''City of Gold'' is a 1957 Canadian
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
by
Colin Low and
Wolf Koenig
Wolf Koenig (October 17, 1927 – June 26, 2014) was a Canadian film director, Film producer, producer, animator, cinematographer, and a pioneer in Direct Cinema at the National Film Board of Canada.
Early life
Born in Dresden, Germany, Koenig em ...
, chronicling
Dawson City
Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest town in Yuko ...
during the
Klondike Gold Rush. It made innovative use of archival photos and camera movements to animate still images, while also combining narration and music to bring drama to the whole. Its innovative use of still photography in this manner has been cited by
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...
as the source of inspiration for his so-called
Ken Burns effect
The Ken Burns effect is a type of panning and zooming effect used in film and video production from still imagery. The name derives from extensive use of the technique by American documentarian Ken Burns. This technique had also been used to prod ...
, a type of
panning and
zooming effect used in video production to animate still images.
The film is narrated by
Pierre Berton
Pierre Francis de Marigny Berton, CC, O.Ont. (July 12, 1920 – November 30, 2004) was a Canadian writer, journalist and broadcaster. Berton wrote 50 best-selling books, mainly about Canadiana, Canadian history and popular culture. He also wr ...
and produced by the
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...
.
Production
The film grew out of an earlier 1952 idea to promote tourism and sport in Yukon. In researching the film, Low and Koenig found some still photos in an Ottawa archive and tried to improve the panning method Low had employed on his 1955 visual arts documentary, ''Jolifou Inn''. Low then discovered a much larger set of archival images of the Yukon Gold Rush, from photographer
Eric A. Hegg
Eric A. Hegg (September 17, 1867 – December 13, 1947) was a Swedish-American photographer who portrayed the people in Skagway, Alaska, Skagway, Bennett, British Columbia, Bennett and Dawson City during the Klondike Gold Rush from 1897 to 1901. ...
's collection at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
in Seattle. The problem of how to animate the images via camera movement prior to the invention of computer-assisted animation cameras was resolved by Kroitor, who enlisted British mathematician Brian Salt to devise mathematical tables, and developed a device dubbed the 'Kroitorer' that allowed one to take single photos of the archival images as if photographing real-life scenes with a hand-held camera.
[
]
Awards
The film won the Palme d'or
The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...
for best short film at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, was named film of the year at the 10th Canadian Film Award
The Canadian Film Awards were the leading Canadian cinema awards from 1949 until 1978. These honours were conducted annually, except in 1974 when a number of Quebec directors withdrew their participation and prompted a cancellation. In the 1970s ...
s, and was nominated for an Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
.1958, Oscars.org
/ref>
See also
* Still image film
*''A Chairy Tale
''A Chairy Tale'' (french: Il était une chaise) is a 1957 Canadian stop-motion pixilation short film co-directed by Norman McLaren and Claude Jutra, starring Jutra with an uncooperative chair. The film humorously portrays Jutra's attempts to sit o ...
'' - Another NFB short nominated alongside ''City of Gold '' in the same category
References
External links
*
Watch ''City of Gold'' at NFB.ca
''City of Gold''
description by The National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:City Of Gold
1957 short films
1950s English-language films
Dawson City
Documentary films about cities
Films directed by Colin Low (filmmaker)
Documentary films about historical events
Films about the Klondike Gold Rush
National Film Board of Canada documentaries
Canadian short documentary films
Short Film Palme d'Or winners
Films set in Yukon
Pierre Berton
1957 documentary films
Films scored by Eldon Rathburn
Films produced by Tom Daly
Canadian animated documentary films
1957 animated films
Canadian animated short films
National Film Board of Canada animated short films
1950s animated short films
English-language Canadian films
1950s Canadian films