Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

intelearts Shackleton was truly one of the greatest explorers Britain produced. The extraordinary true story of the 1914 expedition is a tale that deserves to be told. And told it is in suitable fashion: with a strong emphasis on authenticity, not just period mannerisms and costuming, but weather and settings. This makes for very good viewing indeed.This is stirring stuff - Branagh's portrayal is a superb study in the British colonial style of leadership and worth watching on that basis alone. He is human, a gentleman, but tough as nails. The rest of the crew are excellent and one really takes this extraordinary tale of survival with them.The disastrous expedition is covered from inception and funding through to the mind- boggling hardships experienced by the crew and their extraordinary tale of survival.I defy anyone to watch this and not be motivated, moved, and inspired. Beautifully made and realised this is simply notch above normal viewing. Highly recommended.

roger-395 I have read quite a lot on Shackleton and Antarctic exploration more generally, and, the movie Shackleton provides a reasonably decent introduction to the man and what has been called the "Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration." In terms of exploration technique, Shackleton was more like Amundsen than Scott but in fact he exhibited something of both. Shackleton was burdened by his English background but liberated somewhat by his career in the Merchant Marine. Scott was an RN officer and suffered from ego and Victorian overconfidence. Shackleton originally tried to obtain a craft like Nansen's Fram, which was used in an Arctic Drift of some 3 years in the 1890s but the lack of funds forced him to obtain the ship that he eventually used; a well-made craft, suitable for use in ice but not built to withstand the crushing pressures of moving ice. Whereas a ship with a rounded hull like Fram was simply forced to the surface by ice pressure, Endurance, with its squared-off sides, was gripped by ice and easily crushed.What Shackleton accomplished is perhaps unparalleled in the annals of survival during any era. Surviving for more than a year on ice floes in tents and then navigating in small boats to an island hundreds of miles distant required more than skill and physical endurance. Shackleton was imbued with considerable luck but he also understood the capabilities of men under pressure and how best to harness human will. He was also unquestionably brave. Perhaps even more remarkable than his survival on the ice and trip to Elephant Island, was his "Boat Journey" across the "Roaring 40s" to New South Whales; after spending almost 2 years out of doors! This journey was successful not so much because of Shackleton but owing to the navigational skills of Skipper Frank Woosley, who wrote a book about it (Shackelton's Boat Journey); a remarkable book that fills in the details left out of the movie and the book about the popular 1914-1916 expedition on which the movie was based. Had Woolsey been so much as a half degree off in his calculation, Shackleton would have missed New South Wales and died somewhere in the South Atlantic.In the 1980s, several mountain climbers attempted the journey across New South Wales. These men were in excellent physical condition and had modern equipment. One man ended up with a broken leg and the trip took much longer than that required by Shackleton. The leader of the 1980s group was unable to understand how Shackleton made the trek at all without maps, compass, equipment of any kind, and in a weakened condition after more than two years of exposure to the elements and poor food.Were Shackleton and his men a breed apart? Could anyone living today survive such an experience? What humanity attained before the Industrial Revolution and mechanical power became widespread is remarkable. Humans have become dependent on all manner of technological aids and it remains to be seen if even well trained and experienced people could attain the achievements of our ancestors. Keep in mind that while Shackleton's journey was extraordinary, it was not the only story of its type. Scott's tragic run for the South Pole is incredible in its own right; although marred by Scott's egotism, ethnocentrism, and ignorance. Peary's adventures in the Arctic are rather incredible but then so were the deprivations experienced by most men who were foolish enough to risk Arctic and Antarctic exploration during that period. Perhaps the Norweigians alone can boast that their polar explorations were the best organized and equipped, staffed by qualified men who were used to the cold and willing to adapt whatever techniques that allowed them to achieve their objectives. Virtually every English expeditions was marred by disease and death while at the same time exemplary of valor and bravery.The movie is in my opinion reasonably accurate, with fine performances, and a compelling story. I never found the movie to drag and wished it was a little longer.

peterm1 A number of years ago I read the story of the Shackelton expedition and like many who have read it before me, was amazed at the courage, skill and determination to survive that these men exhibited. The story has an old world "Roger of the Raj" sort of feeling to it: British empire, British pluck, fighting fearful odds and all of that. I found the story quite inspirational never the less (it being de rigeur to be cynical these days) and this film certainly does it justice. It is well worth a watch and somehow manages to squeeze in a huge story (and a large book) into quite watchable dimensions.Frank Hurley the photographer in the expedition was a person of considerable stature himself and is worthy of a film about his own life, but that's another story.

Philby-3 I've not visited Antarctica, but I'm told by those who have that its austere beauty grows on you; far from being a frozen hell, it is a land where one can get closer to oneself and the meaning of things. This film uses Greenland for location shooting and is a dramatised version of Shackleton's 1914-16 expedition which started out as an attempt to cross the continent from the Weddel Sea to the Ross Sea, but, after the expedition vessel `Endurance' was first trapped and then crushed in the Weddel Sea ice pack, Shackleton and his party of 28 men, their dogs and one cat, were caught in a grim struggle for survival. The first 100 minutes is concerned with the origins of the expedition, and Shackleton's efforts to raise support and prepare for it. The son of an Irish country doctor, he served in the Merchant Navy, but by 1914 he was a very experienced polar explorer, having been on two major earlier expeditions; he was in fact the Englishman who had been closest to the South Pole and survived. Although the first half drags at times, Kenneth Branagh's full-on performance as Shackleton gives us a clear picture of the sort of man he is, ambitious, hard-driving, single-minded, yet one who genuinely cares for the men under his command. He is even aware of the effect his exploration obsession is having on his family life (not to mention his relationship with his mistress), but he plows on regardless. In the second half we are stuck on the polar pack ice, and the story turns into a conventional ripping yarn, but it is told with economy and a certain amount of humour. It is clear that, apart from luck, Shackleton and his men (the animals, alas, did not make it) owed their survival to Shackleton's good judgment and the fact that he was able to get all of them to rise to the occasion. He might have been slightly mad to get into such a fix to begin with, but he had no wish to suffer the fate of his colleague Captain Scott. Branagh dominates the film of course, but his crew, mostly made up of little-known actors, come through as characters in their own right. Several stand out; Ken Drury as McNiesh, the feisty ship's carpenter, Kevin McNally as Worsley the lugubrious skipper, Celyn Jones as the Welsh stowaway Blackborow, and Nicholas Rowe as Colonel, the expedition odd-man-out. It is melancholy to recall, that several of the crew survived the Antarctic only to die in the trenches in France. Matt Day as the Australian photographer Frank Hurley, who produced some unforgettable images of the trip, also puts in a strong performance. The characters at home seem bloodless by comparison, with the exception of Phoebe Nicholl's determined Lady Shackleton. One wonders how Lord Curzon, that very superior person, who presided over the very tight-fisted Royal Geographical Society (nicely played by Corin Redgrave) would have got by on the expedition.In 1922 Shackleton went back once more to the Antarctic but died of a heart attack at the whaling station on South Georgia before he was able to set off for the ice. He was only 48. Clearly, the attraction was more than fame and fortune – he was in love with the place. Since then the whalers have gone and Antarctic is now the preserve of scientists and a small but growing number of tourists. Latter-day Shackletons have no great geographical questions to solve but still persist on doing things like trying to ski across the continent. I think I'll settle for the tourist ship myself, but it's vaguely comforting to know there are still such people around.