Dawson City: Frozen Time

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Dawson City: Frozen Time
Dawson City film poster.jpg
Film poster
Directed by Bill Morrison
Written byBill Morrison
Produced byBill Morrison
Madeleine Molyneaux
Edited byBill Morrison
Music by Alex Somers
Production
companies
Hypnotic Pictures
Picture Palace Pictures
Distributed by Kino Lorber
Cineteca Bologna
Release date
  • September 5, 2016 (2016-09-05)(Venice)
Running time
120 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$111,619 [1]

Dawson City: Frozen Time is a 2016 American documentary film written, edited, and directed by Bill Morrison, [2] and produced by Morrison and Madeleine Molyneaux. [3] First screened in the Orizzonti competition section at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, [4] the film details the history of the remote Yukon town of Dawson City, from the Klondike Gold Rush to the 1978 Dawson Film Find: a discovery of 533 nitrate reels containing numerous lost films. The recovered silent films, buried beneath a hockey rink in 1929, [5] [6] included shorts, features, and newsreel footage of various events, such as the 1919 World Series. [7]

Contents

Synopsis

The 1978 discovery of 533 reels of nitrate film beneath the permafrost of a decommissioned swimming pool, later known as the Dawson Film Find, serves to frame a narrative of the Klondike Gold Rush, the dawn of 20th century America, Hollywood in the silent era, and the history of the town of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada.

Contents of the unearthed reels help portray the story of Dawson City: how native lands of the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin became a frontier, a boomtown, and an entertainment hub, before industrial monopolies and poverty of resources ensued. The 1957 documentary City of Gold captured Dawson in the shadow of its former glory.

The film utilizes a number of silent film techniques, consistent with the subject matter, including intertitles in place of voice-over narration, as well as archival sound and a prominent musical score. Brief interviews with those who saved the reels have a more contemporary documentary style. Those sequences include the recounting of the film cache's discovery, and of how the problem of delivering such chemically volatile objects was handled. Commercial delivery services refused to transport the film reels, so, ultimately, the Canadian Armed Forces were assigned to transport them to their final destinations in Ottawa and Washington D.C. [8]

Themes

The film begins with a description of the dangers of flammable nitrate film. This offers some insight into the fragility of the cinematic medium, the archive, and perhaps history itself. The story of Dawson City is repeatedly framed in terms of loss, with decay foregrounded by the introduction, the brooding score, and the story itself. Another focus is the history of exploitation in Dawson City, implying a parallel between the economic apparatus of the Klondike Gold Rush and that of the motion picture industry. [9]

Production

Bill Morrison had initially intended for this project to result in something similar to his 12-minute short The Film of Her (1996), but he came to envision a broader scope as his work on it progressed. Morrison was able to recruit Alex Somers as composer after learning that the band Sigur Ros, with whom Somers collaborates, were fans of his previous film Decasia (2002). [10]

Michael Gates and Kathy Jones-Gates, employees of Parks Canada and the Dawson Museum, respectively, were two of the early authorities on the Dawson City Film Find. Morrison filmed an interview with them both in 2014, though he did not originally plan to include the footage in the final film. [11]

Critical response

Dawson City: Frozen Time received positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 62 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 8.10/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Dawson City: Frozen Time takes a patient look at the past through long-lost film footage that reveals much more than glimpses at life through the camera's lens." [12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim". [13]

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "If you love film, if you’re intoxicated by the way movies combine image and emotion, be prepared to swoon." [14] Glenn Kenny of The New York Times praised the film "as an instantaneously recognizable masterpiece." [15] Deborah Eisenberg, writing in the New York Review of Books, summarized: "Dawson City: Frozen Time is nominally a documentary—it is a documentary—but describing it as a documentary is something like describing Ulysses as a travel guide to Dublin. The film is transfixing, an utterly singular compound of the bizarre, the richly informative, the thrilling, the horrifying, the goofy, the tragic, and the flat-out gorgeous." [16]

The film appeared on more than 100 critics' lists of the best films of 2017, [17] and on numerous lists of the best films of the 2010s, including those from the Associated Press, [18] the Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan), [19] and Vanity Fair (Richard Lawson). [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klondike, Yukon</span> Region of Yukon, Canada

