A little on-the-nose with its visual associations but that seems harsh in the face of just how lovely, charming, and hypnotic this is. I could seriously have watched many more hours of it.

Bill Morrison is a passionate archivist and a gifted collage artist, and sometimes — at his best — he is able to be both at once, using one area of expertise to deepen the other. In 2002’s brilliant “Decasia,” for example, he reassembled snippets of exposed and decaying nitrate film stock into a quasi-structuralist (and entirely non-narrative) meditation on death. Morrison recognizes that objects are endowed with their own unique histories, that raw material can be a medium unto itself, and his work invites viewers to think about cinema as a product of — and a witness to — its environment.

In that respect at least, “Dawson City: Frozen Time” is vintage Bill Morrison. Almost entirely comprised of archival footage and monochromatic stills, the film tells the story of its own existence and does so in exhaustive detail. Fortunately, it’s an incredible story to tell.

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"That's so interesting. It feels like those people, in the film, are alive again." —my wife

listen,,,people will throw your art in the river lol

A very strong case for the lyrical qualities of tangible film, though I wish Morrison's narrative mode was more atypical. His presentation format of text on image after image is unsustainable for the film's two hour runtime, especially when the thoroughly chronological but otherwise unpatterned trajectory makes it feel a bit aimless! There's far too much time & space in between the the more expository sequences, and the more experimental, visceral moments; the early destruction montage for example -- which I had hoped would reposition the film -- is terrifying, but Morrison quickly deescalates.

A strong intellectual exercise however -- not only for Morrison's ambitious resurrection of a past city through materials deemed no longer worthy, but also for how Morrison tracks a small city's relationship with media and entertainment, and its subsequent interdependence on wealth.

History built from fragments of film. So much more than just another 'cinema as journalism' documentary. Morrison's work is both a fully-fledged mood piece on nostalgia figments for a town that never really was and an aesthetic masterclass on establishing an overtly cinematic perception of space and time through nothing but immaculate archive research and hypnotic dreamlike music. Of the many non-fiction movies crafted almost entirely with existing footage released this year (Jim & Andy, LA 92, The Bomb, etc.), this one trumps them all by sheer scope and impeccable narrative rhythm. We go from profoundly digging this secluded Canadian mining city's rich past, to chronicling varied world events as a way of suggesting what the advent of motion pictures meant for such a modest center, and back, without even truly noticing it. An unfathomably accomplished piece of filmmaking.

Fascinating, beautiful and incredibly clever.

A fascinating sweep through the history of Klondike goldrush boomtown Dawson City, Yukon, and the role it played in preserving 372 silent films that would otherwise have been lost to history, thanks to a series of unlikely events. One simple pragmatic decision in 1929 to bury nitrate filmstock instead of burning it or throwing it into the Yukon River (which was the usual method of refuse disposal at the time) has paid huge rewards for posterity. A joy for film history buffs and an excellent example of the documentary art, stitching together a narrative of the rise and fall of the frontier town at the end of the line for film distribution networks.

Check it out. A 2-pronged story of a Yukon gold rush town and a trove of silent films discovered there in the 70s miraculously preserved because they had been buried in an abandoned swimming pool/skating rink. It’s hard to imagine the kind of person who would traipse across a frozen landscape to maybe find some gold or maybe just lose some toes to frostbite. But the cast of characters is impressive including Alexander Pantages (pre-theater impresario days), Fred Trump (brothel owner, slumlord and grandfather) and eventually the big dogs like Guggenheim and Rockefeller.

And while you’re at it, look on a map to see where Dawson City is. North of NOWHERE!

Bill Morrison tells the tale of the Dawson Film Find (533 reels of nitrate silent film were uncovered in 1978) and so much more (a history of the Gold Rush days) in this hypnotic doco that synthesises music, text, and images to impress history upon you.

History, geography, cinema

This is an amazing documentary I am a sucker for film history and this tells the story of a small Yukon town during the gold rush and not only tells the rich story of the settlement of the town and how they were the end of the film distribution line. Bill Morrison’s use of restored reels is brilliant and the films in a way seem like ghosts coming back from the past. I can’t say enough about this great film. I need to seek out Morrison’s other films.

Wild discovery, wild part of canadian history

Of course the movie that is just old footage of buildings and people set to music by Alex Somers moved me.

Fascinating, although it tends from time to time to drift into powerpoint mode and it's brief journeys outside of Dawson City don't add much, but still hypnotizing and a joy to watch.

Cine-FILE this one under super interesting

This thing is just excellent. Want it just to play projected against a wall in a my house on a loop. Fascinating historical documentary about a time I am obsessed with, testament to the power of film and need for film preservation, and a beautiful tone piece I could, like I said, just have playing on a loop. Great soundtrack, great visuals, great information, great movie.