Scott of the Antarctic

I highly recommend the 1948 British film, Scott of the Antarctic.  It tells the story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated attempt to lead the first team of explorers to the South Pole.  Once again, Amazon has bested Netflix in making fine historical movies like this one available.

The film score was written by the esteemed British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958).  This project served as a springboard for his remarkable and otherworldly Symphony No. 7, Sinfonia Antartica, completed in 1952.  It is a favorite of mine.

As I have written here before, it is good to see a film that communicates effectively without the need to resort to graphic violence, foul language, etc.  You can feel the dreadful cold viscerally watching this film.  Near the end of their journey, Scott and his team in March 1912 regularly experienced high temperatures no better than -30°F during the day and low temperatures around -47°F at night.  And then there was the wind.  It would have been horrible.

One question I had while watching the movie and thinking about the real-life expedition: how did they navigate across an endless terrain of snow and ice?  It appears they primarily relied upon a theodolite which was used to measure accurate horizontal and vertical positions of the Sun and Moon.  Knowing the position of the Sun or the Moon at a particular time allowed Scott and his fellow explorers to determine their geographic latitude and longitude by using a book of navigation tables.

Theodolite used by Lt. Edward Evans

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