White Thunder. (Short Takes).

2002 51m d Victoria King.

Newfoundland filmmaker Victoria King's White Thunder is an absorbing portrait of American filmmaker Varick Frissell, who perished in an explosion on a ship off the coast of Newfoundland on March 15, 1931. He was there to complete a feature film about the seal hunt, called White Thunder. Three months after the explosion, which killed 26, the largest disaster of its kind in the history of Hollywood, Paramount released the film under the title, The Viking. King's film is a densely packed, often rewarding examination of Frissell's life and his interest in the seal hunt and the sealers' way of life. Narrated by Mike Jones, White Thunder's chronicle contains Frissell's diary entries and letters, as well as interviews with film historian Kevin Brownlow, many of Frissell's relatives, and snippets of radio and newsreel interviews with surviving cast and crew of The Viking. Woven into the biography are questions about the nature of documentary cinema in the 1920s, the compromises made to make Frissell's feature film mo re "commercial," the relationship between the United States and pre--Confederation Newfoundland, and Frissell's attraction to romanticized ideas of the North. Perhaps owing to time constraints, most of these strands are given rather cursory treatment, as the more poignant personal story predominates. (It's welcome news to report that a restored version of The Viking is now being completed at the National Archives of Canada.)