Never in a million years did I think I'd be talking about Country Calendar on this channel. You can watch Forgotten Silver legally here: vimeo.com/ondemand/forgottensilver
@@PentexProductions FYI, I am currently writing a book about the film. The plan is to detail its conception, production, and reception, with plenty of recollections from those who were there, and of course a hefty dose of personal memoir from me. I do appreciate you stressing the film was made by two people, not just one! It was my baby, but PJ was a hell of a Godfather.
I saw this movie when I was in high school, the mid 2000s. I was attending a filmmaking summer camp at University of Texas at Austin. The teachers explained little things about what Jackson was doing in the film, how he literally leads the audience down the garden path at the beginning, to the "discovery" of the lost reels. The use of subtle comedy in order to telegraph to the discerning viewer that this is all a joke, but just subtle enough that it went over a lot of people's heads. My favorite bit was when MacKenzie was put on trial for possessing obscene materials after accidentally filming some topless native women. The narration: "An all male jury deliberating for several hours, requesting repeated viewings of the film." LOL I think about this movie all the time, glad to see someone talking about it.
I so desperately wanted to include that joke in the video as the exact example of the movie's style of subtle humour, but couldn't for obvious reasons. It's one of my favourite little gags in the movie, and like a lot of the humour you really need to be paying attention to catch the joke. That and the fact that the whole reason Pearse's flight was unsuccessful was because he was swerving to avoid crashing into Colin's camera! Love that you were studying this in Texas - it has a very niche following but is such a valuable movie for teaching film styles and history.
It’s not “satire” when it’s directly meant to mock the perceived artistic and cultural ignorance of the viewers and the common citizen. That’s elitist crap. If the viewer is the one that’s mocked by the end, that’s tricky political territory and it’s not likely a conservative and artistic elitist like Jackson had some greater enlightened goal in mind other than just to mock the lack of education of the viewers and highlight how much smarter he and the filmmakers are than the viewers. Ass****!
A lot Kiwi's understood the satire once they watched it 😂 I remember my dad cracking up while watching it on Montana Sunday Theatre and mum just going "Aww this is bloody bull💩 😂". I think the boomers that grew up on Monty Python, Spike Mulligan, and other mockumentaries like The Rutles and Real Life spotted the satire straight away.
I suppose you have never heard of "eating media lunch" a NZ mock news show that convinced alot of NZ people that the NZ government was funding a " Porn film" because it was historically accurate
There is a movie called The Czech dream. It's not a mocumentary but it documents probably the biggest practical joke in the history of my country. It was just two guys doing a campaign for a brand new shopping center. It was huge, caught a lot of attention and when it came to "grand opening," masses of people just got to an empty lot with a huge banner that basically said "You got goofed." Dudes almost got eaten alive.
@@PentexProductions watch?v=KVK3Alnagwg Here's a trailer. Not sure if you take anything from it because it's in Czech but there are at least some shots from the actual opening. EDIT: Hey, the almighty alorithm blessed me with the entire movie. watch?v=-cWrl3AAkYY
i remember a guy i work with telling me all about how this dude from new zealand actually invented color film and was totally lost to history. i told him the bad news is that forgotten silver was a spoof, but the good news is that the guy who made it was directing lord of the rings.
Yeah the only issue with Lord of the Rings are the miniatures as If you watch them on a decent tv it shows up too much that they are models . Besides that though Lord of the Rings Trilogy still hold up as amazing so does King Kong. I had to rewatch Lord of the rings to get the stink of the Amazon show out lol
Great film. I helped Chris Coad, the photographer on the project, by doing darkroom work and making contact sheets. I had zero idea at the time what it was about, but pleased to have had a very small part assisting with a Peter Jackson film.
“Forgotten Silver’s” first release was on national tv, here in NZ, and it was pretty much the sole topic of workplace conversation, the following day. The greater number of people were fooled by it but, at least where I worked, I guess about one in five of us were sceptical. I had initially been taken in but the “firsts” accomplished by McKenzie gradually became more and more outrageous. The scales fell from my eyes when they zoomed in on a wide shot, to read the date on the newspaper in the pocket of a man at least a couple of hundred metres away. I was pretty certain that would have been beyond the resolving power of any 35mm film stock fast enough for movies. Then, when he filmed his own death as a photo-journalist, I became almost convinced it had to be a spoof - it was all just too fantastic. But the many different interviews with real-life, movie luminaries and the incredibly realistic looking footage plus the fact that it was presented as an “important documentary” made it difficult to argue against it. Accordingly, when it was revealed as a hoax, I had no problem seeing both the joke and the point he was making and my respect for his abilities as an auteur increased, significantly. However, a lot of those who were completely taken in were furious at the deception. I know a woman who still snorts in disgust at any mention of Peter Jackson or his works.
they are just pissed off that they were very publicly 'sucked in' about the it, and then and to be quite after the deception was discovered. A very good film obviously. I would love to see it, as I missed it first time around.
Omg, I had completely forgotten about this film. I was an extra in the battle scenes at the old museum. I also have the vague memory that we used the swords at the summer Shakespeare (Macbeth) later that year.
We were shown this in our music class, by one of my favourite teachers. Halfway through when he can see we’re all absolutely hooked into it, he pauses on a freeze frame of… himself! He was cast as an extra in one of these “forgotten films” and wasn’t told anything about what he was taking part of until after its release
I found this was so much fun at the time. I watched it at a friends place and I was floored about this unknown filmmaker. Kiwi pride surged but I realised it was a joke when they supposedly magnified a newspaper that claimed to show we had flown first. I knew you could not do this and then, getting the joke, I started laughing and told my friend, "Holy shit! This is a joke!" He could not and would not listen to what I was saying and when it was revealed (I think the next day) I called him and he was absolutely furious. I could not understand why at the time as I thought it was just brilliant. Years later, in trying to find a copy on DVD I met Costa Botes so I could buy a copy and he told me some real horror stories about how angry people were and the kind of threats they received. I salute them though. It was such a convincing gag and a great rug pull. Nice work lads.
@@sammy5576 Sure thing. There is a possibility that the first person to fly was a New Zealander by the name of Richard Pearse. It's believed he flew on or around the 31st March 1902, 18 months before the Wright brothers. Unfortunately there is no accurate record of this and in all likelihood it was a much shorter distance than the Wright Brothers flew anyway so could barely have been called a flight. Anyhoo, in Forgotten Silver, they claimed that they had footage of that flight, and to confirm the date, they perform a close up and enhancement of a newspaper in the back pocket of one of the attendees. The enhancement portrayed was super clear and supposedly proved, using the date on the newspaper, that Richard Pearse flew first. Clearly, based on how little detail was available on the film, this was not possible. That was when the penny dropped for me. That was when I knew it was a joke, and that was when the argument started with my friend who had swallowed the lie, hook, line and sinker!
this was in my film studies curriculum in the first year of uni. we had a screening, were so astonished we never heard of mackenzie. came back for a seminar a day or a couple later and only then we were informed this was a mockumentary. the professor said, "oh, brian [other prof] never informed you lot this was fake? typical brian" lmao. this was years ago, but man i feel better the whole nz was fooled lol. a shame our profs never told us the story of its release, it's really fascinating
The professor wanted to enjoy the joke! I love that it is still studied in film classes - it's such a great text not just as an example of a mockumentary, but it blends all sorts of different film styles and bits of history.
@@PentexProductions ...as well as you telling us NZ has jungles.....? What's with that? Thanks for the memory of something I never really took notice of at the time.
I saw Forgotten Silver on Turner Classic Movies, 5-6 yo. As I remember it was showing the same time slot reserved for ‘foreign’ imports and the summary guide description flagged it as something like ‘Peter Jackson’s documentary on early New Zealand filmmaker’ I’d watched so many documentaries on TCM that I didn’t immediately catch the joke although I did start to have my doubts because MacKinsey seemed to have done EVERYTHING. When Sam Neil showed up as a film expert instead of an actor, I stopped the film and re ran it, then I caught a bunch of arch jokes! Loved it!
Fooled me when it was aired in Australia in the late-'90s. I was studying performing arts and was into any kind of early film doco. Ray Martin pulled the plug at the end of the airing, so it must have been Channel 9.
@@PentexProductions I also saw it on Australian TV but someway through I realised that it was fiction, not fact. It may have been the Richard Pearse bit that did it (I'd studied his story quite a bit beforehand) or maybe something else that just didn't ring true, but I do remember that my enjoyment level immediately increased after that point. A truly brilliant film. I have wanted to get a copy of it ever since. And when I found out how it had been received in Kiwiland my enjoyment level increased heaps.
