The pioneer of 'Mountain Filming'

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In 1920 a German filmmaker called Arnold Fanck shot his first film - 'Marvels of the Snowshoe' - high in the mountains. He and his team dragged cameras on sledges to reach the highest peaks. They even attached cameras to their skis to make the early action films. Johannes Dell has been watching some of those films and talking to his grandson Matthias Fanck.

Photo: A still from one of Fanck's early Mountain Films. Copyright: Matthias Fanck.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC Sounds
0:30.9	You're listening to the BBC World Service and now witness history with me Johannes Dell.
0:39.4	Today we'll return to 1920 and the birth of a groundbreaking film genre that combined snow-capped
0:46.3	peaks, daredevil acrobatics and filming under extreme weather conditions, the mountain
0:51.9	film. The man who pioneered these early nature
0:54.8	documentaries was the German geologist, climber and director Arnold Funk. I've been watching
1:00.6	some of his films and talk to his grandson, Matias Funk.
1:04.1	It was something completely new.
1:15.0	This film showed pictures that no one had seen before.
1:18.0	Images from the high mountains, pictures of skiing.
1:21.0	You have to remember, skiing was a million miles away from being a
1:25.0	mass sport at the time. In 1920, Martias Feng's grandfather Arnold made his first
1:30.3	mountain film, Marvels of the snowshoe astounding audiences used to silent
1:36.2	movies shot in the studio in the city filmed at heights of up to 4,000 meters he
1:42.1	needed a special group of collaborators.
	...

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