The 1978 discovery of a treasure trove of “lost” silent films, under an abandoned ice rink in the Yukon tundra, is the basis for Bill Morrison’s new documentary, Dawson City: Frozen Time, opening tonight at Vancity Theatre.
Morrison uses old film, in various states of decomposition, in a Proustian dissertation on the rise and fall of Dawson City in the late 19th century. The “boom town” was the end of the line in the Hollywood distribution network and most of the films that reached the northern mining town were never returned to sender.
Of 1,500 reels retrieved, 533 were salvageable with 500,000 ft. of film. Spanning the years 1903 to 1929, the footage includes some of the earliest Hollywood productions, newsreels of the Great War and the anarchist Alexander Berkman being deported in 1919, as well as the Chicago White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series.
The nitrate film reels which had been stored in a vault at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce were used to fix a bump in a hockey rink. The screening tonight at 6:20 p.m. will be followed by filmmaker Q&A (via Skype). Former Dawson City alderman, Pentecostal minister and part-time backhoe operator Frank Barrett, who dug up the canisters behind Diamond Tooth Gertie’s gambling hall, will be in attendance.
There will be a free screening of the Oscar-nominated Canadian short film about Dawson from 1957, City of Gold immediately after Dawson City: Frozen Time on Sunday, July 23 at 7 p.m., courtesy of the NFB.
Saturday, July 22 and Sunday, July 23 Vancity Theatre is also showing Charlie Chaplin's 1925 film The Gold Rush in a newly restored 35mm print.
