List Price: $19.95You Pay Only: $17.99 You Save: $1.96 (10%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: A&E
EAN: 9780767045001
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0767045009
Label: A&E Home Video
Manufacturer: A&E Home Video
Number Of Items: 3
Publisher: A&E Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: April 09, 2002
Running Time: 200 minutes
Sales Rank: 13913
Studio: A&E Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: April 07, 2002
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 07/29/2003 Run time: 200 minutes Rating: Nr
Amazon.com:
Shackleton is not a biopic of the great Anglo-Irish explorer but a dramatization of the failed trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914-1916. As written and directed by Charles Sturridge (Longitude), the production, filmed on real ice floes in Greenland, stays remarkably close to the facts, capturing the look of the surviving expedition photos by Frank Hurley (collected in the book South with Endurance) with great fidelity. Kenneth Branagh makes no attempt at an authentic accent but otherwise gives a powerful impression of a most commanding personality. When the expedition ship Endurance became locked in the Antarctic ice, Shackleton vowed to bring every man home alive, and against virtually impossible odds, including a 700-mile journey in an open boat through some of the worst seas in the world, he did just that. This superlative miniseries realizes the story with production values and cinematography that would not disgrace a big-budget feature (South, Hurley's 1919 silent movie featuring some motion-picture footage from the expedition, is also available on video). Intense physical drama, strong performances, and Adrian Johnston's fine score combine here to deeply moving effect, marred only a little by a rushed conclusion. With Roland Huntford, author of the definitive Shackleton biography, as production advisor, this easily stands as the benchmark for all future comparable films. --Gary S. Dalkin
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Everything you could want as long as the truth about Shackleton doesn't matter to you.
Gloriously filmed, with excellent acting, everything you could want as long as the truth about Shackleton doesn't matter to you. Have read about Shackleton I was struck over and over at how poorly he was conveyed, reduced to a shallow, yelling, man, when he was in fact calm, cool, and collected. How did the script writers fail to realize that a man who cannot control himself cannot control his men and the Shackleton story is in essence a study of successful leadership under extreme conditions
The movie contains some absolutely fantastic footage, however, I could never settle down and enjoy the film as I desired because so many factual errors kept being presented. Shackleton was assisted by very able men and the film belittles most of them into little more than a mob of frightened men. There was much wonderful stuff here - don't get me wrong, but if you actually know the story - have read the books - then turn off your brain before watching or it will drive you crazy!
2 stars for attention to set details and 2 stars for great cinematography, however, I took away 1 star for failure to present Shackleton as he was. Perhaps it was their desire to humanize the man that lead to this. Unfortunately Shackleton really was a larger than life figure - a man - not unlike some other well know men like George Patton, or Oscar Schindler - men who were uniquely suited for an extreme situation and excelled like no other men could have.
Rating:  - amazing film!
I didn't expect this very high quality production when I ordered this . Excellent all around.
Rating: - Shakleton...
An okay movie loosely based on Ernest Shackleton's doomed voyage to the bottom of the world. The movie does its best to stick with his life from his diaries.
This is a set of 3 dvds that give you a biography Shackleton, discovery channel of Anartica, and the movie itself.
Rating: - A Superb Collection
This is an absolutely superb collection. The A&E Shackleton, featuring Kenneth Branagh, is beautifully directed, powerfully acted and faithful to the facts of what happened. The danger here is that the adventure elements could be lost and the grinding facts of hunger, cold and life on the ice floe dominate. Without understating the challenges, the film captures all of the constituent elements--Shackleton's personal conflicts (and loves, both licit and illicit), the financial ruin of his brother Frank, his fundraising challenges, the presence of WW I in contemporary consciousness, the adventure story itself and its powerful resolution.
The subsidiary material is spectacular--the Biography channel Shackleton, an extensive study of Antarctica, biographical material on Branagh, etc. and, perhaps most interesting, a special on the making of the film, with extensive coverage of the ethos of film production--meals, pep talks, challenges with regard to the shooting schedule, improvisation and the vagaries of Greenland/Iceland weather. I especially liked the intercut footage from the original expedition and the degree to which the current production achieves its considerable authenticity.
Highly recommended. Branagh is excellent. Watch for a nice performance by Robert Hardy as the pivotal sponsor, James Caird.
Rating: - Superb historical drama with some great acting
The story of Ernest Shackleton's grandiosely-named Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition is a pretty amazing one, which I will not summarise here as other reviewers have already done so. Yet there is another story to this film - how one man fought against self-doubt, the hostility of the authorities and the indifference of the public, ultimately to rise triumphant out of a difficult situation and prove his true worth. I'm talking, ladies and gents, about the acting career of Kenneth Branagh.
Branagh has been famous for ages but he has proved to be a mostly rotten film director. His Shakespearean adaptations are heavy on attractive set dressing and star cameo appearances, but light on inventiveness, pace, spontaneity and even comprehensibility (his 'Hamlet' was a major offender, loaded with so many stars that despite thoughtful performances from the leads it ended up as a mere exercise in spotting who was going to turn up next), while his non-Shakespeare films (such as 'Peter's Friends', 'In The Bleak Midwinter' and the terrifyingly awful 'Dead Again') have not, on the whole, been much fun to sit through.
Thankfully for us all, Branagh neither wrote nor directed this remarkable true story about the time-honoured English theme of Heroic Failure. All he had to do was play Ernest Shackleton, one of the most appealing and sympathetic figures of the heroic age of Antarctic Exploration. He is at the head of a heavyweight cast, including such excellent actors as Lorcan Cranitch ... Read More
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