@@PentexProductionsI think it’s silly to expect everyone to get it and to find it funny. Some people are watching while taking care of kids, turn it on halfway through.. just put something at the end saying it was a farce. Is it funny looking back? Yes. But there’s also no need to make everybody at the time look like they’re stoopid and unreasonable.
I discovered this in a used DVD shop back in the day, and have always liked it. But - being American - I'd never understood why it made New Zealand so angry. So thanks for this! I'd honestly be interested in more "Kiwi-splaining" videos along these lines. For me, the most insidious thing about Forgotten Silver is how innocuous and believable the lies are, at first. Like hooking a bicycle up to a camera to power the crank - it makes perfect sense. Someone 100% could have done that, back in the day. Absolutely believable. So it hooks you in early on, and I think a lot of people never regained their credulity after that point. Even when the filmmakers are claiming they found an entire temple complex the size of a small city, which was lost in the NZ jungle and somehow no one noticed it for 80 years.
If you've ever been to that part of the country it is very believable that such a set could be lost, especially pre-internet. Its very remote and very difficult to access. Totally agree with your point about how it reels you in with the little lies and makes you question how plausible it all is. The little jokes give it away eventually!
@@PentexProductions But that is why it is so unbelievable. How could they support a Hollywood-style epic with all those people, all those costumes, all those elaborate sets, etc. out in the middle of nowhere.
@@cejannuzi Clever humour, right? It is feasible but only just. Just like famous studio movies that were a nightmare to produce and still got done... easier to walk away from and just leave to rot for maybe later discovery, a century later...
@@cejannuzi Look up the history of film and some of the absolutely out there locations and sets. It's actually one of the more believable pieces of the film.
A friend and I camped outside the same cinema in the outskirts of Stockholm in December of 2001, 2002 and 2003 for première tickets to the LotR movies. There was a lot of people there despite the winter cold, and it was extraordinarily well organised. I believe it was the last evening and night before the The Two Towers’ tickets released that a large screen has been set up (with help from the cinema I expect) on which were shown most of the previous films by Peter Jackson. I believe they were Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, Braindead, and Forgotten Silver. Maybe The Frighteners too, I can’t remember. It was an amazing experience to sit and watch these movies surrounded by loads of lovable geeks (many of them wearing full LARP costumes). Sad to hear that FS isn’t widely known and has been difficult to get ahold of.
Never mind that the “remote controlled dog” was named Flatus! On a serious note, I subscribe to over 1000 channels on RUclips, which is far more than I can ever keep abreast of. Most of them were channels I subscribed to in order to not forget about a single video or series of videos that they made, but it has now grown beyond my ability. One channel, however, that I always take note of, and make sure that I don’t miss, is yours. I wanted to thank you for continuing to make fantastic videos like this one, in an era when there is so much negativity and lack of creativity being pushed everywhere. I wish you all the best as you continue on with this channel, and whatever projects are in your future. My thanks- ❤️
@@nzlemming Thank you for the tips! I appreciate your input on that, I usually only use those features sparingly, as even though I’m on RUclips for several hours a day, I’m terrible at trying out different features- I am maybe the least computer-literate person I know!😆 Have a great week 👍🏻
I actually own this on DVD, it was in a collection with Braindead, Bad Taste and Meet The Feebles. Haven't seen it though, but maybe I'll fix that soon :D
Cool video. I remember being told to make a presentation on Richard Pearse in primary school. I fully bought into the myth he took flight before the Wright Brothers and believed it for years to come. Kiwi mythology is very strong in Timaru.
Pearse flew his plane into a tall gorse hedge before Wright Brothers flew. Pearse broke his ankle, plane stayed in hedge & it snowed. That rare snowfall in Timaru area accurately fixes the date.
I grew up in South Canterbury, and I swear that all throughout primary school in the 1990s, we were taught (numerous times) that Richard Pearse was the first person to fly. Like it was an undisputed fact. I don't think the Wright brothers even got a mention. I was well into adulthood when I finally learned about the Wright brothers. (By which time I had already made a fool of myself trying to tell my American friends how the first person in the world to fly came from my hometown!).
Guess they should've included something in the credits but I think even War Of The Worlds when originally broadcast on radio with a disclaimer received backlash,
Botes was keen to reveal the ruse in the credits but Jackson disagreed. I'm not sure how many people would have read the credits in enough detail to notice - and as with WOTW, I suspect many people would still be fooled even with the joke revealed!
CBS didn't want Welles to do the disclaimer because the panic was ensuing and they were concerned that if Welles stated on air that it was a Halloween prank it would make them liable. He got into a heated argument with the network during the short break-unaware of what was going on outside-before running back into the studio to continue the program, and then read it anyway.
I've been a fan of Forgotten Silver for 20 years or so. I first heard of it back sometime around the release of Return of The King and managed to get copy of DVD on Ebay. It's stuck away in a box somewhere, I'll need to dig it out for a rewatch.
I was thinking how could you possibly have been a fan for 20 years if you heard about it after ROTK, when it didnt come out that long ago.. then i realized what year it is. God damn I'm getting old.
@@PentexProductions Didn't Country Calendar have a segment on how macaroni was made from the hollow roots of the macaroni plant? And who can forget the turkeys in gumboots from Town and Around?
I distinctly remember when Borat came out, I kept telling my friends that Peter Jackson had already done this kind of movie over a decade earlier. Sadly, not one person knew what I was talking about. Thank you for this video!
Forgotten Silver follows the standard of many mockumentaries dating back decades whereas Sacha Baron Cohen's key point of difference was the way that many participants featured on screen had no idea that they were part of a ruse.
I got sucked in badly with that movie but came out the other end going... Well done... You got me. It was great story but it got more ludicrous as it went on but I wanted to believe.. We all wanted to believe...
I so wanted it to be true...I grew up in Geraldine, and had relatives with surname "Mackenzie" who had lived in Geraldine for years, so I figured the chances were pretty high that "Colin" was some great-great uncle of mine. 😂
I had seen most of Peter Jackson's films in the 90s and I loved them all. Forgotten Silver (a mockumentary about the greatest filmmaker who never was), Dead Alive (low budget gross out horror comedy), Meet the Feebles (muppet-like characters who all have problems with drugs, sex, or both), and Heavenly Creatures (the 2nd most popular lesbian murder movie of 1994). When I heard he was doing Lord of the Rings, I was... surprised. When I saw the film, you could really see all the pieces and styles he had learned coming together. But I didn't have the vision to get it before seeing the film in theaters.
@@christheghostwriter My mistake. Basic Instinct was 1992. Fun was in 1994, but it is much less known than Heavenly Creatures. Early 90s was quite a time for lesbian murder movies.
G'day Pentex, this retired 'Dingo' film critic/reviewer is deeply disappointed that I never got to see 'Forgotten Silver' when it was released. From what this video tells me it seems like a magnificent, ground-breaking cinematic 'gag' that I can't wait to see. What I find truly shocking is that New Zealand audiences reacted so 'violently' after the gag was discovered. In the early 80's I had a book on the history of the Australian film industry published where I mentioned only a few early Aussie documentaries. The rest of the entries were for fictional motion pictures; dating back to the 1906 film about The Kelly Gang. There was an earlier film made by the Salvation Army, in Melbourne, but it was meant to be shown in sections, in between live presentations so it's not a true 'feature film'. The very nature of commercial motion pictures relies heavily on the audience temporarily suspending disbelief. Only then can one be swept away into accepting any story; any setting in any location on Earth, indeed, on any planet or alternative universe. This is the very core of film entertainment; without it every film would be a documentary. Mind you, I love a great documentary as much as I love a great fictional film. The adverse reaction to 'Forgotten Silver' is just as silly as audiences protesting about the differences between 'Dr Strangelove...' (1964) and 'Failsafe' (1964). Both films deal with the same subject yet both are so obviously works of fiction (to most). The thing is, as far as I know, nobody ever protested that one of these films was 'more truthful' than the other even though the former is a satirical comedy and the latter is played dead straight. 'Failsafe' was never misidentified as a documentary. My wife is a Kiwi but, unfortunately, I don't know as much about New Zealand film culture or history than I should; my Australian film book took five years of part-time work. I'm sure I would have spotted 'Forgotten Silver' as a gag, because it struck me that the one 'pioneering' New Zealand filmmaker would not have managed to be on the ground at Gallipoli during WW1 and the Spanish Civil War. A little bit too 'Walter Mitty' or 'Forest Gumpish' for authenticity. Although I love the gag of the 'Camera Bike'; instantly I saw it was a put-up job because it would only give one watchable images if ridden on a perfectly flat, smooth surface at an absolutely constant speed, stabilised by two ‘outrider’ wheels. A great idea nonetheless. Anyway, the words 'fake', 'gag', 'phoney', 'deceptive' etc., can all be replaced with the word; 'fictional'. I don't recall 'riots in the street's' when people realised that every foot of all the 'Star Trek', 'Star Wars' and all the other sci-fi films out there were not the 'fair-dinkum; truth. Finally, I guess none of this controversy should be a genuine surprise; when a genius filmmaker like Jackson and this talented co-producer come up with a fictional 'documentary'; it's going to be a great one. I'm off to order a copy right now! Cheers, Bill H.
