall and Dave Gurney and with Bryony Dixon as lead curator. Our commercial partner is Deluxe Digital London with John Pegg, Jonathan Dixon, Stephen Bearman and Matt Watson - they are working on the digital aspects of the restoration.
Bryony Dixon - Curator of Silent Film, BFI National Archive
The Great White Silence is screening on Wednesday 20 October at the Odeon West End as the Archive Gala at the 54th BFI London Film Festival
