Movies based on well-known true stories always seem a bit odd to me, as you already know the ending. But the best of those movies keep you engaged enough that one either forgets how the story will end, or even wonders if it could somehow turn out differently.
Such is the case with 1948’s Scott of the Antarctic, which chronicles the second, and last, attempt of Robert Falcon Scott to reach the south pole. Later, when his journal was found, it was discovered he succeeded in reaching the pole on that journey. Unfortunately, a group of Norwegians got there first. Even worse, those who separated from the rest of the expedition, and travelled the final leg on their own, all perished.
The movie begins with John Mills, as Scott, trying to raise funds and recruit personnel for the mission. One of his first stops is to visit Harold Warrender, a scientist who was on the previous expedition. When we first see him, he has discovered a rare flea on the tip of his pencil, and goes to some effort to collect it for a friend. I have never known anybody who is interested in, let alone collects, fleas. Does that friend have a flea circus?
In this scene, and some others, the scenery in the background is very artificial—almost an impressionist suggestion of trees and rolling hills. Some reviewers found issue with this but I like it. I figure the movie knows the audience is aware this is a set, so it strives more for a certain feel than photorealism. I found it more reasonable than Warrender’s wife observing the fishing lure on his jacket, only to shove her cheek hard against it. Nothing says love like impaling your face on a lure on somebody’s jacket.
I made a cheap dig there, as it does get increasingly depressing to see one person after another join a mission from which they are very unlikely to return. Fortunately, there some moments of light comedy worked in, such a long tracking shot down a row of very disinterested faces in the audience at one of Mills’s speaking engagements.
Some people may find their attention waver in the lengthy part of the picture before they set sail. Myself, I thought most of the minutia was interesting, and it reinforced how massive an undertaking it was to plan such a mission. Some of what we see will even be foreshadowing, such as a discussion in Norway with a sled dog trainer who believes Scott is a fool for taking dogs, ponies and machines. The trainer says he would instead take, “Dogs, dogs and more dogs.”
Those machines will prove to be useless not too far into the journey across that southernmost continent. The ponies fare better, but eventually have to be sacrificed as well. In a moment that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, the dog keeper tells his wards, “You’ll be having some fresh meat soon.” At the last camp, even the dogs are left behind.
From that point, the five remaining men trudge onward, only to eventually spot the Norwegian flag at the pole. The first shot of that flag, through binoculars, hit me square in the chest. At the flag, Scott will find a letter for him to deliver to the king of Norway. “He failed to stamp it,” he dryly observes.
From there, it is a literal death march back to the last camp. They will fall short of that goal, with one person after another falling by the wayside. In an astonishingly hard moment, one man leaves the tent well aware he is going to his death: “I’m just stepping outside. I may be away for some time.” I’m not crying—you’re crying!
There is a lot I liked here. A cross made of skis to mark the grave of the first man to die on the return trip. A ship’s cabin, clearly a set, made to appear as if we are on a listing ship, accomplished simply by swaying a lamp and shifting the angle of overhead lights. Speaking of effects, there’s some excellent miniature work, often incorporated quite well into actual footage (which I believe was shot in Norway). And that real footage is often jaw-dropping, such as a long pan up a glacier, starting with a group of very small figures walking up it in the distance.
Scott of the Antarctic is a bittersweet experience, a testimony to somebody who reached for greatness and fell short. That they didn’t succeed doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate them for what they tried to do.
Dir: Charles Frend
Starring John Mills, Derek Bond, Diana Churchill
Watched on Studiocanal UK blu-ray (region B)