I'll have to check out your book - I am very unversed in Aussie cinema besides the usual gems (for my money The Castle is one of the best comedies ever made and no one outside of Oceania seems to have heard of it) so that sounds like a good way to expand my horizons. Thanks for watching.
New Zealand isn't even put on the map usually and for some kiwis to be told that their society contributed something so amazing and then rip that away from them must have stung to a lot of people. Jackson pretty much took a gun to kiwi values of independence, carving out our own path. I think a lot of people probably saw it as making fun of everything they stood for something that I like to sum up as the 'can do' attitude. He mocked an entire country and used their own taxes to do it.
[SPOILERS] I watched this when it aired (late teens, home alone, stoned) and was initially elated by the revelations, especially the "evidence" of Richard Pearse's (conveniently dateable) flight and the rediscovery of the lost set of MacKenzie's epic. However, a few little details nagged at me, and when we were told that American gangsters got involved in funding the epic (or something like that, I don't remember the exact details) I started to doubt the veracity of the "documentary". When at the end we find that MacKenzie's death was recorded on film, then I was sure that this was a hoax - maybe it was because I was stoned, but I thought the whole thing was superb and the subsequent uproar amused me no end. So it's certainly not true that the entire country was fooled ;) And you gotta love how Jackson starts the mockumentary by literally leading the audience down the garden path of his elderly neighbour's home :)
That makes 2 of us. Your experience was very close to mine. I still remember the sense of validation around Richard Pearce. It was the zoom in on the newspaper in his backpocket that sealed it for me. I just enjoyed it as much for the remainder.
I've lived in NZ for 19 years and in that time I've seen about all sorts of things (the original Under The Mountains, the 'Bugger' and Tui commercials, the ACC PSAs, etc etc...) but this is my first time learning about this! I'm kind of surprised no one ever brought it up. I will definitely check it out, thank you!
I saw this film on Sundance Channel when I was a teenager. I had no context going in. By about half an hour in, it was pretty clear it was a mockumentary.
If you're paying attention it's easy to spot the bits of humour creeping in, but I can absolutely see how if it was playing in the background on TV one night how you could be taken in by it.
@@PentexProductions It was a different context to watch it in. Sundance does show some documentaries, but not usually ones in that kind of PBS sort of style. Also, I'm not from New Zealand and had no vested interest other than being a film fan and a lover of history.
I remember watching this with my mum, and us both being fooled by it. It was the 6th and final week of a series of New Zealand films - except rather than being a documentary to cap the series (which is what was inferred) it was just another fictional NZ film. In retrospect, I find the consequent triggering of the fragile New Zealand ego pretty amusing.
As a fan of early Jackson films (Meet the Feebles in particular), I have no idea how I didn't know about this movie. I imagine I'd have to have seen the title before, at least, but perhaps passed over it by seeing it categorized as a for-TV documentary (as said in the video, seems to kind of be a footnote in his career). I blame myself for not looking into it a bit more, of course, but dang. Crazy, though, to get another new pre-LotR Jackson film I'd never heard of, after being a fan of his for over 20 years now (since, as a teenage fan of LotR I first sat down in theaters to see Fellowship). Anyway, this video popped up in my recommendations the other day, and so I immediately went and watched Forgotten Silver, and now have come back to this video. Great video about a really great little mockumentary. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it. As I say at the end, it deserves to be remembered as more than a footnote in his filmography! It is often skipped over by people for exactly the reasons you said, which is a shame because it's so entertaining.
I remember buying this on DVD and watching it years ago when I was first checking out all of the pre-LOTR Jackson stuff and really enjoying it. Several years later while randomly watching the Documentary 'Candyman' on Netflix I saw the 'Directed by Costa Botes' come up in the opening credits and paused the documentary to check online if it was the same Costa Botes from Forgotten Silver and whether it was a real documentary or another mockumentary.
Candyman was indeed mine. I have made a whole series of genuine documentaries, nearly always about highly driven, passionate characters who flirt with failure. I regularly get asked how anyone can trust me after Forgotten Silver. Well, they can. Cheers, Costa Botes.
I must add a warm thankyou for the Vimeo link to a legal copy of Forgotten Silver. I've often wondered why we've never seen it aired again on TVNZ. I'll certainly rent a copy to re-watch. ❤
I do remember catching this on tele and slowly realizing that it was a fiction. Had no idea so many got to the end still thinking it was real. Obviously not weaned on Country Calendar. Definitely want to see it again, thanks for the link.
I live in Aotearoa New Zealand. This was an astonishing film made by Peter Jackson. The entire country was awestruck... and it was an HILARIOUS joke. I loved it!
When watching this on it's TV debut my flatmates and I bought into it for about the first half but figured it was a mockumentary as they kept making the claims bigger and bigger. Was amazed that anyone took it seriously. It's a great laugh.
Greetings from Christchurch, NZ and thanks for the heads-up ... I'm going to go check out Forgotten Silver now ... and BTW: the long-running Country Calendar was a great TV show, a national icon just like PJ. I used to watch it every week =)
It was hilarious. At the time, there were four channels and 95% of people watching TV that evening were watching this mockumentary. The whole country was sucked in and it was brilliant. A small minority got angry, but most thought it was funny (and of course were disappointed about this not being true).
Despite seeing a clip from it on nzonscreen 20+ years later I still fell for it even though I literally said "That's a model" when the plane flew past, I still thought it was real and when I googled it I was disappointed, but I look forward to watching the whole thing. I briefly mentioned this and Ghostwatch (1992) (which wasn't intended to be funny but also fooled people), in an essay for uni last year.
The whole thing is well worth a watch - it's very entertaining, and there is a lot of subtle humour in there that's all the more obvious when you know about the joke.
I lived in Wellington NZ when this thing aired but until now was completely unaware of its existence, having already given up on broadcast television in the late 80s. I'm grateful for this RUclips video because it exposes a few lies that I recall were masqueraded as fact by our "trustworthy" state radio broadcaster back when the mockumentary was released.
I have to say, brilliant though it was, there were many of us that weren't totally fooled. He had me (almost) up until the moment he zoomed in on the photograph of a newspaper in someone's back pocket and got the date of it. This was a totally CSI "Enhance!" moment and totally broke my suspension of disbelief. But it was really well done and I laughed my tits off, and people were arguing about it for weeks. Some probably still are. It was indeed a fabulous piece of film-work. Nice piece, though, and you got a sub out of me.
I watched this back in the day, knowing full well that it was completely fictitious (friends were fans of Bad Taste, Feebles, Heavenly Creatures) and even still, I found myself partway through this thinking to myself "This is amazing... how HAVE we never heard of this before?!?!" then I fully realized how good of a storyteller Jackson is. :D
Is it, though? "Truth" (versus fiction) is attached automatically to the genre of documentaries as that is what they have been established to tell. All Jackson did was subvert the good faith that audience's show towards the genre of the documentary; whether they believed it or not it had little to do with whether they WANTED to believe it or not but rather because it had been presented using a method univerally established to report on reality (like newspaper reporting).
Like the word "aotearoa" a made up word sold to the masses by jacinta and her cronies. There is no definitive proof of maori naming new zealand this. But because the media keep pushing it and everyone loves a good story the agenda continues
I remember this broadcast and thought, initially, that it was possible, until a special effect zooming into a newspaper headline, dashed my excitement with peels of laughter!
I remember watching this with my teenage daughter, both of us huge film buffs: we knew we were watching a mockumentary - didn't belive it for a minute. It was brilliant, we had a good laugh.
