Chasing Shackleton

A vainglorious and dim-witted PBS mini-series, this three-program special documents an attempt by six adventurers to replicate polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated 1913-1917 Transpolar Expedition. As most everyone knows, Shackleton was a dullard who botched everything in his life except the extrication of his twenty or so men from Antarctica once his folly marooned them there. A visionary and media-savvy con-man, Shackleton planned to cross Antarctica, documenting his exploits on film. Instead of crossing the continent, his ship, the Endurance, became mired in ice and, ultimately, was destroyed. Shackleton was stranded and, ultimately, had to venture across 800 miles of frigid tempestuous seas in a tiny boat to reach help at a whaling station on South Georgia island. Making shore on the wrong side of the island, Shackleton and two of his desperate men (three of them were too weakened by their ordeal to continue) had to cross 32 miles of mountainous and heavily glaciated terrain to reach the Norwegian encampment. Achieving that objective, rescue parties were sent to pick up the three men "hors de combat" on the other side of the island and, further, dispatched across the violent seas to Elephant Island to retrieve the rest of his adventurers who had been subsisting on a diet of greasy penguin for the last two years. Everyone survived the catastrophe. Ironically, a number of Shackleton's men decided to exchange the rigors of polar exploration for the Western Front where they were killed. When the chips were down, Shackleton acted with undeniable fortitute and resolution but, of course, one must question his judgement in getting into these desperate straits in the first place. Pictures of the explorer show a man with unexpressive, stolid features, a fellow who looks like an uninspired Presbyterian minister. In recent years, a cult has grown up around Shackleton and his prowess as a leader has been extolled -- mostly to melancholy middle-aged accountants and business executives who seek to emulate their hero's determination and resolve. No one in their right mind would follow Shackleton in fair weather and under blue skies. But I suppose if you let him lead you into catastrophe, he would be an excellent fellow to follow to safety. But why put yourself in danger in the first place? Inadvertently, the idiotic "Chasing Shackleton" raises these issues. The leader of the expedition, a splendidly bearded gent named Jarvis, worships Shackleton as if he were a God. Jarvis says that he wants to prove that modern explorers have sufficient fortitude to endure the kind of hardships that Shackleton suffered and to prevail against similar challenges. Although at the end of the show, Jarvis, who at one point bravely proclaims that -- Yakuza-style -- he will trade a couple digits (pinky-toes, I think) for success, loudly and dramatically declares victory at the end of the show, the viewer is left unconvinced. First, the modern adventurers are coddled by an accompanying rescue ship, fully equipped with a modern infirmary doctors, and, wiggling out of the corner of the frame, a couple of comely nurses. On several occasions, disaster looms and the heroic explorers have to seek assistance from the rescue vessel. It is clear that the open boat in which our heros have crossed the sea from Elephant Island would have crashed into the black escarpments surrounding South Georgia Island with all hands lost but for the intervention of the GPS systems on the rescue vessel. On South Georgia Island, the six member team encounters all sorts of peculiar medical problems and people have to be evacuated from the island. Bad weather forces the three remaining explorers to huddle in cozy Gor-tex tents for several days, a luxury not available to poor Shackleton and his explorers -- they had fifty feet of frayed rope and a carpenter's adze. In short, it is pretty clear that, contrary to Jarvis' boastful proclamation of victory, his expedition has proved the exact opposite of what he purports it to have established. Jarvis tells us that modern explorers are just as tough as Shackleton. But the film shows that everyone would have perished repeatedly except for modern medical technology and the benefits of such amenities as gortex tents, satellite cartography, and GPS The show is solemn and dull, although the landscapes are beautiful. (This TV show profits by the largest screen possible -- the sheer magnificent malelovence of the polar islands and seas is diminished by a small screen: the spiky and sinister Triton Ridge on South Georgia Island, for instance, is a terrifying sight, but, undoubtedly, appears much lessened when viewed on TV.) The show takes itself and its moron adventurers too seriously. In one sequences, the men have to slide on their buttocks down a thousand foot ramp of steep snow and ice. The effect is inadvertently comical, but the narration solemnly explicates the humorous image: "The men descend from the ridge using a well-established mountaineering technique called the controlled, roped glissade" -- evidently, a technical term for tobogganing down a mountain on your ass. Much of the show is occupied with the men bitching at one another and making catty remarks. This is a staple of reality TV. Of course, one must hypothesize that Shackelton's unfortunate followers spend a lot of time whining and carping at one another also. But there was no camera around to record these conversations. Instead, the primitive movie camera that the Transpolar expedition lugged with it recorded stark and beautiful images of the crucifixion of the Endurance by ice, some of the most dignified and profound pictures made in the 20th century.