Snow-filled films for cosy winter nights

This week, the southern counties of England were treated to the rare sight of November snow. The beauty of tla (Inuit for snow) is that it can render the most prosaic locale picturesque. Snow is an impossible element to control of course – especially in the movies, but the fake stuff is usually on hand for when Mother Nature fails to deliver.

Before the era of CGI, cotton was famously used on Hollywood film sets in the 20s, until it was deemed too much of a fire risk. A mix of salt and flour was favoured in Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush. In It’s A Wonderful Life, foamite, sugar and water were put through a wind machine to create the wintry scenes of Bedford Falls, while Dr Zhivago favoured marble dust. 

If you share my fascination with snow, you may want to check out (or revisit) BBC4’s Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice (2013), which will be repeated