We could probably air that on NZ TV today and people would definitely believe the lie, again... Great video, always got to have NZ people thinking they did the first thing ever because "of course we did", 10/10
Thanks for this video! I feel so lucky that I learned about Forgotten Silver in one of my college classes and now it's one of my favorite Peter Jackson films. The film works so well emotionally (I knew it was a lie from the get-go but I felt really bad for the Colin McKenzie character by the end of it) and I started to notice the jokes and humor more and more with every subsequent viewing. Thanks again and keep up the great work!
Same here, I remember watching it in my university's AV library and enjoying it so much, despite already knowing the premise. A genuinely entertaining movie in its own right.
I remember it. It took a long time through the movie to realize it was a mockumentary. They made quite a few back then. I remember one where Donald Rumsfeld, of all people, cooperated with.
An excellent treatment of this subject - thank you! I was watching at the time of broadcast and it was thrilling. It didn't take long for queries though. Then a scene that sealed the fake for sure. A classic shot that anyone used to CSI type content would recognise. As a darkroom tech I knew what was feasible and what was fun. Thank you for the link to purchase, I've wanted a copy for a while.
I was in early HS years here in NZ when this dropped. But because I didn't watch movies or tv movies as a teen. I never actually saw this or maybe I don't even remember it. I was in hospital for an infection that year, but the name of the protagonist definitely made me go "Why does that name sound familiar?" XDDD I do remember the radio controlled dog bit on country calendar though no sure why though because I never watched that show either. It's about as iconic as the blooper show with the clip of thingie's eye falling out.
Yep. I watched this on Sunday Playhouse aaand i was taken in. The next day at work a brighter man than I disillusioned me over coffee. I suspect a situation repeated in break rooms across the nation that day.
This was so powerful because it plays on the deep inadequacy of New Zealanders and their desperate need to be recognised as great at... something... anything...
Forgotten Silver is an amazing film! Knew the context of the film before watching it, but that didn't affect my viewing in any way. Wish they would have gone the extra mile and made a complete Salome just to round out the experience.
I would genuinely love to see a 1920s-style Biblical epic by Peter Jackson in the silent film style. I think it'd be fascinating to see what you could do with modern visual storytelling language, but limiting yourself to the technology of the time.
Can you just imagine the film lecturers fronting up after being exposed for not really having this "exclusive intel" before Forgotten Silver screened...the students must have had an absolute field day! lol Great little doco about one of Aotearoa's most notorious docos! Well done! :)
As an Australian, this was shown on TV here calling it a hoax, but not that it was false, but that New Zealanders were trying to claim credit for an Australian filmmaker named Colin McKenzie. The proof they provided was that (and this bit is actually true) in the Australian National Film & Sound Archive, there are the ashes of a scientist named Colin McKenzie. They just lied and said he was actually a filmmaker.
After some time watching the video, I had to keep a part of myself ready for it to end like "And all the things in this video are actually fake, none of this is real"
I did not know this picture had such a negative impact on the New Zealand viewers. And did not know either it was so difficult to buy a copy today. I am so glad I still have a DVD of it, a birthday present. In fact, I am going to rewatch it, this review is compelling me to do so. 🙂
Long live Colin MacKenzie! As a kid I was fooled by "This is spinal tap". Was skeptical while watching but without the internet there was no way to verify facts(vs misinformation). I saw it a second time a few days later and had to watch it with a critical eye to confirm to myself it was very unlikely to be based in fact. This was a great lesson for me as a teen. It also planted a very common seed, all volume controls needed an "11".
God that brings back memories l could do without! I watched Forgotten Silver not long after l came back to Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Was working part time at a cinema and my boss was a family friend and a long time movie buff. I was SO excited about the discoveries that l rang him raving about it. He was very kind and petended to be interested so it wasn't till years later that l realised it was a have. In my defence l'd never heard of Peter Jackson. 😊 Would happily watch it again as it really was well done. 😊
10:00 dont forget about john britten who built an entire custom racebike (with an odd design) that went on to win a string of trophies and broke several records. - the britten v1000 that iconic blue and purple thing with odd front suspension.
I've loved Peter Jackson since the late 1980s when I happened upon his two first films in a video store. They actually made me consider the idea of moving to New Zealand. I'd never heard of this film, but I have to say, "Bravo!" Will definitely be giving this watch.
What I find amusing is that the actor portraying Colin Mackenzie is Thomas Robins, who is interviewed as himself during the movie (@2:23). I was trying to think where I had seen Colin Mackenzie before, then realised it was the character Deagol in the opening scene of Return of the King.
Never in a million years did I think I'd be talking about Country Calendar on this channel.
You can watch Forgotten Silver legally here: vimeo.com/ondemand/forgottensilver
Hello! What do you think about the latest video on Jesse Tribble's channel? The name of the video: "Can The Lord of the Rings Ever be Remastered?".
Thanks for maybe the most thorough and intelligent exegesis of this film I’ve yet seen, and for the plug. Much appreciated.
@@costabotes7308 Thank YOU for making it, and for helping keep it accessible in this digital world.
@@PentexProductions FYI, I am currently writing a book about the film. The plan is to detail its conception, production, and reception, with plenty of recollections from those who were there, and of course a hefty dose of personal memoir from me. I do appreciate you stressing the film was made by two people, not just one! It was my baby, but PJ was a hell of a Godfather.
I look forward to reading that.
I saw this movie when I was in high school, the mid 2000s. I was attending a filmmaking summer camp at University of Texas at Austin. The teachers explained little things about what Jackson was doing in the film, how he literally leads the audience down the garden path at the beginning, to the "discovery" of the lost reels. The use of subtle comedy in order to telegraph to the discerning viewer that this is all a joke, but just subtle enough that it went over a lot of people's heads. My favorite bit was when MacKenzie was put on trial for possessing obscene materials after accidentally filming some topless native women. The narration: "An all male jury deliberating for several hours, requesting repeated viewings of the film." LOL I think about this movie all the time, glad to see someone talking about it.
I so desperately wanted to include that joke in the video as the exact example of the movie's style of subtle humour, but couldn't for obvious reasons. It's one of my favourite little gags in the movie, and like a lot of the humour you really need to be paying attention to catch the joke. That and the fact that the whole reason Pearse's flight was unsuccessful was because he was swerving to avoid crashing into Colin's camera!
Love that you were studying this in Texas - it has a very niche following but is such a valuable movie for teaching film styles and history.
It’s not “satire” when it’s directly meant to mock the perceived artistic and cultural ignorance of the viewers and the common citizen.
That’s elitist crap. If the viewer is the one that’s mocked by the end, that’s tricky political territory and it’s not likely a conservative and artistic elitist like Jackson had some greater enlightened goal in mind other than just to mock the lack of education of the viewers and highlight how much smarter he and the filmmakers are than the viewers.
Ass****!
8
The bit that totally gave it away for me was the big digital zoom into the date on the newspaper.
A lot Kiwi's understood the satire once they watched it 😂 I remember my dad cracking up while watching it on Montana Sunday Theatre and mum just going "Aww this is bloody bull💩 😂". I think the boomers that grew up on Monty Python, Spike Mulligan, and other mockumentaries like The Rutles and Real Life spotted the satire straight away.
Entire New Zealand population:
I suppose you think that was terribly clever...
Jackson, laughing gleefully: "Did you see their faces!"
Terrablee cliver
Yes. Yes they do.
I suppose you have never heard of "eating media lunch" a NZ mock news show that convinced alot of NZ people that the NZ government was funding a " Porn film" because it was historically accurate
It was very clever. It was hilarious at the time….even I was a little fooled.
There is a movie called The Czech dream. It's not a mocumentary but it documents probably the biggest practical joke in the history of my country. It was just two guys doing a campaign for a brand new shopping center. It was huge, caught a lot of attention and when it came to "grand opening," masses of people just got to an empty lot with a huge banner that basically said "You got goofed." Dudes almost got eaten alive.
That sounds absolutely hilarious.
@@PentexProductions watch?v=KVK3Alnagwg
Here's a trailer. Not sure if you take anything from it because it's in Czech but there are at least some shots from the actual opening.
EDIT: Hey, the almighty alorithm blessed me with the entire movie. watch?v=-cWrl3AAkYY
Your people are cannibals?
@alexsetterington3142 - Hey, he said "almost", okay?! Haha
Sounds like the episode of The Simpsons with the "angel".
As a great Kiwi actor himself, I’m still surprised this is Sam Neill’s only film role directed by Peter Jackson.
