A Good, Balanced Documentary on R Amundsen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeEm5256pWQ

A Good, Balanced Documentary on R Amundsen.

BBC, presented by Richard Atenborough.

It starts in black and white, nearly fades out altogether, and then comes back in reasonable quality colour. Don't be put off by the terrible quality at the very start.

I like this, because it fairly discussed the methods and panning of Amundsen on his journey to the South Pole, but refrains from the revisionism of Roland Huntford's drama/documentary on both Amundsen's journey and Captain Scott's [Last Place on Earth is the film, And first published as the book, "Scott and Amundsen, The Race to the South]. Unfortunately the Huntford version is an example of the worst kind of inaccurate historical revisionism based on a partial and selective examination of the historical sources, and makes Scott out to be not merely foolish, but effectively culpable of homicide of his men.

Clearly Amundsen was the more able planner and logistical expert, but Scott was using methods that had proved successful for both himself and Shackleton in earlier efforts to reach the South Pole.

This documentary does not gloss over the major mistake of Amundsen's in setting out far too soon and the frantic rush back to base to avoid the extreme cold.

Enjoy.

ATB from George