Dawson City: Frozen Time

The 1978 discovery of 533 reels of nitrate film beneath the permafrost of a decommissioned swimming pool, later known as the Dawson Film Find, serves to frame a narrative of the Canadian gold rush, the dawn of 20th century America, and Hollywood in the silent era.

Contents of the unearthed reels help portray the story of Dawson City: how native lands of the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin became a frontier, a boomtown, and an entertainment hub, before industrial monopolies and poverty of resources ensued. The 1957 documentary City of Gold captured Dawson in the shadow of its former glory.

The film utilizes a number of silent film techniques, consistent with the subject matter, including intertitles in place of voice-over narration, as well as archival sound and a prominent musical score. Brief interviews with those who saved the reels have a more contemporary documentary style. Those sequences include the recounting of the film cache's discovery and how the problem of delivering such chemically volatile objects was handled since commercial delivery services refused to transport the supply to Ottawa and Washington D.C. Ultimately, the Canadian Armed Forces were assigned to transport it south themselves.[8]

The film begins with a description of the dangers of flammable nitrate film. This offers some insight into the fragility of the cinematic medium, the archive, and perhaps history itself. The story of Dawson City is repeatedly framed in terms of loss, with decay foregrounded by the introduction, the brooding score, and the story itself. The film also focuses on the history of exploitation in Dawson City, implying a parallel between the economic apparatus of the Klondike Gold Rush and that of the motion picture industry.[9]

Bill Morrison had initially envisioned the project to be similar to his 12-minute film The Film of Her (1996), but came to envision a broader scope as time went on. Kathy Jones and Michael Gates, employees of the Dawson Museum and Parks Canada respectively, were two of the early authorities on the Dawson City Film Find. Morrison interviewed both in 2014. Originally he did not intend to include the interview in the final film.[10] Morrison was able to recruit Alex Somers as composer after learning that the band Sigur Ros were fans of his previous film Decasia.[11]

Dawson City: Frozen Time has received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports a 100% approval rating based on 62 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.10/10. The site's consensus reads: "Dawson City: Frozen Time takes a patient look at the past through long-lost film footage that reveals much more than glimpses at life through the camera's lens".[12] Dawson City: Frozen Time appeared on more than 100 critics' lists of the best films of 2017,[13] and on numerous lists of the best films of the 2010s, including those from the Associated Press,[14] Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan),[15] and Vanity Fair (Richard Lawson).[16] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "If you love film, if you’re intoxicated by the way movies combine image and emotion, be prepared to swoon."[17] Deborah Eisenberg, writing in the New York Review of Books, summarized: "Dawson City: Frozen Time is nominally a documentary—it is a documentary—but describing it as a documentary is something like describing Ulysses as a travel guide to Dublin. The film is transfixing, an utterly singular compound of the bizarre, the richly informative, the thrilling, the horrifying, the goofy, the tragic, and the flat-out gorgeous."[18] Glenn Kenny of The New York Times praised the film "as an instantaneously recognizable masterpiece."[19]

• Dawson City: Frozen Time at IMDb
• Dawson City: Frozen Time at Rotten Tomatoes
• Dawson City: Frozen Time at Box Office Mojo
• Official trailer on YouTube
• Trailer on Vimeo