Never thought of that
Sam needs to come back from hell !!!
I want a second Event Horizon !!!!!
Sam Neill can’t act - anyone with a brain knows that
Tim, Tim I thought you were nice as well as dim?...
i remember a guy i work with telling me all about how this dude from new zealand actually invented color film and was totally lost to history. i told him the bad news is that forgotten silver was a spoof, but the good news is that the guy who made it was directing lord of the rings.
He didn't get the memo 😅
Jackson has gone from making new film look like old, to making old film look new.
And, for his next trick, he's going to "restore" this film by taking all the grain out of it...
Honestly, why can't he just Let It Be?
I can't believe Jackson made Triumph of the Will
Yeah the only issue with Lord of the Rings are the miniatures as If you watch them on a decent tv it shows up too much that they are models . Besides that though Lord of the Rings Trilogy still hold up as amazing so does King Kong.
I had to rewatch Lord of the rings to get the stink of the Amazon show out lol
So true! "They Shall Not Grow Old" is so amazing
Great film. I helped Chris Coad, the photographer on the project, by doing darkroom work and making contact sheets. I had zero idea at the time what it was about, but pleased to have had a very small part assisting with a Peter Jackson film.
“Forgotten Silver’s” first release was on national tv, here in NZ, and it was pretty much the sole topic of workplace conversation, the following day. The greater number of people were fooled by it but, at least where I worked, I guess about one in five of us were sceptical. I had initially been taken in but the “firsts” accomplished by McKenzie gradually became more and more outrageous. The scales fell from my eyes when they zoomed in on a wide shot, to read the date on the newspaper in the pocket of a man at least a couple of hundred metres away. I was pretty certain that would have been beyond the resolving power of any 35mm film stock fast enough for movies. Then, when he filmed his own death as a photo-journalist, I became almost convinced it had to be a spoof - it was all just too fantastic. But the many different interviews with real-life, movie luminaries and the incredibly realistic looking footage plus the fact that it was presented as an “important documentary” made it difficult to argue against it.
Accordingly, when it was revealed as a hoax, I had no problem seeing both the joke and the point he was making and my respect for his abilities as an auteur increased, significantly. However, a lot of those who were completely taken in were furious at the deception. I know a woman who still snorts in disgust at any mention of Peter Jackson or his works.
The date on the newspaper was the last straw for me, too.
they are just pissed off that they were very publicly 'sucked in' about the it, and then and to be quite after the deception was discovered.
A very good film obviously. I would love to see it, as I missed it first time around.
Omg, I had completely forgotten about this film. I was an extra in the battle scenes at the old museum. I also have the vague memory that we used the swords at the summer Shakespeare (Macbeth) later that year.
Fantastic!
We were shown this in our music class, by one of my favourite teachers. Halfway through when he can see we’re all absolutely hooked into it, he pauses on a freeze frame of… himself! He was cast as an extra in one of these “forgotten films” and wasn’t told anything about what he was taking part of until after its release
I found this was so much fun at the time. I watched it at a friends place and I was floored about this unknown filmmaker. Kiwi pride surged but I realised it was a joke when they supposedly magnified a newspaper that claimed to show we had flown first. I knew you could not do this and then, getting the joke, I started laughing and told my friend, "Holy shit! This is a joke!" He could not and would not listen to what I was saying and when it was revealed (I think the next day) I called him and he was absolutely furious. I could not understand why at the time as I thought it was just brilliant. Years later, in trying to find a copy on DVD I met Costa Botes so I could buy a copy and he told me some real horror stories about how angry people were and the kind of threats they received. I salute them though. It was such a convincing gag and a great rug pull. Nice work lads.
Can you briefly explain the flown first thing?
@@sammy5576 Sure thing. There is a possibility that the first person to fly was a New Zealander by the name of Richard Pearse. It's believed he flew on or around the 31st March 1902, 18 months before the Wright brothers. Unfortunately there is no accurate record of this and in all likelihood it was a much shorter distance than the Wright Brothers flew anyway so could barely have been called a flight. Anyhoo, in Forgotten Silver, they claimed that they had footage of that flight, and to confirm the date, they perform a close up and enhancement of a newspaper in the back pocket of one of the attendees. The enhancement portrayed was super clear and supposedly proved, using the date on the newspaper, that Richard Pearse flew first. Clearly, based on how little detail was available on the film, this was not possible. That was when the penny dropped for me. That was when I knew it was a joke, and that was when the argument started with my friend who had swallowed the lie, hook, line and sinker!
@@mathewhegan4606that was when I figured it out too!
They're angry because, if they could be deceived by this, they are vulnerable to be deceived by a lot of things and their pride can't handle it.
If it failed people would be indifferent. But sheer fact that it got such a strong emotions out of people means that it succeeded.
I love art 😊
this was in my film studies curriculum in the first year of uni. we had a screening, were so astonished we never heard of mackenzie. came back for a seminar a day or a couple later and only then we were informed this was a mockumentary. the professor said, "oh, brian [other prof] never informed you lot this was fake? typical brian" lmao. this was years ago, but man i feel better the whole nz was fooled lol. a shame our profs never told us the story of its release, it's really fascinating
The professor wanted to enjoy the joke! I love that it is still studied in film classes - it's such a great text not just as an example of a mockumentary, but it blends all sorts of different film styles and bits of history.
You study at Otago?
If I was in that class and had either already figured it out or had been told, I wouldn't have told anyone. Way funnier that way.
Kiwi here. I have no idea how I didn't know about this. Bloody hilarious!
A nice bit of history. Do watch the whole thing - it's quite entertaining even when you know about the joke. Lots of little Kiwi-isms in there.
@@PentexProductions ...as well as you telling us NZ has jungles.....? What's with that?
Thanks for the memory of something I never really took notice of at the time.
Me too, and I’m about be right age 54
Me three. Dunno how I missed it.
Straight away, I went, "That's Deagol!
i just wrote the same thing heh
*glances at the Ring, starts strangling observant LOTR viewers
I was away from New Zealand when this was aired and never knew about it until now. Thank you so much for making this. I can't wait to see the film.
I saw Forgotten Silver on Turner Classic Movies, 5-6 yo. As I remember it was showing the same time slot reserved for ‘foreign’ imports and the summary guide description flagged it as something like ‘Peter Jackson’s documentary on early New Zealand filmmaker’
I’d watched so many documentaries on TCM that I didn’t immediately catch the joke although I did start to have my doubts because MacKinsey seemed to have done EVERYTHING. When Sam Neil showed up as a film expert instead of an actor, I stopped the film and re ran it, then I caught a bunch of arch jokes!
Loved it!
There were so many. Easter egg city.
The line I loved from Forgotten Silver was the "let me take you down the garden path" bit. LOLOLOL.
Fooled me when it was aired in Australia in the late-'90s. I was studying performing arts and was into any kind of early film doco. Ray Martin pulled the plug at the end of the airing, so it must have been Channel 9.
Rude that they explained the joke - much more fun to see people go off believing it!
@@PentexProductions I also saw it on Australian TV but someway through I realised that it was fiction, not fact. It may have been the Richard Pearse bit that did it (I'd studied his story quite a bit beforehand) or maybe something else that just didn't ring true, but I do remember that my enjoyment level immediately increased after that point. A truly brilliant film. I have wanted to get a copy of it ever since. And when I found out how it had been received in Kiwiland my enjoyment level increased heaps.
@@PentexProductionsI think it’s silly to expect everyone to get it and to find it funny.
Some people are watching while taking care of kids, turn it on halfway through.. just put something at the end saying it was a farce.
Is it funny looking back? Yes. But there’s also no need to make everybody at the time look like they’re stoopid and unreasonable.
@@daveinpublic Most people are fooled by MSM on a daily basis yet I don't hear many complaints?
Something akin to the famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast...
I have never heard of this before, thank you for making this rather lovely video!
Thank YOU for watching.
I discovered this in a used DVD shop back in the day, and have always liked it. But - being American - I'd never understood why it made New Zealand so angry. So thanks for this! I'd honestly be interested in more "Kiwi-splaining" videos along these lines.
For me, the most insidious thing about Forgotten Silver is how innocuous and believable the lies are, at first. Like hooking a bicycle up to a camera to power the crank - it makes perfect sense. Someone 100% could have done that, back in the day. Absolutely believable. So it hooks you in early on, and I think a lot of people never regained their credulity after that point. Even when the filmmakers are claiming they found an entire temple complex the size of a small city, which was lost in the NZ jungle and somehow no one noticed it for 80 years.
