Scheduled for launch in 2014, the James Webb Space Telescope will enable mankind to look back in time at the earliest galaxies that ever formed in the universe. A new DVD called Secrets Of Nature performs a similar feat with natural history films as it reveals the pioneering work of nature documentarians in the period scientists call the Pre-Attenborough Era.
In 1922, a series of films called Secrets Of Nature made wondrous worlds and natural processes visible for the first time. The likes of Percy Smith, Oliver Pike and Mary Field used time-lapse, microscopic and underwater cinematography to capture such wonders as flowers unfurling in the sunlight, owls swooping on their unsuspecting prey, moths spinning their cocoons and the vast range of life at the bottom of Earth's oceans.
Digitally remastered and collected together for the first time, these 19 short films - which have marvellous titles like Fathoms Deep Beneath The Sea, Romance In A Pond, Skilled Insect Artisans, The Cuckoo's Secret and The Battle Of The Ants - paved the way for today's lavish, high-def natural history productions and are therefore an important part of British film history.
Secrets Of Nature: Pioneering Natural History Films 1922-1933 (BFI) is out now on DVD.
Colin Houlson
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