The Edge of the World
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 3:53 pm
Thought some of you may be interested in watching Michael Powell's 1937 film "The Edge of the World", a fictionalised account of the evacuation of St Kilda. The film was made only 6 or seven years after the evacuation, when it was felt that other islands were also facing depopulation and ruin.
Permission was not granted to film on St Kilda, so it was made on Foula, where the local people supplemented superb professional actors like Finlay Currie and John Laurie. The film opens with the arrival at the deserted island of a cutter rigged yacht (see, it is a boaty thread) with Michael Powell and his wife on board, and skippered by Niall MacGinnis, a young actor from Dublin who had a starring role.
Without going into a lot of detail, the film, as much documentary as it is fiction, tells the story of depulation overlaid with both romantic and tragic elements, but it also records the very basic life on (the real) Foula, an island without regular communication (a radiotelephone weas installed a year after the film was published). There are scenes of bonxies, Great Skua, attacking the camera, fowling on the cliffs, John Laurie climbing a sea-cliff with a sheep on his back, and steam driven trawlers.
It's from a world that really no longer exists, and well worth watching IMHO.
It's been re-published by the British Film Institute, and available for hire from Love Film. Included in the DVD is "Return to the Edge of the World", made in 1978 when Powell, Laurie and other surviving members of the cast and crew made a return visit, and met some of the people they'd worked with over 40 years earlier.
Also bundled in the DVD is "St Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle", which is an account of the SS Hebrides' passage from Glasgow to St Kilda after nine months of isolation. It seems that some of the island scenes were shot in 1923, with the ship scenes probably shot in 1928. Interesting stuff, with views of the Broomielaw, Oban, Tobermory Bay, Carbost on Skye (of Talisker fame), Pooltiel, Dunvegan, Loch Eport on North Uist, Lochboisdale on South Uist, Castle Bay on Barra, and finally, Hirta, St Kilda.
Permission was not granted to film on St Kilda, so it was made on Foula, where the local people supplemented superb professional actors like Finlay Currie and John Laurie. The film opens with the arrival at the deserted island of a cutter rigged yacht (see, it is a boaty thread) with Michael Powell and his wife on board, and skippered by Niall MacGinnis, a young actor from Dublin who had a starring role.
Without going into a lot of detail, the film, as much documentary as it is fiction, tells the story of depulation overlaid with both romantic and tragic elements, but it also records the very basic life on (the real) Foula, an island without regular communication (a radiotelephone weas installed a year after the film was published). There are scenes of bonxies, Great Skua, attacking the camera, fowling on the cliffs, John Laurie climbing a sea-cliff with a sheep on his back, and steam driven trawlers.
It's from a world that really no longer exists, and well worth watching IMHO.
It's been re-published by the British Film Institute, and available for hire from Love Film. Included in the DVD is "Return to the Edge of the World", made in 1978 when Powell, Laurie and other surviving members of the cast and crew made a return visit, and met some of the people they'd worked with over 40 years earlier.
Also bundled in the DVD is "St Kilda - Britain's Loneliest Isle", which is an account of the SS Hebrides' passage from Glasgow to St Kilda after nine months of isolation. It seems that some of the island scenes were shot in 1923, with the ship scenes probably shot in 1928. Interesting stuff, with views of the Broomielaw, Oban, Tobermory Bay, Carbost on Skye (of Talisker fame), Pooltiel, Dunvegan, Loch Eport on North Uist, Lochboisdale on South Uist, Castle Bay on Barra, and finally, Hirta, St Kilda.