If you've ever been to that part of the country it is very believable that such a set could be lost, especially pre-internet. Its very remote and very difficult to access. Totally agree with your point about how it reels you in with the little lies and makes you question how plausible it all is. The little jokes give it away eventually!
@@PentexProductions But that is why it is so unbelievable. How could they support a Hollywood-style epic with all those people, all those costumes, all those elaborate sets, etc. out in the middle of nowhere.
@@cejannuzi Clever humour, right? It is feasible but only just. Just like famous studio movies that were a nightmare to produce and still got done... easier to walk away from and just leave to rot for maybe later discovery, a century later...
@@cejannuzi Look up the history of film and some of the absolutely out there locations and sets. It's actually one of the more believable pieces of the film.
"kiwisplaining definition.....pisstaking so well honed because you'll always have such a ready audience.
A friend and I camped outside the same cinema in the outskirts of Stockholm in December of 2001, 2002 and 2003 for première tickets to the LotR movies.
There was a lot of people there despite the winter cold, and it was extraordinarily well organised.
I believe it was the last evening and night before the The Two Towers’ tickets released that a large screen has been set up (with help from the cinema I expect) on which were shown most of the previous films by Peter Jackson.
I believe they were Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, Braindead, and Forgotten Silver. Maybe The Frighteners too, I can’t remember. It was an amazing experience to sit and watch these movies surrounded by loads of lovable geeks (many of them wearing full LARP costumes). Sad to hear that FS isn’t widely known and has been difficult to get ahold of.
0:38 Harvey Weinstein jumpscare
Every story needs a villain.
what's wrong with his face when will it stop looking like that
@@christofthedead Gothmog from Return of the king was said to be based on that POS´s face
Truly Horrifying...
Tony Kahn felt scared for his life.
Never mind that the “remote controlled dog” was named Flatus!
On a serious note, I subscribe to over 1000 channels on RUclips, which is far more than I can ever keep abreast of. Most of them were channels I subscribed to in order to not forget about a single video or series of videos that they made, but it has now grown beyond my ability. One channel, however, that I always take note of, and make sure that I don’t miss, is yours. I wanted to thank you for continuing to make fantastic videos like this one, in an era when there is so much negativity and lack of creativity being pushed everywhere. I wish you all the best as you continue on with this channel, and whatever projects are in your future. My thanks- ❤️
Thanks so much, what a fantastic comment to wake up to!
You know that your Likes are compiled and you can go back and review them? Or that you can save a vid to a playlist to keep track of it?
@@nzlemming Thank you for the tips! I appreciate your input on that, I usually only use those features sparingly, as even though I’m on RUclips for several hours a day, I’m terrible at trying out different features- I am maybe the least computer-literate person I know!😆 Have a great week 👍🏻
Nah it's called Fleet, which is a common name for sheepdogs. Fleet, Jess, Blue... years of Country Calendar and A Dog's Show taught me this.
I actually own this on DVD, it was in a collection with Braindead, Bad Taste and Meet The Feebles. Haven't seen it though, but maybe I'll fix that soon :D
That collection of DVDs is a pretty rare stash these days. Thank you for doing your bit to preserve these bits of Kiwi film history.
Wow, what a collection! Reminds me to give MTF a rewatch some day...
As a Kiwi, I was absolutely delighted at the prank. Absolute art! I'm tickled to be part-duped.
Give the whole thing a watch!
Cool video. I remember being told to make a presentation on Richard Pearse in primary school. I fully bought into the myth he took flight before the Wright Brothers and believed it for years to come. Kiwi mythology is very strong in Timaru.
Pearse flew his plane into a tall gorse hedge before Wright Brothers flew. Pearse broke his ankle, plane stayed in hedge & it snowed. That rare snowfall in Timaru area accurately fixes the date.
I grew up in South Canterbury, and I swear that all throughout primary school in the 1990s, we were taught (numerous times) that Richard Pearse was the first person to fly. Like it was an undisputed fact. I don't think the Wright brothers even got a mention. I was well into adulthood when I finally learned about the Wright brothers. (By which time I had already made a fool of myself trying to tell my American friends how the first person in the world to fly came from my hometown!).
Even Pearse is pretty scathing of his own "flight". Even if the plane jumped off the ground he admits he had no control over the plane.
@@evewaddington6225 It isn't foolish to say Pearse was the first. It just isn't a clear cut arguement.
Guess they should've included something in the credits but I think even War Of The Worlds when originally broadcast on radio with a disclaimer received backlash,
Botes was keen to reveal the ruse in the credits but Jackson disagreed. I'm not sure how many people would have read the credits in enough detail to notice - and as with WOTW, I suspect many people would still be fooled even with the joke revealed!
CBS didn't want Welles to do the disclaimer because the panic was ensuing and they were concerned that if Welles stated on air that it was a Halloween prank it would make them liable. He got into a heated argument with the network during the short break-unaware of what was going on outside-before running back into the studio to continue the program, and then read it anyway.
Next thing you will be telling me there are no vampires in Wellington.😮
Or werewolves (not swearwolves).
Peter Jackson dialed it to 11 on that one.
I've been a fan of Forgotten Silver for 20 years or so. I first heard of it back sometime around the release of Return of The King and managed to get copy of DVD on Ebay. It's stuck away in a box somewhere, I'll need to dig it out for a rewatch.
It's still just as entertaining - definitely worth a re-watch!
I was thinking how could you possibly have been a fan for 20 years if you heard about it after ROTK, when it didnt come out that long ago.. then i realized what year it is. God damn I'm getting old.
...you're telling me spaghetti _doesn't_ grow on trees?
I have a bridge for sale if you're interested?
@@PentexProductions Didn't Country Calendar have a segment on how macaroni was made from the hollow roots of the macaroni plant? And who can forget the turkeys in gumboots from Town and Around?
@@PentexProductions is it that nice one in Sydney? How much?
No, but money does.
@@colonelfustercluck486 That'd be the one between Auckland and Sydney.
I distinctly remember when Borat came out, I kept telling my friends that Peter Jackson had already done this kind of movie over a decade earlier. Sadly, not one person knew what I was talking about. Thank you for this video!
But Borat was a proper documentary..... ??
Forgotten Silver follows the standard of many mockumentaries dating back decades whereas Sacha Baron Cohen's key point of difference was the way that many participants featured on screen had no idea that they were part of a ruse.
The 'Enhance' looking at the newspaper during the flight test is what gave it away for me.
Same
I got sucked in badly with that movie but came out the other end going... Well done... You got me. It was great story but it got more ludicrous as it went on but I wanted to believe.. We all wanted to believe...
I so wanted it to be true...I grew up in Geraldine, and had relatives with surname "Mackenzie" who had lived in Geraldine for years, so I figured the chances were pretty high that "Colin" was some great-great uncle of mine. 😂
I had seen most of Peter Jackson's films in the 90s and I loved them all. Forgotten Silver (a mockumentary about the greatest filmmaker who never was), Dead Alive (low budget gross out horror comedy), Meet the Feebles (muppet-like characters who all have problems with drugs, sex, or both), and Heavenly Creatures (the 2nd most popular lesbian murder movie of 1994).
When I heard he was doing Lord of the Rings, I was... surprised. When I saw the film, you could really see all the pieces and styles he had learned coming together. But I didn't have the vision to get it before seeing the film in theaters.
Jackson probably has the wildest filmography of any director working today.
What was the first most popular lesbian murder movie of 1994?
@@christheghostwriter My mistake. Basic Instinct was 1992. Fun was in 1994, but it is much less known than Heavenly Creatures. Early 90s was quite a time for lesbian murder movies.
@@Sam_on_RUclips no worries, I just thought there might be a lesbian murder movie I haven't seen 😂
@@christheghostwriter If you haven't seen Fun by Kenneth Lonergan, you should watch it. Great little indie film.
G'day Pentex, this retired 'Dingo' film critic/reviewer is deeply disappointed that I never got to see 'Forgotten Silver' when it was released. From what this video tells me it seems like a magnificent, ground-breaking cinematic 'gag' that I can't wait to see. What I find truly shocking is that New Zealand audiences reacted so 'violently' after the gag was discovered.
In the early 80's I had a book on the history of the Australian film industry published where I mentioned only a few early Aussie documentaries. The rest of the entries were for fictional motion pictures; dating back to the 1906 film about The Kelly Gang. There was an earlier film made by the Salvation Army, in Melbourne, but it was meant to be shown in sections, in between live presentations so it's not a true 'feature film'.
