Dr. Mawson in the Antarctic

The film(s) consist of a collection of photographs and moving pictures shot by Frank Hurley, a photographer who joined the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which was led by Sir Douglas Mawson and travelled on to Antarctica in 1911. Hurley returned in early 1913, but Mawson's return was delayed until 1914. ==Titles and provenance==

The film's provenance is complicated and bits were released under different titles over time. It is usually known in Australia as Home of the Blizzard, and Hurley himself referred to the film as Home of the Blizzard in a 1940 interview. This title refers to the AAE's main base camp was at Cape Denison in Adélie Land, and which Mawson took as the title of his 1915 book (The Home of the Blizzard). The history of the various reels of film decades later is complicated, with at least some of those currently in the NFSA having come from Mawson himself; his collection was forwarded to the National Library of Australia in May 1960 after extensive correspondence. In 1961, 16mm prints were made of some reels by the Commonwealth Film Unit, but the 35mm ones were retained. ==Production==

The expedition left Hobart, Tasmania, in December 1911. An earlier report (May 1931), reported the title as With Mawson in the Frozen South. ==Release==

Footage released in 1912 and 1913 was usually titled With Mawson in the South, sometimes accompanied by a lecture on the region. It was also sometimes titled With Dr. Mawson in the Antarctic in 1912 and 1913. After Hurley's return to Australia in early 1913, the AAE footage was edited and premiered as a feature film in Melbourne at West's Picture Palace on Saturday 19 July 1913 (not in Sydney, as is often stated). After screening to large audiences in Sydney and elsewhere, enough money was raised for to head back to Cape Denison the following summer to collect Mawson. Mawson himself referred to the footage as "the AAE film". Other titles used with the 1913 release were The Mawson Antarctic Expedition, Life in the Antarctic, The Mawson Pictures, and ''Dr Mawson's Antarctic Film Series, but no newspaper review indicated a specific title. Film historians have expressed scepticism about the title Home of the Blizzard'', and it has never been released in Australia under that title. The film was released in the UK as Life in the Antarctic. Release dates recorded by the NFSA (versions unclear) are as follows: • May–July 1912, Australia • July–August 1913, Australia • August–September 1914, Australia • October 1914–1915, North America • May 1915, London • 1916–? in distribution, North America • 1919–? ==Reception and impact==

The film was successful in England and led to Ernest Shackleton hiring Hurley on his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition between 1914 and 1916. In the Grip of the Polar Pack Ice, a documentary about Shackleton's expedition, was released in London in 1919. In 1996 the silent version was restored as a standalone film titled ''South: Sir Ernest Shackleton's Glorious Epic of the Antarctic''. ==Legacy==

Chief cinema programmer at the NFSA, Quentin Turnour, wrote that the film was the "primary documentation of the expedition and of first contact with Antarctica's natural history... also an artefact of Edwardian popular culture and of the history of moving image preservation in Australia... [and also] celebrated as a classic of Australian national cinema". Turnour also suggests that some of the scenes in George Miller's 2006 animated film Happy Feet may be seen as paying homage to some "iconic cinematic moments" in Hurley's film. ==Footnotes==