FEATURE FILM / 1915

The Ascent of Mont Blanc

The ascent of Mont Blanc filmed by Frederick Burlingham in August 1915. A party composed by Burlingham's wife and several guides from Chamonix, climb the Mont Blanc by the normal route of Grands Mulets. Frederick Burlingham was a traveller cinematographer and one of the mountain film pioneers. Continuing the mountain film tradition established by Ormiston-Smith, Burlingham filmed several mountaineering films largely in Switzerland, taking mountain film in a new direction of immediacy and perceived peril. In the early history of factual filmmaking, Burlingham played a substantial role in developing the related genres of the mountaineering and the exploration film.