85: The life and work of Nell Shipman (1910 - 1947) with Alicia Fletcher
Gather round kids! It's time for another amazing life's work compilation as we go deep into the life and time's of Canada's own multi-hyphenate silent-era star Nell Shipman. With a focus on her main Canadian made film, "Back to God's Country", silent film expert, film restorationist and all around peachy-keen gal, Alicia Fletcher unfolds the intricacies of silent filmmaking, the politics of independant and female fimmakers in the pre-studio era, and the ethics of film restoration.
No boring panto-mime-fest b-reeler, "Back to God's Country" from 1919 is pretty darn thrilling. Featuring an epic dog sled race, spectacular swimming stunts, genuinely scary villains, one of the first on-film nude scenes and more adorable animals than you could shake a stick at, you'll be cheering and yelling "Good Boy Wapi!" by the end. Back to God's Country and more Nell Shipman films are available for free on Youtube or at your local library. Make sure you watch it with a score.
This week's end credit music is "The Maple Leaf Rag" because when else are we going to be able to toss that in here.
Want to know more about Nell? Here's the documentary Becky used for research this episode.
On this week's show
A collections specialist and curator dedicated to promoting and advocating for the preservation of the moving image, Alicia teaches the F+PPCM seminar in the History of Film at Ryerson, as well as coordinates the program's student internships. With an area of expertise in early cinema, she is also the curator and host of Silent Revue, Toronto's on-going examination of silent film held at the historic Revue Cinema.
