Shackleton - The Greatest Survival Story of All Time (2002)

Everything you could want as long as the truth about Shackleton doesn't matter to you.

Gloriously filmed, with excellent acting, everything you could want as long as the truth about Shackleton doesn't matter to you. Have read about Shackleton I was struck over and over at how poorly he was conveyed, reduced to a shallow, yelling, man, when he was in fact calm, cool, and collected. How did the script writers fail to realize that a man who cannot control himself cannot control his men and the Shackleton story is in essence a study of successful leadership under extreme conditions

The movie contains some absolutely fantastic footage, however, I could never settle down and enjoy the film as I desired because so many factual errors kept being presented. Shackleton was assisted by very able men and the film belittles most of them into little more than a mob of frightened men. There was much wonderful stuff here - don't get me wrong, but if you actually know the story - have read the books - then turn off your brain before watching or it will drive you crazy!

2 stars for attention to set details and 2 stars for great cinematography, however, I took away 1 star for failure to present Shackleton as he was. Perhaps it was their desire to humanize the man that lead to this. Unfortunately Shackleton really was a larger than life figure - a man - not unlike some other well know men like George Patton, or Oscar Schindler - men who were uniquely suited for an extreme situation and excelled like no other men could have.

November 7, 2008

amazing film!

I didn't expect this very high quality production when I ordered this . Excellent all around. October 25, 2008

Shakleton...

An okay movie loosely based on Ernest Shackleton's doomed voyage to the bottom of the world. The movie does its best to stick with his life from his diaries.

This is a set of 3 dvds that give you a biography Shackleton, discovery channel of Anartica, and the movie itself. August 22, 2008

A Superb Collection

This is an absolutely superb collection. The A&E Shackleton, featuring Kenneth Branagh, is beautifully directed, powerfully acted and faithful to the facts of what happened. The danger here is that the adventure elements could be lost and the grinding facts of hunger, cold and life on the ice floe dominate. Without understating the challenges, the film captures all of the constituent elements--Shackleton's personal conflicts (and loves, both licit and illicit), the financial ruin of his brother Frank, his fundraising challenges, the presence of WW I in contemporary consciousness, the adventure story itself and its powerful resolution.

The subsidiary material is spectacular--the Biography channel Shackleton, an extensive study of Antarctica, biographical material on Branagh, etc. and, perhaps most interesting, a special on the making of the film, with extensive coverage of the ethos of film production--meals, pep talks, challenges with regard to the shooting schedule, improvisation and the vagaries of Greenland/Iceland weather. I especially liked the intercut footage from the original expedition and the degree to which the current production achieves its considerable authenticity.

Highly recommended. Branagh is excellent. Watch for a nice performance by Robert Hardy as the pivotal sponsor, James Caird. July 16, 2008

Superb historical drama with some great acting

The story of Ernest Shackleton's grandiosely-named Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition is a pretty amazing one, which I will not summarise here as other reviewers have already done so. Yet there is another story to this film - how one man fought against self-doubt, the hostility of the authorities and the indifference of the public, ultimately to rise triumphant out of a difficult situation and prove his true worth. I'm talking, ladies and gents, about the acting career of Kenneth Branagh.

Branagh has been famous for ages but he has proved to be a mostly rotten film director. His Shakespearean adaptations are heavy on attractive set dressing and star cameo appearances, but light on inventiveness, pace, spontaneity and even comprehensibility (his 'Hamlet' was a major offender, loaded with so many stars that despite thoughtful performances from the leads it ended up as a mere exercise in spotting who was going to turn up next), while his non-Shakespeare films (such as 'Peter's Friends', 'In The Bleak Midwinter' and the terrifyingly awful 'Dead Again') have not, on the whole, been much fun to sit through.

Thankfully for us all, Branagh neither wrote nor directed this remarkable true story about the time-honoured English theme of Heroic Failure. All he had to do was play Ernest Shackleton, one of the most appealing and sympathetic figures of the heroic age of Antarctic Exploration. He is at the head of a heavyweight cast, including such excellent actors as Lorcan Cranitch as Shackleton's bluff and loyal right-hand man Frank Wild - nice to see this fine actor not playing a bad guy for a change; Phoebe Nicholls as the faithful but melancholy wife; Embeth Davidtz as the glamorous mistress; Kevin McNally, wonderful as the ship's master, an ineffectual leader of men but a phenomenally gifted navigator; Mark McGann slightly wasted as the ever-reliable Tom Crean. It's up to Branagh to match all these, as well as Charles 'Brideshead Revisited' Sturridge's economical script and meticulous direction. He does so, with panache to spare.

Branagh has been so bad in so many of his own films for so long that it's become easy to think of him as a bad actor. He is in fact a great actor, and he proved it with three very different films that were all made around the same time: this one, for Britain's Channel 4; Frank Pierson's 'Conspiracy', for HBO; and Michael Kalesniko's very funny comedy 'How To Kill Your Neighbor's Dog'. In each of these films, Branagh brought to unforgettable life a doggedly humane and relentlessly determined Antarctic explorer, a charming but entirely amoral Nazi officer, and a cynically funny English playwright living in Los Angeles. He is one of the most enjoyable things about this movie, and don't let anyone tell you different. May 13, 2008

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