Shackleton: Breaking the Ice

This short documentary relates with insufficient detail how the enthralling SHACKLETON, starring Kenneth Branagh, was produced and features brief interviews with its director and several members of the cast and crew while shooting was occurring in an eerily beautiful Greenland, with much emphasis placed upon the difficult process involved in following the timeline of the explorers' remarkable saga of survival. The original 28 adventurers struggled for two years to complete their Trans-Atlantic Expedition, and this film treatment under the aegis of writer-director Charles Sturridge took four months, although in BREAKING THE ICE there is a wise refraining from undue emphasis upon non-existent hardships encountered by the cinematic entourage at their far northern temporary home, as this is essentially a promo for SHACKLETON, including budgetary references to what certainly must be one of the most costly films made for television.