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So, has anyone else seen this film yet? I've just come back from seeing it and I'm blown away. Amazingly well filmed, outstanding climbing and a gripping story. Lots of gasps, cheers and laughter from the audience too. I'll definitely be getting it when it's released on DVD!
Eldest_OAB went with pal and loved it
His book is good too, and I'm halfway through Tommy Caldwell's book also.
I'm going to see it tomorrow and been told it's really good by a couple of bouldering mates.
I saw Dawn Wall a couple of weeks ago and was blown away by it.
I don’t climb anymore, and I still found it absolutely brilliant. The cinematography and editing are superb, and it’s a really interesting personal story with Alex too.
Such well rounded story telling made it gripping. Including the perspectives of the film makers and those closest to Alex opened up really interesting angles on perception of risk, quality of life and prioritising your goals.
Yes, it was awesome!
Off tomorrow night and utterly looking forward to it. I haven't been on the sharp end of a rope for at least 10 years, but who the **** needs a rope anyway 😉
gripping
I'll admit to being a little tired..... but I GENUINELY thought this thread was about a new Start Wars movie.
Poopscoop +1 🙄
They need a better title or maybe they don’t
Makes you think.....
Any true Start Wars fan knows that Free Solo was covered in the first 20 minutes of ROTJ. 🙂
Still not sure I can comfortably watch Honnold doing that kind of stuff. While I know he makes it, and his approach is as meticulous as it can be, I'm uncomfortable because of the feeling that he'll die doing stuff like that at some point if he continues.
Hopefully a switch will go off in his head now and he'll find a different sort of challenge.
To paraphrase that French loon who walks on a wire:
I might die yes, but what a beautiful way to die.
They are wired different (sic).
Saw it last week in the previews. It was very uncomfortable. Not for the climbing though, I was prepared for that. What was worst was the clear anguish his GF was going through and his nihilistic detachment. I know you have to be like that to do something like this but I couldn’t help think he didn’t come out of it looking very good. Then again, as a climber I always had a problem with soloing after a many nerve wracking days at the crag watching soloists who chose to do it on a busy weekend.
Wombat Jr and I are going to see it on Wednesday, looks ace.
The film of his expedition up mount Ulvetanna is worth a look too, as are any of his films with Cedar Wright.
What was worst was the clear anguish his GF was going through and his nihilistic detachment. I know you have to be like that to do something like this but I couldn’t help think he didn’t come out of it looking very good.
It’s interesting you should say that - I didn’t think he came out of it looking bad at all. To me, he was funny and brutally honest. He never hid the fact that climbing comes first and he’s obviously wired differently to most.
are any of his films with Cedar Wright.
Yep. Love the sufferfest films. Good fun.
@thegeneralist, I stand corrected, I was thinking of Alex Honnold (still well worth a watch though)
Yep, saw it last Tuesday at the Preview event. Much better than I was expecting - the relationship with his GF was very interesting...
Saw it last night, I was blown away by it, as others have said the cinematography, the perspectives on the sport and life and how he looked at relationships with others, including his GF. Very raw at times.
Saw it last week and really enjoyed it. Beautifully shot in a way that added enough suspense even though you know he doesnt die.
but I couldn’t help think he didn’t come out of it looking very good
I just think he comes across as Autistic (or whatever the PC equivalent is). He just doesn't really get people / relationships, which isn't bad, just who he is.
Exactly what I thought
Looks good, but findanyfilm.com indicates I'll have to wait until the middle of Jan until it comes to a cinema within 40 miles of me, and even then only two showings in a small art house cinema.
Mid Jan for me too convert, just can't fit it in locally till then. Hoping Mini B doesn't get too many ideas from it.
I spent a morning bouldering with Ron on Stanage, I did the boulder problem starts then backed off, he finished each climb then climbed down a slightly easier one. Even though it was Ron at a time when he was soloing a hundred Es in a day I still felt a little uneasy watching - what if his finger tendon pully fails? What if he pulls a hamstring with his leg up above his head? Both things I'd done bouldering that had resulted in instant falls.
Not for me. And I'm a little suspicious of the real motivation behind many of the these "exploits". Take away a wish to impress peers, the film maker, the climbing media coverage. Just him the mountain, nobody else there, nobody else to tell about it who gives a damn about climbing. Would he still do it? Nahhh. People paying to watch the film are the problem, you'll kill him one day.
I stand corrected, I was thinking of Alex Honnold (still well worth a watch though)
Now I'm confused. Free Solo is Honnold isn't it. As is Sufferfest. So you don't need to stand corrected do you....
Not for me. And I’m a little suspicious of the real motivation behind many of the these “exploits”. Take away a wish to impress peers, the film maker, the climbing media coverage. Just him the mountain, nobody else there, nobody else to tell about it who gives a damn about climbing. Would he still do it? Nahhh. People paying to watch the film are the problem, you’ll kill him one day.
