Every artistic work is also a document of the time in which it was produced and the people who produced it. The Great White Silence, comprising footage shot during the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913) was released a little over 10 years after its tragedy unfolded. It was also directed by Herbert Ponting, himself a member of the expedition-- their designated "camera artist". The fact that this features images taken during the expedition before the episode that came to define…

"Do you know he's one of the richest men in the country? And he got that way selling cheap gags and Halloween masks. Oh, god, there's hope for us yet!"

I absolutely love this, and I'm shocked to find this has such a low average rating here on letterboxd. There's so much to sink our teeth into-- the use of technology by big businesses in order to control others! The very interesting usage of the first Halloween as a movie…

This one was quite topical to 1974, what with all the talk about the energy crisis and solar power as a possible solution-- and it also feels quite current to our present moment, 52 years later, considering both the similarities between the geopolitical circunstances that led to the crisis then and the sitation now and also the urgent need to move away from fossil fuels due to climate change.

Aside from the mention of the energy crisis, another element that…

There's a (perhaps unintentionally) revealing moment in this movie which in some ways sums the whole thing up quite nicely: there's a show going on in this hotel Bond stays, in the fictional caribbean island of San Monique. In this show we see a supposed representation of Voudou practices; the master of ceremonies says: "Baron Samedi, Voodoo God of Cemeteries [...] but for our purposes just a performer in a little musical extravaganza we've cooked up for you wonderful people…