The very nature of commercial motion pictures relies heavily on the audience temporarily suspending disbelief. Only then can one be swept away into accepting any story; any setting in any location on Earth, indeed, on any planet or alternative universe.
This is the very core of film entertainment; without it every film would be a documentary.
Mind you, I love a great documentary as much as I love a great fictional film.
The adverse reaction to 'Forgotten Silver' is just as silly as audiences protesting about the differences between 'Dr Strangelove...' (1964) and 'Failsafe' (1964).
Both films deal with the same subject yet both are so obviously works of fiction (to most).
The thing is, as far as I know, nobody ever protested that one of these films was 'more truthful' than the other even though the former is a satirical comedy and the latter is played dead straight.
'Failsafe' was never misidentified as a documentary.
My wife is a Kiwi but, unfortunately, I don't know as much about New Zealand film culture or history than I should; my Australian film book took five years of part-time work.
I'm sure I would have spotted 'Forgotten Silver' as a gag, because it struck me that the one 'pioneering' New Zealand filmmaker would not have managed to be on the ground at Gallipoli during WW1 and the Spanish Civil War. A little bit too 'Walter Mitty' or 'Forest Gumpish' for authenticity.
Although I love the gag of the 'Camera Bike'; instantly I saw it was a put-up job because it would only give one watchable images if ridden on a perfectly flat, smooth surface at an absolutely constant speed, stabilised by two ‘outrider’ wheels. A great idea nonetheless.
Anyway, the words 'fake', 'gag', 'phoney', 'deceptive' etc., can all be replaced with the word; 'fictional'.
I don't recall 'riots in the street's' when people realised that every foot of all the 'Star Trek', 'Star Wars' and all the other sci-fi films out there were not the 'fair-dinkum; truth.
Finally, I guess none of this controversy should be a genuine surprise; when a genius filmmaker like Jackson and this talented co-producer come up with a fictional 'documentary'; it's going to be a great one. I'm off to order a copy right now!
Cheers, Bill H.
I'll have to check out your book - I am very unversed in Aussie cinema besides the usual gems (for my money The Castle is one of the best comedies ever made and no one outside of Oceania seems to have heard of it) so that sounds like a good way to expand my horizons. Thanks for watching.
New Zealand isn't even put on the map usually and for some kiwis to be told that their society contributed something so amazing and then rip that away from them must have stung to a lot of people. Jackson pretty much took a gun to kiwi values of independence, carving out our own path. I think a lot of people probably saw it as making fun of everything they stood for something that I like to sum up as the 'can do' attitude. He mocked an entire country and used their own taxes to do it.
[SPOILERS] I watched this when it aired (late teens, home alone, stoned) and was initially elated by the revelations, especially the "evidence" of Richard Pearse's (conveniently dateable) flight and the rediscovery of the lost set of MacKenzie's epic. However, a few little details nagged at me, and when we were told that American gangsters got involved in funding the epic (or something like that, I don't remember the exact details) I started to doubt the veracity of the "documentary". When at the end we find that MacKenzie's death was recorded on film, then I was sure that this was a hoax - maybe it was because I was stoned, but I thought the whole thing was superb and the subsequent uproar amused me no end. So it's certainly not true that the entire country was fooled ;) And you gotta love how Jackson starts the mockumentary by literally leading the audience down the garden path of his elderly neighbour's home :)
One of my favourite things about it is the fact that it is such an entertaining film even without knowing about the public reception to it.
That makes 2 of us. Your experience was very close to mine. I still remember the sense of validation around Richard Pearce. It was the zoom in on the newspaper in his backpocket that sealed it for me. I just enjoyed it as much for the remainder.
I've lived in NZ for 19 years and in that time I've seen about all sorts of things (the original Under The Mountains, the 'Bugger' and Tui commercials, the ACC PSAs, etc etc...) but this is my first time learning about this! I'm kind of surprised no one ever brought it up. I will definitely check it out, thank you!
I saw this film on Sundance Channel when I was a teenager. I had no context going in. By about half an hour in, it was pretty clear it was a mockumentary.
If you're paying attention it's easy to spot the bits of humour creeping in, but I can absolutely see how if it was playing in the background on TV one night how you could be taken in by it.
@@PentexProductions It was a different context to watch it in. Sundance does show some documentaries, but not usually ones in that kind of PBS sort of style. Also, I'm not from New Zealand and had no vested interest other than being a film fan and a lover of history.
In the film clip of "Richard Pearce", isn't that Taika Whatiti as the pilot?
that's what I thought. it does look like him. But it isn’t I found the credits
@@denalinorsen6180 agreed
I remember watching this with my mum, and us both being fooled by it. It was the 6th and final week of a series of New Zealand films - except rather than being a documentary to cap the series (which is what was inferred) it was just another fictional NZ film.
In retrospect, I find the consequent triggering of the fragile New Zealand ego pretty amusing.
As a fan of early Jackson films (Meet the Feebles in particular), I have no idea how I didn't know about this movie. I imagine I'd have to have seen the title before, at least, but perhaps passed over it by seeing it categorized as a for-TV documentary (as said in the video, seems to kind of be a footnote in his career). I blame myself for not looking into it a bit more, of course, but dang. Crazy, though, to get another new pre-LotR Jackson film I'd never heard of, after being a fan of his for over 20 years now (since, as a teenage fan of LotR I first sat down in theaters to see Fellowship).
Anyway, this video popped up in my recommendations the other day, and so I immediately went and watched Forgotten Silver, and now have come back to this video. Great video about a really great little mockumentary. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it. As I say at the end, it deserves to be remembered as more than a footnote in his filmography! It is often skipped over by people for exactly the reasons you said, which is a shame because it's so entertaining.
I remember watching this, and the stink about it when I was at high school in New Zealand in 1995. Was awesome.
I remember buying this on DVD and watching it years ago when I was first checking out all of the pre-LOTR Jackson stuff and really enjoying it. Several years later while randomly watching the Documentary 'Candyman' on Netflix I saw the 'Directed by Costa Botes' come up in the opening credits and paused the documentary to check online if it was the same Costa Botes from Forgotten Silver and whether it was a real documentary or another mockumentary.
Good catch! Some of his other documentaries are also listed on the linked Vimeo page - all genuine as far as I know!
Candyman was indeed mine. I have made a whole series of genuine documentaries, nearly always about highly driven, passionate characters who flirt with failure. I regularly get asked how anyone can trust me after Forgotten Silver. Well, they can.
Cheers, Costa Botes.
This is brilliant. I show 'Forgotten Silver' to all of my friends. I have retained a few of these friends.
I must add a warm thankyou for the Vimeo link to a legal copy of Forgotten Silver. I've often wondered why we've never seen it aired again on TVNZ. I'll certainly rent a copy to re-watch. ❤
Great work Pentex and thank you educating me. I was out of the country then in Japan so I missed it all.
Better late than never!
I do remember catching this on tele and slowly realizing that it was a fiction. Had no idea so many got to the end still thinking it was real. Obviously not weaned on Country Calendar. Definitely want to see it again, thanks for the link.
I live in Aotearoa New Zealand. This was an astonishing film made by Peter Jackson. The entire country was awestruck... and it was an HILARIOUS joke. I loved it!
When watching this on it's TV debut my flatmates and I bought into it for about the first half but figured it was a mockumentary as they kept making the claims bigger and bigger. Was amazed that anyone took it seriously. It's a great laugh.
Chur - thank you for sharing this. Love all your videos 🫡💚💚
Chur!
Possibly the greatest prank ever played.
Greetings from Christchurch, NZ and thanks for the heads-up ... I'm going to go check out Forgotten Silver now ... and BTW: the long-running Country Calendar was a great TV show, a national icon just like PJ. I used to watch it every week =)
It was hilarious. At the time, there were four channels and 95% of people watching TV that evening were watching this mockumentary. The whole country was sucked in and it was brilliant. A small minority got angry, but most thought it was funny (and of course were disappointed about this not being true).
Despite seeing a clip from it on nzonscreen 20+ years later I still fell for it even though I literally said "That's a model" when the plane flew past, I still thought it was real and when I googled it I was disappointed, but I look forward to watching the whole thing. I briefly mentioned this and Ghostwatch (1992) (which wasn't intended to be funny but also fooled people), in an essay for uni last year.
