Film ReviewsDawson City: Frozen Time is brilliant
Oct 6, 2017 Anchorage Press
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In the mid-1990s, Greek director Theo Angelopoulos made a film called Ulysses’ Gaze, about a Greek filmmaker living in America who goes on a quest to the Balkans in search of legendary film reels. These reels were rumored to have been shot by the Manakia brothers, film and photography pioneers, who brought cinema to the Balkans towards the end of the Ottoman Empire. The quest for the Manakia reels takes the filmmaker into the Balkan wars of the 1990s and overlaps the personal history with the history of the Balkans. Ulysses’ Gaze is a profound film that longs for the rediscovery of truth through art. Angelopoulos died in 2012, and in 2017 Director, Bill Morrison did something amazing, something that would bring tears of joy to Angelopoulos eyes--Dawson City: Frozen Time. Oh, if Angelopoulos could see it now, Dawson City: Frozen Time is fucking brilliant!
Dawson City, in northwest Canada, sits along the Yukon River in traditional Athabaskan lands and what is known as the Yukon Territory. It was settled in the late 1890s and emerged as the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush. Dawson City was the place where fortunes were made and lost, including those of contemporary families whose names adorn skylines from New York to L.A.—Guggenheim, Trump, etc. Morrison’s documentary is not just about the Klondike Gold Rush, it’s about the interrelationships between events, time, and the far-reaching impact it had on literature, art, and even baseball.
After the displacement of indigenous people, Dawson City’s population ebbed and flowed along with the gold prospecting and mining operations throughout the 1900s. Dawson City was often the last stop in film distribution, and films took two to three years to get there. Once the films made it to Dawson City they were likely not in great demand elsewhere and transportation was so expensive that studios didn’t always want them back, so for many film reels, Dawson City was the last stop before disappearing into obscurity. But what happened to the hundreds and hundreds of reels? By the1970s, Dawson City’s population had settled to under 1,000, and its economy was modest. During a public works project to install a new septic system, the bulldozer unearthed a treasure trove—over 500 of the original nitrate/celluloid film reels. The history and stories that emerge from this discovery are fascinating—and if it is true that art imitates life and vice versa, then there is no better art form that illustrates that than film. The discovery of the reels is incredibly important because many were thought to have been lost forever. Nitrate films are so combustible and unstable that it is believed that about 75 percent of these silent works have been lost forever.
More inside Dawson City: Frozen Time is a must see for everyone, but especially for aspiring, young filmmakers, whose personal history with moviemaking is through their iPhones and GoPros because Dawson City: Frozen Time provides an opportunity to know where film comes from and just how far it has come. Through Dawson City: Frozen Time, Morrison walks viewers through the history of the media and of an otherwise, inaccessible place and time. From an artistic perspective, Dawson City: Frozen Time is sublime and beautiful. As Morrison stitches together still and moving images that laid dormant in the belly of the earth, just south of the Arctic Circle, he doesn’t only show them, he unravels them and gives them a voice to tell their own story again, and for the first time in a long time. The clips that Morrison beautifully constructs into a narrative show the wear and tear, the decay that comes when artistic processes are at their end—and it’s majestic. Process in art is an art on to itself, any visual artist can attest to the lure of process and falling in love with it over the finished piece. There is something that inspires curiosity in seeing art forms in a state of emergence and decay, Dawson City: Frozen Time provides a glimpse into the past, the art of decay, and the hope of restoration.
Bear Tooth Theater
Not rated
Runtime: 2:00
Monday October 19, 2017 at 5:30 PM
Dawson City, in northwest Canada, sits along the Yukon River in traditional Athabaskan lands and what is known as the Yukon Territory. It was settled in the late 1890s and emerged as the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush. Dawson City was the place where fortunes were made and lost, including those of contemporary families whose names adorn skylines from New York to L.A.—Guggenheim, Trump, etc. Morrison’s documentary is not just about the Klondike Gold Rush, it’s about the interrelationships between events, time, and the far-reaching impact it had on literature, art, and even baseball.
After the displacement of indigenous people, Dawson City’s population ebbed and flowed along with the gold prospecting and mining operations throughout the 1900s. Dawson City was often the last stop in film distribution, and films took two to three years to get there. Once the films made it to Dawson City they were likely not in great demand elsewhere and transportation was so expensive that studios didn’t always want them back, so for many film reels, Dawson City was the last stop before disappearing into obscurity. But what happened to the hundreds and hundreds of reels? By the1970s, Dawson City’s population had settled to under 1,000, and its economy was modest. During a public works project to install a new septic system, the bulldozer unearthed a treasure trove—over 500 of the original nitrate/celluloid film reels. The history and stories that emerge from this discovery are fascinating—and if it is true that art imitates life and vice versa, then there is no better art form that illustrates that than film. The discovery of the reels is incredibly important because many were thought to have been lost forever. Nitrate films are so combustible and unstable that it is believed that about 75 percent of these silent works have been lost forever.
More inside Dawson City: Frozen Time is a must see for everyone, but especially for aspiring, young filmmakers, whose personal history with moviemaking is through their iPhones and GoPros because Dawson City: Frozen Time provides an opportunity to know where film comes from and just how far it has come. Through Dawson City: Frozen Time, Morrison walks viewers through the history of the media and of an otherwise, inaccessible place and time. From an artistic perspective, Dawson City: Frozen Time is sublime and beautiful. As Morrison stitches together still and moving images that laid dormant in the belly of the earth, just south of the Arctic Circle, he doesn’t only show them, he unravels them and gives them a voice to tell their own story again, and for the first time in a long time. The clips that Morrison beautifully constructs into a narrative show the wear and tear, the decay that comes when artistic processes are at their end—and it’s majestic. Process in art is an art on to itself, any visual artist can attest to the lure of process and falling in love with it over the finished piece. There is something that inspires curiosity in seeing art forms in a state of emergence and decay, Dawson City: Frozen Time provides a glimpse into the past, the art of decay, and the hope of restoration.
Bear Tooth Theater
Not rated
Runtime: 2:00
Monday October 19, 2017 at 5:30 PM