Disagree. You simply can't strip it with your 'take away' argument in the modern world. I've done things that in hindsight weren't smart but I did them to test myself - no one else was there, and it was undocumented but for anyone at the pinnacle of their chosen field there will be focus - the only thing that really changed is that it can be so well documented in 2018. To me this is about the human condition (something clearly very different in Alex) and in all likelihood Alex will like many others before him die doing this. We debate this with Rampage every year - an event that pitches competitors against each other and in front of the cameras and I'm not comfortable with that but solo climbing has a purity - this wasn't about a new hard route more death defying than the last but the 'first solo ascent of the world's most famous rock face' which in itself has a purity. He'd have died if he had fallen off the first 100 ft.
As I understand it the film explores some of these topics. I'll post again tomorrow when I've (paid) seen it.
Take away a wish to impress peers, the film maker, the climbing media coverage. Just him the mountain, nobody else there, nobody else to tell about it who gives a damn about climbing. Would he still do it? Nahhh.
You need to watch the film then, and you'll be surprised.
Honnold soloed a lot, and to a high standard, before people started filming him doing it. It only becomes a problem if he starts soloing routes "for the camera" that he'd normally shy away from because of the nature of the climbing or the looseness of the rock.
I used to solo a lot, to within a grade or so of my normal roped leading grade, looking back there were some definite "Uh oh!" moments - usually these weren't on the harder routes but something several grades within my comfort zone, the type of ground where you'd mentally switch off.
Soloing goes through cycles: it gets popular until someone, usually famous, dies and people step back and think about it. Then memories fade and it starts to become popular again.
I really enjoyed the film. And Honnold is something special, without a doubt.
I liked that it wasn't all 'yee har' in that grating way that Americans tend to be with 'awesome feats', or at least that's the way they are portrayed.
The approach to risk and death can be over-simplified, and turned into soundbites and nonsense. This film doesn't do that. It leaves you with a clear sense that something genuinely special has happened. Something that may never be repeated.
Valley Uprising on Netflix is also pretty good.
Charts of the history of climbing at Yosemite and had my sphincter twitching during the free solo parts.
Jimmy Chin, the main producer/cinematographer on this, produces some great stuff. Meru, another doco, involves him and is visually stunning.
Oh yes, Meru is another great film. If I’m honest, I’ve probably got a bit of a man crush on Jimmy Chin - I’m a huge fan of his work
It's nothing to do with Han Solo then? In that case I am out!
Watched it last night. I’m not a climber but I do enjoy watching the films. Especially Honnold. Really enjoyed it, well worth watching
Soloing goes through cycles: it gets popular until someone, usually famous, dies and people step back and think about it. Then memories fade and it starts to become popular again.
Seen this to some extent, remember when Jimmy Jewel died and it having an effect on how much I was prepared to push my neck out soloing as a youth.
Remember climbing a bit with John Dunne when younger and him warming up soloing Wellington Crack in Ilkley Quarry, always made me feel a bit uneasy but only because I knew how pumpy it was.
@turboflard - WC is one of those that's probably easier (safer?) to solo than lead as you aren't wasting strength hanging around putting gear in which is what I found hard about it (talking 30+ years ago). Keith Robertson (a mate of John Redhead's) thought the same about Fingerlicker at Tremadog. Still wouldn't have liked to solo WC though.
I may have got the climber wrong in this but I think it was John Yablonski (Yabo) who was soloing a layback* crack at the base of El Capitan in Yosemite when his hands slipped and he fell out across the wall where he happened to grab the only hold on that wall. He then had to get back to the crack in the corner. Gulp!
* for non-climbers a layback is a means of climbing a crack in an inside corner by putting your feet on one wall and your hands in the crack and pulling as if you were trying to prise the corner apart (harder to describe than I thought).
@whitestone I can see what you mean but I’d definitely not want to solo it either. Technically straight forward but not a warm up you’d want to find you’re having an off day two thirds up and start getting pumped on!
Crikey! Dirty Derek, first met him in around 1981.
@turboflard - it would be the somewhat tenuous nature of the jams on WC that would be worrying to me.
Crikey! Dirty Derek, first met him in around 1981.
We may have done this before, you must know Mrs S, her brother and possibly their dad?
Sue Lee/Brooke as was, Duncan Lee and the late, sorely missed Roy Lee?
Never had the pleasure of meeting Derek, but I wish I had. He sounds like fun.
Take away a wish to impress peers, the film maker, the climbing media coverage. Just him the mountain, nobody else there, nobody else to tell about it who gives a damn about climbing. Would he still do it? Nahhh.
(Now I've seen it) Absolutely 100% he would. Same as Peter Croft and some of the other (now deceased) guys these are driven individuals and it can be a very private affair.
Bad example Scuttler, Croft makes a living from amongst other things writing about his extreme expoits. If you've heard of him and I've heard of him it's becuase he's very much a part of the peer pressure and media driven exploit scene.
Its like dope in cycling, some people dope to become international stars, some dope just to impress their mates on the Sunday chain gang. But they wouldn't dope with nobody to impress. Taking it a step lower, how many junkies first shoot up alone (and how many end up as junkies because their doctor prescribed them meds that resulted in them being addicted to opium).