The Klondike is a region of the territory of Yukon, in northwestern Canada. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon River from the east at Dawson City. The area is merely an informal geographic region, and has no function to the territory as any kind of administrative region. It is located in the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silent film</span> Motion pictures without synchronized recorded sound

A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound. Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of inter-title cards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yukon</span> Northern territory of Canada

Yukon is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It is the most densely populated of the three territories, with an estimated population of 46,704 as of 2024, though it has a smaller population than all provinces. Whitehorse, the territorial capital, is the largest settlement in any of the three territories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klondike Gold Rush</span> 1896–1899 migration to Yukon, Canada

The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon in northwestern Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dawson City</span> Town in Yukon, Canada

Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–1899). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest municipality in Yukon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dempster Highway</span> Highway in Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories, Canada

The Dempster Highway, also referred to as Yukon Highway 5 and Northwest Territories Highway 8, is a highway in Canada that connects the Klondike Highway in Yukon to Inuvik, Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie River delta. The highway crosses the Peel and the Mackenzie rivers using a combination of seasonal ferry services and ice bridges. Year-round road access from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk opened in November 2017, with the completion of the Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway, creating the first all-weather road route connecting the Canadian road network with the Arctic Ocean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park</span> Four US sites commemorate prospector migrant routes to Yukon Territory, Canada, 1896–99

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lost film</span> Feature or short film that is no longer known to exist

A lost film is a feature or short film in which the original negative or copies are not known to exist in any studio archive, private collection, or public archive. Films can be wholly or partially lost for a number of reasons. Early films were not thought to have value beyond their theatrical run, so many were discarded afterward. Nitrate film used in early pictures was highly flammable and susceptible to degradation. The Library of Congress began acquiring copies of American films in 1909, but not all were kept. Due to improvements in film technology and recordkeeping, few films produced in the 1950s or beyond have been lost.

Klondike may refer to:

Bill Morrison is an American, New York–based filmmaker and artist. His films often combine rare archival material set to contemporary music, and have been screened in theaters, cinemas, museums, galleries, and concert halls around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Yukon</span>

The history of the Yukon covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians through the Beringia land bridge approximately 20,000 years ago. In the 18th century, Russian explorers began to trade with the First Nations people along the Alaskan coast, and later established trade networks extending into Yukon. By the 19th century, traders from the Hudson's Bay Company were also active in the region. The region was administered as a part of the North-Western Territory until 1870, when the United Kingdom transferred the territory to Canada and it became the North-West Territories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yukon Field Force</span> Military unit

The Yukon Field Force, later termed the Yukon Garrison, was a unit of 203 officers and men from the Permanent Force of the Canadian Militia that served in the Yukon between 1898 and 1900. The force was created in the wake of the Klondike Gold Rush in response to fears that the United States might attempt to seize the region. It left Ottawa on May 6, 1898, travelling by rail and sea to the port of Glenora in British Columbia. From there, the unit made an arduous journey of 890 kilometres (550 mi) on foot and using makeshift boats to Fort Selkirk, where they established their headquarters. A detachment of 72 men was sent to the boom town of Dawson City to support the North-West Mounted Police, with duties that included guarding the gold deposits of the local banks. As the fears of an annexation reduced, pressures grew for the recall of the force. The force was halved in size in July 1898 and the remainder were finally withdrawn in June 1900.

<i>Gold Rush</i> (TV series) American reality television series

Gold Rush is a reality television series that airs on Discovery and its affiliates worldwide. The series follows the placer gold mining efforts of various family-run mining companies, initially in Alaska, but then mostly in the Klondike region of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. Prior seasons also included mining efforts in Guyana, Oregon, and Colorado. As of 2024 the show has aired 14 seasons.

The Klondike Gold Rush is commemorated through film, literature, historical parks etc.

<i>Frozen Justice</i> 1929 film

Frozen Justice is a 1929 American pre-Code drama film directed by Allan Dwan. The picture starred Lenore Ulric in her first sound film and is based on the 1920 novel, Norden For Lov og Ret, by Ejnar Mikkelsen. A shorter, silent version of the film was also released. The film was set in Nome, Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898 and 1899.

