Hey folks, Harry here with a look at a Documentary that we should all be interested in all hell in seeing. Later tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse is a screening with Jan Harlan in attendence of KUBRICK: LIFE IN PICTURES... a fantastic documentary that just kills. Wonderful. This documentary ENDURANCE though... I'm giddy about. Ernest Shackleton's adventure is the stuff of legend, and ever since Glen Oliver told me a big hunk of the story years ago, I've been fascinated with the subject matter. Wolfgang Peterson has a film he's doing on the subject... the first co-production from National Geographics' new film division. Read on and be intrigued...

Hi Harry,

Saw a screening of what could be the Academy Award winner this year for documentary feature - George Butler's "Endurance." The film details the ill-fated epic of Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Imperial TransAntarctic Expedition that saw the destruction of their ice locked ship, the crew being marooned on the remote and desolate Elephant Island, and their eventual rescue after Shackleton traveled over 800 miles in a small lifeboat. The story focuses on Shackleton's remarkable leadership skills and his ability to motivate his crew through situations of incredible hardship.

Butler's film incorporates many still photographs and several film clips that incredibly survived from the expedition. That they survived at all, under the circumstances, is remarkable, but these pictures and film clips (generally very clear and visually interesting) provide a stunning and grim portrayals of the individual crew members involved. These original clips also include moving portraits of the dogs and lone cat involved in the expedition. The animals actually play significant roles in the expedition and the film.

Beautiful footage of current day Antarctica, Elephant Island, and Georgia Island is interspliced with the original footage. Interview with living family members of the original crew provide great historical background and backdrop to the story. Also some wonderful BBC audio of original expedition members being interviewed are used in the film.

One of the most intriguing parts of the film was, of all things, the opening credits. In the opening spot where production companies and movie studio companies are credited with production credits, there loomed the unexpected logo of corporate financial giant - Morgan Stanley. After the screening, Butler, who was in the audience, led a brief Q & A session where he explained that Steve Case, a young entry-level employee at Morgan Stanley, had been one of the original investors in Butler's early documentary effort - "Pumping Iron." Years later, Butler, having achieved success as a filmmaker, attempted to pitch the idea of the Shackleton project to Case, who now happens to be CEO of Morgan Stanley... but to no avail (turns out that Case wasn't returning calls because he was in the hospital with a bad back.) A few months later, out of the blue, Case calls Butler and says "Something's going on... I received seven copies of the same book for Christmas from the likes of Steve Jobs, Disney's Eisner, and other CEOs going crazy about the leadership skills of Shackleton as portrayed in the book "Endurance." Let's have a meeting." Butler meets with Case and during the meeting Case suggests that rather than invest as an individual, he thinks that this project espouses the corporate "mentality" of Morgan Stanley and that the the corporation should, in an highly irregular practice, invest in this film Butler is given a chance to pitch the idea to the Morgan board and officers shortly after and opens his presentation by pulling out a copy of the Morgan Stanley annual report and reads from the inside cover... "At the end of the day, Morgan Stanley always gets its investors safely home." The Shackleton story in a nutshell. Morgan Stanley goes for it and invests several million dollars.

Butler also reported that the Shackleton/Endurance story has met with extreme interest from another quarter... the US military leadership in the Pentagon. He told of being invited to the Pentagon to give a preview screening of the film in the Situation Room... only to be thwarted by a malfunctioning projector. Butler and his wife (Colleen Alexander, who wrote the film script and the book that goes with it, as well as a best-selling children's book about the expedition's cat) instead gave a lecture to a rabidly interested audience. It seems more than just a coincidence that the current military operation in Afghanistan is named "Operation Enduring Justice."

In addition to the incredible story of leadership and survival, the film also has two other subtle themes. One is the uniquely British ethos and ideas of suffering as a heroic virtue and the ideal of amateurism (that somehow, even with no expertise or practice, the British will muddle through.) The second theme, which had relevance to a post-September 11th world is who the world can change very suddenly. When Shackleton sets off on his expedition, the world is enjoying a prosperity and focus on heroic (if ill-planned) expeditions to the remotest parts of the globe, the north and south poles. Humanity was entranced by man's ability and eagerness to reach places where literally no one had gone before. An age of heroic exploration was underway and the explorers are lavished with incredible world-wide attention. While Shackleton and his crew are gone, World War I breaks out and when they finally are rescued and return to England, the world has indeed changed and their exploration, suffering, and survival no longer seem worthy of attention, almost appearing vulgar and self-indulgent, in comparison to the suffering and exploits of hundreds of thousands of men fighting and dying on horrible battlefields in Europe. The world had, indeed, changed, just as it has for us now.

The film has appeared at several film festivals and will go into wider release shortly. This film is a lengthier, more intellectual version of the IMAX film.

Butler closed his post-film discussion by predicting that we would see more independent filmmakers turning to large corporate sponsors as major investors.

This is a great film that will hopefully succeed in garnering much-deserved attention from main-stream film audiences and critics. I'll be watching for it on the Oscar nominations list!

EJ in Philadelphia