Art on Film | Dawson City: Frozen Time

Bill Morrison’s hypnotic 2016 documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time pieces together a forgotten era using hundreds of silent film reels unearthed from the Canadian permafrost. Screening at the Sarasota Art Museum, the feature uses the water-damaged, highly combustible nitrate stock—originally buried in a subarctic swimming pool—to weave together the history of a Yukon Gold Rush town and the perilous, ephemeral nature of early cinema itself.