Shackleton

Thinking of early 20th century Antarctic exploration I always think of Scott and Wilson first, I guess I like them for various reasons. Just lately I've been catching up on my Shackleton. I watched the series that was made on his Transantarctic expedition a few years ago. Kenneth Branagh played the title role, and he did that very well. He managed to catch the passion, the compassion and the determination of the man, as well as his charm. I know it was a dramatisation, and in places it didn't look very realistic, but it did give some sense of the human side of the whole expedition.



I also recently watched Scott of the Antarctic, and this series had some of the same features. In some scenes of the film you could clearly recognise Ponting's pictures, in the case of the Shackleton series the images of Hurley came out in some of the shots of the series. They must have been a source of inspiration and information for the makers of the series.

I did feel that much stress was placed on the preparation, and Shackleton's various affairs on land, and the final journey was dealt with relatively quickly. There were few images of the men living on Elephant Island, but I guess spending too much time dealing with that would be a little monotonous maybe. And it all seemed very clean. When the real Shackleton reached the Whaling station at Stromness he wasn't recognised by the Station Master, but the man reaching the Station in the series was easily recognisable as the man who'd started out on this ambitious expedition.

Another funny thing was the role of the Royal Geographic Society. They were asked for funds for the expedition but didn't provide much. When asked to help set up a rescue expedition they weren't very keen either. So I wonder what Shackleton would think of his statue adorning the current quarters of the Society.

When I was on South Georgia I visited Shackleton's grave. A simple grave amongst the whalers, but it does seem the right place for him to be. South Georgia is one of the most beautiful places in the world for me, a perfect last resting place.