<i>Klondike</i> (miniseries) 2014 television miniseries

Klondike is a three-part miniseries about the Klondike Gold Rush that was broadcast by the Discovery Channel on January 20–22, 2014. Based on Charlotte Gray's novel Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike, it is the Discovery Channel's first scripted miniseries. Klondike was directed by Simon Cellan Jones and stars Richard Madden as Bill Haskell, a real-life adventurer who traveled to Yukon, Canada, in the late 1890s during the gold rush.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dredge No. 4</span> Historic gold-mining dredge in Yukon, Canada

Dredge No. 4 is a wooden-hulled bucketline sluice dredge that mined placer gold on the Yukon River from 1913 until 1959. It is now located along Bonanza Creek Road 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) south of the Klondike Highway near Dawson City, Yukon, where it is preserved as one of the National Historic Sites of Canada. It is the largest wooden-hulled dredge in North America.

Saving Brinton is a 2017 American documentary film about the efforts of Iowa resident Mike Zahs to preserve a large quantity of reels of film from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that he found in the basement of a farm house. It premiered at AFI Docs on June 17, 2017 and internationally at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post calls it one of 2018's "best movies of the year". It was directed by Tommy Haines and Andrew Sherburne.

Gold is a 1955 Canadian short documentary film, directed by Colin Low for the National Film Board of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dawson Film Find</span> 1978 discovery of 533 silent-era films

The Dawson Film Find (DFF) was the accidental discovery in 1978 of 372 film titles preserved in 533 reels of silent-era nitrate films in the Klondike Gold Rush town of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. The reels had been buried under an abandoned hockey rink in 1929 and included lost films of feature movies and newsreels. A construction excavation inadvertently uncovered the forgotten cache of discarded films, which were unintentionally preserved by the permafrost.

References

  1. "Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016)". Box Office Mojo . Internet Movie Database . Retrieved August 28, 2017.
  2. "Dawson City: Frozen Time". Picture Palace Pictures. September 19, 2016. Archived from the original on October 8, 2014. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  3. TCM.com
  4. "La Biennale di Venezia - Orizzonti". Archived from the original on October 4, 2016. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  5. Weschler, Lawrence (September 14, 2016). "The Discovery, and Remarkable Recovery, of the King Tut's Tomb of Silent-Era Cinema". Vanity Fair. Retrieved July 20, 2017.
  6. "Lost and Found no. 2 – Dawson City". The Bioscope. September 19, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  7. "Footage of scandalous 1919 World Series saved by Yukon permafrost". CBC News. September 19, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  8. Morrison, Bill (2016). Dawson City: Frozen Time. KinoLorber. p. 1:53:45.
  9. The Filmmaker as Miner: An Interview with Bill Morrison on JSTOR (Bill Morrison and Scott MacDonald Cinéaste Vol. 42, No. 1 (Winter 2016), pp. 40-43)
  10. The Filmmaker as Miner: An Interview with Bill Morrison on JSTOR (Bill Morrison and Scott MacDonald Cinéaste Vol. 42, No. 1 (Winter 2016), pp. 40-43)
  11. The Filmmaker as Miner: An Interview with Bill Morrison on JSTOR (Bill Morrison and Scott MacDonald Cinéaste Vol. 42, No. 1 (Winter 2016), pp. 40-43)
  12. "Dawson City: Frozen Time". Rotten Tomatoes. January 21, 2023.
  13. "Dawson City: Frozen Time". Metacritic . Retrieved May 2, 2024.
  14. Turan, Kenneth (June 15, 2017). "'Dawson City: Frozen Time' details the astonishing discovery of a treasure-trove of forgotten film". Los Angeles Times .
  15. Kenny, Glenn (June 8, 2017). "In 'Dawson City: Frozen Time,' Early Movies Lost and Found". The New York Times .
  16. Eisenberg, Deborah (August 16, 2018). "After the Gold Rush". New York Review of Books. ISSN   0028-7504 . Retrieved October 4, 2019.
  17. "Dawson City: Frozen Time awards and year-end lists". Hypnotic Pictures. December 31, 2019.
  18. Coyle, Jake (December 13, 2017). "'Tree of Life' tops AP's best 10 films of the decade". Associated Press.
  19. Turan, Kenneth (December 30, 2017). "The best movies of the decade: Kenneth Turan and Justin Chang's essential picks". Los Angeles Times .
  20. Lawson, Richard (November 26, 2017). "The 10 Best Movies of the 2010s: Richard Lawson's List". Vanity Fair.