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Dawson City
Frozen Time
(2016)

Director Bill Morrison produced one of the most fascinating documentaries regarding the silent era. Eschewing traditional voice-over narration, Morrison chooses to tell the tale of the Dawson City film recovery with subtitles, photographs, recent interviews, documentary footage, and unretouched scans of recovered films with nitrate decomposition in full bloom. The ghostly images rise up from their former frozen grave to reveal long-lost images, and their nitrate decomposition, like an obscuring veil, creates a sad, hypnotic effect. The slow, pensive music by Alex Somers, with sound design by John Somers, adds to the effect.

Kino Lorber
2017 Blu-ray Disc edition

Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016), black & white and color, 120 minutes, not rated,
with The Girl of the Northern Woods [incomplete] (1910), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated, Brutality (1912), black & white, 8 minutes, not rated, The Butler and the Maid [incomplete] (1912), black & white, 3 minutes, not rated, Pathé’s Weekly, Number 17 (1914), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, British Canadian Pathé News, Number 81A (1919), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, The Exquisite Thief [reel 2] (1919), black & white, 8 minutes, not rated, International News, Volume 1, Issue 52 (1919), black & white, 11 minutes, not rated, The Montreal Herald Screen Magazine, Number 7 (1919), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated.

Kino Lorber, K22547, UPC 7-38329-22547-6.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region A Blu-ray disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in pillarboxed 16:9 (1920 x 1080 pixels) progressive? scan MPEG-4 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, DTS 48 kHz 5.1 surround sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; 10 chapter stops; standard BD keepcase; $34.95.
Release date: 31 October 2017.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 9 / audio: 9 / additional content: 7 / overall: 9.

This Blu-ray Disc edition of the documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time has been mastered from the original digital files prepared by the filmmaker. The high-resolution images present detailed images to the extent the original source materials themselves contain. The final image quality ranges from good to excellent.

The film is augmented by the atmospheric music score composed and performed by Alex Somers, with sound effects and sound design by John Somers.

The supplementary material includes a mix of fiction films and newsreels recovered in the Dawson City discovery, Dawson City: Postscript an interview with director Bill Morrison, and a 24-page booklet containing essays by Lawrence Weschler and Alberto Zambenedetti.

We highly recommended this innovative documentary in this Blu-ray Disc format.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

This Region A Blu-ray Disc edition is also available directly from . . .

Kino Lorber
2017 DVD edition

Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016), black & white and color, 120 minutes, not rated, with The Girl of the Northern Woods [incomplete] (1910), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated, Brutality (1912), black & white, 8 minutes, not rated, The Butler and the Maid [incomplete] (1912), black & white, 3 minutes, not rated, Pathé’s Weekly, Number 17 (1914), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, British Canadian Pathé News, Number 81A (1919), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, The Exquisite Thief [reel 2] (1919), black & white, 8 minutes, not rated, International News, Volume 1, Issue 52 (1919), black & white, 11 minutes, not rated, The Montreal Herald Screen Magazine, Number 7 (1919), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated.

Kino Lorber, K22546, UPC 7-38329-22546-9.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 1 NTSC DVD disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, DTS 48 kHz 5.1 surround sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $29.95.
Release date: 31 October 2017.
Country of origin: USA

This DVD edition of the documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time has been mastered from the original digital files prepared by the filmmaker. The high-resolution images present detailed images to the extent the original source materials themselves contain. The final image quality ranges from good to excellent.

The film is augmented by the atmospheric music score composed and performed by Alex Somers, with sound effects and sound design by John Somers.