The whole thing is well worth a watch - it's very entertaining, and there is a lot of subtle humour in there that's all the more obvious when you know about the joke.
Thomas Robbins plays Deagol!!!
I lived in Wellington NZ when this thing aired but until now was completely unaware of its existence, having already given up on broadcast television in the late 80s. I'm grateful for this RUclips video because it exposes a few lies that I recall were masqueraded as fact by our "trustworthy" state radio broadcaster back when the mockumentary was released.
Yes. But how cool is Sam Neill's buzzy-bee lapel badge?
I have to say, brilliant though it was, there were many of us that weren't totally fooled. He had me (almost) up until the moment he zoomed in on the photograph of a newspaper in someone's back pocket and got the date of it. This was a totally CSI "Enhance!" moment and totally broke my suspension of disbelief. But it was really well done and I laughed my tits off, and people were arguing about it for weeks. Some probably still are. It was indeed a fabulous piece of film-work.
Nice piece, though, and you got a sub out of me.
That was the clincher for me
I saw half of this on TV & the next day went to the library to check everything & found nothing that matched. I disbelieved the historical record.
I watched this back in the day, knowing full well that it was completely fictitious (friends were fans of Bad Taste, Feebles, Heavenly Creatures) and even still, I found myself partway through this thinking to myself "This is amazing... how HAVE we never heard of this before?!?!" then I fully realized how good of a storyteller Jackson is. :D
It is surprisingly easy to get wrapped up in the story, it's so well told.
Mate, this is just brilliant and if it was done in Oz, it probably would have turned into a national classic.
Thanks for sharing this!
Thank you! This is much appreciated!
Lol, absolutely hilarious. It's a brilliant case study in how easily people will believe something that they want to be true.
Tell people what they want to hear and they'll love it.
@@PentexProductions Then tell them that their national mythology is, like all myths, just a story and they'll lose their minds.
Is it, though? "Truth" (versus fiction) is attached automatically to the genre of documentaries as that is what they have been established to tell. All Jackson did was subvert the good faith that audience's show towards the genre of the documentary; whether they believed it or not it had little to do with whether they WANTED to believe it or not but rather because it had been presented using a method univerally established to report on reality (like newspaper reporting).
Like how governments manipulate their citizens !???
Like the word "aotearoa" a made up word sold to the masses by jacinta and her cronies. There is no definitive proof of maori naming new zealand this. But because the media keep pushing it and everyone loves a good story the agenda continues
I remember this broadcast and thought, initially, that it was possible, until a special effect zooming into a newspaper headline, dashed my excitement with peels of laughter!
Great video essay. Thanks!
I remember watching this with my teenage daughter, both of us huge film buffs: we knew we were watching a mockumentary - didn't belive it for a minute. It was brilliant, we had a good laugh.
We could probably air that on NZ TV today and people would definitely believe the lie, again...
Great video, always got to have NZ people thinking they did the first thing ever because "of course we did", 10/10
I'm a NZer, from Taihape. I have never heard of this before, so not only was the 'whole country' not fooled, some of us never noticed.
I had to study collins work in film school. Guy truly is and underrated forgotten legend.
Thanks for this video! I feel so lucky that I learned about Forgotten Silver in one of my college classes and now it's one of my favorite Peter Jackson films.
The film works so well emotionally (I knew it was a lie from the get-go but I felt really bad for the Colin McKenzie character by the end of it) and I started to notice the jokes and humor more and more with every subsequent viewing.
Thanks again and keep up the great work!
Same here, I remember watching it in my university's AV library and enjoying it so much, despite already knowing the premise. A genuinely entertaining movie in its own right.
I remember it. It took a long time through the movie to realize it was a mockumentary. They made quite a few back then. I remember one where Donald Rumsfeld, of all people, cooperated with.
An excellent treatment of this subject - thank you! I was watching at the time of broadcast and it was thrilling. It didn't take long for queries though. Then a scene that sealed the fake for sure. A classic shot that anyone used to CSI type content would recognise. As a darkroom tech I knew what was feasible and what was fun. Thank you for the link to purchase, I've wanted a copy for a while.
Nothing compares to Orson Welles' 1938 Halloween radio broadcast of War of the worlds hoax.
Little known fact:
Everyone who fell for that broadcast voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
They hated it so much we never heard about it. Just that New Zealand hated Peter Jackson. We never knew why(!).
I was in early HS years here in NZ when this dropped. But because I didn't watch movies or tv movies as a teen. I never actually saw this or maybe I don't even remember it. I was in hospital for an infection that year, but the name of the protagonist definitely made me go "Why does that name sound familiar?" XDDD I do remember the radio controlled dog bit on country calendar though no sure why though because I never watched that show either. It's about as iconic as the blooper show with the clip of thingie's eye falling out.
I knew an artist and his wife at the time and they were completely, utterly convinced by this documentary.
So much fun.
Yep. I watched this on Sunday Playhouse aaand i was taken in. The next day at work a brighter man than I disillusioned me over coffee. I suspect a situation repeated in break rooms across the nation that day.
This was so powerful because it plays on the deep inadequacy of New Zealanders and their desperate need to be recognised as great at... something... anything...
Fair comment. We do have a prominent cultural cringe.
Forgotten Silver is an amazing film! Knew the context of the film before watching it, but that didn't affect my viewing in any way.
Wish they would have gone the extra mile and made a complete Salome just to round out the experience.
I would genuinely love to see a 1920s-style Biblical epic by Peter Jackson in the silent film style. I think it'd be fascinating to see what you could do with modern visual storytelling language, but limiting yourself to the technology of the time.
Can you just imagine the film lecturers fronting up after being exposed for not really having this "exclusive intel" before Forgotten Silver screened...the students must have had an absolute field day! lol Great little doco about one of Aotearoa's most notorious docos! Well done! :)
As an Australian, this was shown on TV here calling it a hoax, but not that it was false, but that New Zealanders were trying to claim credit for an Australian filmmaker named Colin McKenzie. The proof they provided was that (and this bit is actually true) in the Australian National Film & Sound Archive, there are the ashes of a scientist named Colin McKenzie. They just lied and said he was actually a filmmaker.
I didnt know about this and i enjoyed learning about it. Thanks for providing the link to it too
After some time watching the video, I had to keep a part of myself ready for it to end like "And all the things in this video are actually fake, none of this is real"
I wish I could make something this good!
I did not know this picture had such a negative impact on the New Zealand viewers.
And did not know either it was so difficult to buy a copy today. I am so glad I still have a DVD of it, a birthday present.
In fact, I am going to rewatch it, this review is compelling me to do so. 🙂
Long live Colin MacKenzie!
As a kid I was fooled by "This is spinal tap". Was skeptical while watching but without the internet there was no way to verify facts(vs misinformation). I saw it a second time a few days later and had to watch it with a critical eye to confirm to myself it was very unlikely to be based in fact. This was a great lesson for me as a teen. It also planted a very common seed, all volume controls needed an "11".
Thank you, I loved this at the time, and will be using your link to watch again. Peter Jackson is a true genius ❤
God that brings back memories l could do without! I watched Forgotten Silver not long after l came back to Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Was working part time at a cinema and my boss was a family friend and a long time movie buff. I was SO excited about the discoveries that l rang him raving about it. He was very kind and petended to be interested so it wasn't till years later that l realised it was a have. In my defence l'd never heard of Peter Jackson. 😊 Would happily watch it again as it really was well done. 😊
10:00 dont forget about john britten who built an entire custom racebike (with an odd design) that went on to win a string of trophies and broke several records. - the britten v1000 that iconic blue and purple thing with odd front suspension.
This is really great stuff, now patreoned
I've loved Peter Jackson since the late 1980s when I happened upon his two first films in a video store. They actually made me consider the idea of moving to New Zealand. I'd never heard of this film, but I have to say, "Bravo!" Will definitely be giving this watch.
The Entire Country??? Never even heard about it until NOW!!!!
Your pronunciation of Leonard Maltin’s last name hurts my ears… but by the runtimes end this wonderful video gave me tears.
I blame the New Zealand accent for both.
What I find amusing is that the actor portraying Colin Mackenzie is Thomas Robins, who is interviewed as himself during the movie (@2:23). I was trying to think where I had seen Colin Mackenzie before, then realised it was the character Deagol in the opening scene of Return of the King.
One Film to rule them all, One film to find them; One film to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Well, I know what I'm screening next time I host a movie night.
As a Kiwi, this is hilarious, and I had never heard of it before.
I was 9 in 1995 mind you, but still.