TEN FATHOMS DEEP

Year Published: 1910

Format: 16mm

Description: This novelty film "Ten Fathoms Deep" shows Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his revolutionary SCUBA equipment. Shot in the earliest era of Cousteau's explorations of the undersea world, this film hints at what Cousteau would accomplish in the depths in the post-WWII world. Jacques-Yves Cousteau AC (French: [ʒak iv kusto]; commonly known in English as Jacques Cousteau; 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. Cousteau described his underwater world research in series of books, perhaps most successful being his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure, published in 1953. Cousteau also directed films, most notably the documentary adaptation of the book, The Silent World, which won a Palme d'or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. He remained the only person to win a Palme d'Or for a documentary film, until Michael Moore won the award in 2004 for Fahrenheit 9/11. The years of World War II were decisive for the history of diving. After the armistice of 1940, the family of Simone and Jacques-Yves Cousteau took refuge in Megève, where he became a friend of the Ichac family who also lived there. Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Marcel Ichac shared the same desire to reveal to the general public unknown and inaccessible places — for Cousteau the underwater world and for Ichac the high mountains. The two neighbors took the first ex-aequo prize of the Congress of Documentary Film in 1943, for the first French underwater film: Par dix-huit mètres de fond (18 meters deep), made without breathing apparatus the previous year in the Embiez islands (Var) with Philippe Tailliez and Frédéric Dumas, using a depth-pressure-proof camera case developed by mechanical engineer Léon Vèche (engineer of Arts and Métiers and the Naval College). In 1943, they made the film Épaves (Shipwrecks), in which they used two of the very first Aqua-Lung prototypes. During the 1940s, Cousteau is credited with improving the aqua-lung design which gave birth to the open-circuit scuba technology used today. According to his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure (1953), Cousteau started diving with Fernez goggles in 1936, and in 1939 used the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus invented in 1926 by Commander Yves le Prieur. Cousteau was not satisfied with the length of time he could spend underwater with the Le Prieur apparatus so he improved it to extend underwater duration by adding a demand regulator, invented in 1942 by Émile Gagnan. In 1943 Cousteau tried out the first prototype aqua-lung which finally made extended underwater exploration possible.

Transcription

[Music] World War II ships with valuable cargos for a short time these silent Raiders threaten to strangle aied war effort with their daring attacks they move swiftly their greatest weapon is surprise exited they button up and crash dive in less than 60 Seconds [Music] Below in the cool green depths they are safe from detection the Periscope pushes up like the antenna of some great submarine [Music] insect akong a coastwise steamer is cited torpedo Lo the steel noosed messenger squirts through the water filled with a sea needs of [Music] Destruction 1,000 lb of TNT rip the plating like a great knife in less than a minute the simple drama is over the rames is added to the long list of ships that reach the harbor at the bottom of the sea years later there comes a French naval officer Eve custo a man who dreams of opening the door of DAV Joon Locker he has invented a new kind of underwater breathing apparatus with tanks of oxygen to sustain the swimmer in the depths below he plans a new kind of Adventure a free diving Expedition without air cables or lines to the sunken wreck on the floor of the sea with him he will take a motion picture camera enclosed in a lung of its own pressurized to operate in the new medium with this equipment they will remain like fish in the unfriendly element for almost an hour they fix to their feet the weird flippers which will be their only means of propulsion down below the fantasies of juwels Vern are to become real before our eyes the motion picture camera takes us on a new kind of Adventure a new frontier opens up Beneath the Sea the camera goes down to a weird new world of soft opaque light filtered through the watery depths a world where fish pose for intimate close-ups where new kinds of danger make the flesh tremble beneath the canopy of rolling surf go the pioneers of a new frontier never knowing when some sea monster Will Spring Out of the Shadows to punish the trespassers in his domain [Music] deeper and deeper we enter a world where time and space stand still a submarine Grotto frames the Intruder here the Restless sea is still muffling all sounds like velvet if we cry for help it will not even make a noise a huge skate takes one look and flies away like some prehistoric bird but the diver presses on to the bottom and finds some evidence that humans have been here before him alive or dead but human a dark shape takes form in the limpid shadows a barnacle incrusted propeller is a Telltale hint of deserted decks above boldly our diver sets out to explore the silent wreck never knowing what Adventure will spring from behind any St [Music] gliding effortlessly along Moss coated decks the diver questions of the past what ship was this what her destination what frightened hand last touched this rail and this wheel now worm eaten encrusted what steersman stood here pride In His Hands eyes on the compass stood here here managing his ship until the great clang of the torpedo sounded in the deck plates and the waters closed over him Jagged steel Sharp shells can tear at the diver's bare skin there is Fascination here but there is danger [Music] too is this dead search light the only eye that watches what man from agile cutable breakable can bring himself to enter the mystery that lies in this Darkness with its hint of unknown Horrors yet below he goes taking a header through one of the hatches as if going down into the neck of any ink bottle fear is measured out by pounding heartbeats once there was man-made light cheerful Sailors activity now all is dark and quiet as a tomb but this is not a tomb there is life here Strange Life the life of a diver marked by the ascending stream of bubbles which may suddenly cease at any moment and other life too why are there so many fish around sunken ships whatever the reason this is now their home there are small fish and bigger fish to eat the smaller fish and bigger fish to eat the bigger fish and who knows what Swift monster with a shark's hunger in a thousand teeth uses this for a private Game Preserve [Music] across the deck he squirms like an EO if he is caught there is no rescue line no stout Manila to tug for a signal no strong-handed mates to haul him up from below he will struggle using up oxygen faster because he struggles until finally the bubble cease [Music] Rising like an avid curio hunter in an old anti Peak shop he expends time and energy to seek for a momento of his underwater daring he finds a strange shaped jug a wine pitcher perhaps the souvenir seems heavy but he is resolved to bring back proof of his find he sends up his loot to the sunlet world above the ship is shattered but the plates are unbroken and they become the adventurer's prize [Music] [Music] now his Air Supply is almost gone mortal man must return to his own element or become food for the fish the pressure many feet of water presses on his body like a great Vice the head pounds and feels as if it may burst like a rotten melon but he Cleaves upward upward away from the Wonders and Perils of the new found World Under the Sea [Music] safe unhe hurt he rises out of the danger and darkness and swims upward toward the promise of a sundrenched day [Music]


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