DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME (A) - This mesmerizing documentary digs deep into film archives of the early 20th century to connect the turn-of-the-century gold rush in the Canadian Yukon with the birth of Hollywood. It is part myth and magic, with hard journalistic edge softened by a dreamlike quality that plays like an ode to a lost time, if not a eulogy for the industry.
The producers capture the plot succinctly: "Using permafrost-protected, rare silent films and newsreels, archival footage, interviews and historical photographs to tell the story, "Dawson City: Frozen Time" pieces together the bizarre true history of a collection of some 500 films dating from the 1910s and 1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory in 1978."
Writer-director Bill Morrison employs that rare footage almost exclusively to convey the fascinating tale and the history of a boom town that displaced indigenous people, only to devolve into a quaint tourist town during the modern era. Only a few scenes involve talking heads. The rest plays out like a silent film, with swelling, haunting music (by Alex Somers of Sigur Ros who scored "Captain Fantastic") and informative text sprawling across the screen. (There's a lot of reading required; this would be best seen on a big screen, though I did the next best thing and pulled a chair up close to the TV monitor).
The deep dive into the culture of a century ago is transfixing and transformative. Human ingenuity is on display -- the mining for gold, the construction of a town, the transportation methods through the snow, the transmission of news and information, the birth of a technology. Dawson City itself stands as a monument to endurance, surviving near-annual fires at its theaters and other foundational buildings.
The films -- many on voluble nitrate stock -- were rescued from under the ice rink of the town's hockey rink, where the reels had been tossed in as landfill. Dawson City was the end of the line for film distribution (it took some films three or four years to make it there), and the studios/distributors didn't want to pay the cost of having the films shipped back; so they were either housed in a library (which also burned down at some point) or disposed of.
Morrison constructs a compelling story here. It's difficult not to get swept up in the majesty of the recounting of it. Tossed back a century in time, we marvel at this lost culture.
BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY (B+) - Another fascinating narrative from another century, this documentary profiles the famous Hollywood star who was an inveterate inventor, coming up with the technology that eventually gave us the wireless communication that powers our lives.
Newcomer Alexandra Dean describes this presentation of Hedy Lamarr as "a film about a girl who wanted to make her mark in the world, but the world could not see past her face." Lamarr was an Austrian sensation (who scandalously simulated an orgasm onscreen as a 19-year-old in "Ecstasy" in 1933) and truly a Hollywood bombshell who starred with many of the screen giants of the '30s and '40s but who also endured her share of clunkers. When she arrived on the scene -- with perfect looks -- other actresses were ordered to follow her lead and part their hair down the middle.
During World War II, she developed a radio guidance system for torpedos dodging Nazi radar; it used frequency-hopping that eventually found its way into modern Bluetooth technology. According to the documentary, the invention was seized by the U.S. military, and Lamarr never made money off of her patented creation.
Dean spins a compelling tale here, anchored by a 1990 phone interview that a journalist recently discovered among his cache of cassette tapes. We also hear from Lamarr's children and other descendants, piecing together many of the tragic aspects of her life -- multiple failed marriages (including in the '50s to a Texas oilman who, in a nasty divorce, denied her the Aspen ski chalet she had designed and loved), an addiction to amphetamines (originally supplied by the studios), and an obsession with plastic surgery. Talking heads include friend Robert Osborne, Mel Brooks and Peter Bogdanovich. Actress Diane Kruger narrates from Lamarr's writings.
There is a suggestion here that Lamarr might have borrowed the idea for her famous invention from her first husband, an Austrian munitions manufacturer (with ties to the Axis powers). But she is presented as a creative and inquisitive woman, who never stopped noodling and doodling. But her life took depressing turns -- she was arrested on charges of shoplifting in 1966 and again in 1991 -- and descended into seclusion, with barely enough money to pay her bills.
Dean puts it all together with the frisson of a sizzling biopic. It zips by in 90 minutes and leaves you wanting to explore more of Lamarr's life.
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