This stunning documentary, beautifully restored by the BFI, charts Captain Scott’s ill-fated Polar Expedition of 1910-12. Herbert Ponting (1870-1935) set sail with the British Antarctic Expedition on the former whaling ship Terra Nova, as the Expedition’s official photographer and cinematographer, both for documentary purposes and because the sale of photographic and cinema rights helped pay for the expedition. He was a still photographer of renown, but had never handled a cine camera before.

Ponting shot scenes of Scott and three of the four companions who would accompany him on the fateful journey (though at the time of filming the team that was to make the final trek to the Pole had not yet been chosen), as well as haunting images of the frozen landscape and fascinating wildlife footage.

When the film was first released in 1924 the prints were tinted and toned to give individual scenes an emotional resonance rather than documentary realism. Following Ponting’s instructions, the BFI restorers have digitally reproduced these effects. Simon Fisher Turner’s new score for the film gets striking results out of a combination of live instruments and voices, found sounds and computer-generated electronica. He also uses a recording of the ambient silence in Scott’s cabin in the Antarctic, the Terra Nova ship’s bell (now at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge) and some of the old jazz and classical 78s enjoyed by the explorers, played on the expedition’s original gramophone.

“The Great White Silence may be over 80 years old but you will struggle to find a better film that shows the endurance of man and the power of nature in such a beautiful and profound way. Awe-inspiring.” Adam Cook, Concise Cinema.

“Herbert Ponting was to the expedition film what Charles Rosher [Mary Pickford’s cinematographer] was to the feature picture – a photographer and cinematographer of unparalleled artistry.” Kevin Brownlow, The War the West and the Wilderness.