The day these guys are left on a desert island (with no camera or gear and the knowledge that if rescued they can never return to the island or tlak/write about their exploits there) they might spend afternoons bouldering on sea crags and a swim if they fall in because they really do enjoy bouldering. But they wouldn't be bothered by that 200m overhanging line that no-one has ever seen, or graded and written pages about in the mag all the hip climbers read.
But they wouldn’t be bothered by that 200m overhanging line that no-one has ever seen, or graded and written pages about in the mag all the hip climbers read.
Leave them long enough and they would. They'd boulder, DWS, check out an easier line, push through a bit more all the time eyeing up the obvious line up the big cliff - you'll know as a climber your eye is always drawn to the longest sections, the biggest cracks and other geological aesthetics. Of course desire might be offset against the inability to practice without gear but in your hypothetical world I'll add infinite time (but not immortality - when one dies, the next one gets marooned obviously without the guidebook).
Would he still do it? Nahhh
You had best read his book.
And many others. They go to the mountains for many years before your voyueristic camera got involved.
matt, have you read Mountains of the Mind, by Robert McFarlane? I'm guessing you probably have!
I was really interested to read in there how mountains were generally feared and avoided (or venerated and avoided), and it wasn't really until the Victorian era that people first stated viewing them as a leisure pursuit.
So it must be that the excitement found in mountaineering is partly a social construct? It needs some mystique, some story to be intriguing to people. Similarly, there isn't really a much of land diving scene in the UK.
They go to the mountains for many years before your voyueristic camera got involved.
But they go to the mountains intrigued and inspired by the exploits of others, and measure their own exploits against those that inspired them. If they get to a level where it's possible to do things that set them inside the story that's captivated them, alongside their heros, that's going to be compelling.
They go to the mountains for many years before your voyueristic camera got involved.
Jean-Marc Boivin was a mountaineer who went to the mountains for many years before the media took an interest. Then his extreme ski vids were on TV screens in ski bars across the Alps.
Tv paid him to do even riskier things and it ended like this:
i'm just going to post a video of someone dying to win my internet argument.
Well in France that accident which was filmed for France Televison's popular Ushuaia programme presented by the ever hypocritical Nicolas Houlot pretty much put an end to TV companies paying people to take high risks for the cameras. "L'héroisation médiatique" of the extreme sports community was recognised as a factor in the grim death toll in the 80s.
Now there are new kids in town, the GoPro and YouTube. Everyone can be his/her own film maker and media hero. There are the mountaineers out there filming what they've always done, there is the audience and then those inspired by YouTube exploits to do the same or go one step further. It's no longer France 2 inspiring people to go a step too far it's YouTube likes. I read an article in the dentists last week (we both still ski mountaineer) with reported on some of the exploits and accidents during last Winter. In one example a local waited for perfect conditions and did a run which he posted on YouTube. The hordes arrived and repeated the run but the conditoins were by this time less than ideal. Anyhow, here's some perspective and recent history.
Edukator I agree that media and more recently social media is encouraging risk taking - that much is obvious and your examples support that. I could provide many more. Whilst your original comment was targeted at 'the documentation of this type of exploit' there is undoubtedly some specific consideration to be given to the individual (Honnold) and the documentary makers in question. I'm not sure either are unique enough to set it completely apart from other examples but there's clearly something special here in terms of who it concerned, how the story evolved and what ultimately the achievement was. I still don't have the slightest doubt Honnold would've done it regardless.
We'll have to disagree then, the filming of it was an intgral part of the whole thing.
"you're kind of tinkering in his head" says the lady who filmed it.
Thanks for summarising.
I reckon it's a bit more complicated than that - yes, I think that the filming played a part in him doing the climb in the first place, but he was considering climbing it beforehand, and if you watched the film you'd see that he started free soloing it last year but turned back because it didn't feel right and he wasn't ready. The film gives you a great insight into his mind, and I honestly don't think that Alex would attempt the climb if he didn't feel like he was 100% able to do it.
Mind officially blown by it. Inspiring stuff..
I think Alex would have climbed it with or without it being filmed. In fact, he says as such.
Agree with the above I think it was the climb first, film was a good opportunity to make money so good luck to him.
I thought the film was quite brilliant, by far and away the best climbing film I've ever seen. Finally a film where you can really get a sense of the difficulty of actually staying in contact with the rock and edited with no voice over during the climb explaining to the punter what was actually happening. Like most others, I was really freaked out by the idea of one tiny mistake resulting in certain death let alone the fact that several sections were so marginal that they were not 100% wired on a rope prior to his solo ascent.
I never got a sense from Alex that he kidded himself and his loved ones that he had the climb so wired that the risk element was under control, he just thinks the risk is worth it.
As someone who has done a lot of necky climbs (up to E7) over the years I do fully understand what floats Alex's boat, just, I always knew I was likely to screw up so always avoided those certain death anywhere on the route scenarios.
... nobody else there, nobody else to tell about it who gives a damn about climbing. Would he still do it? Nahhh. People paying to watch the film are the problem, you’ll kill him one day.
https://www.climbing.com/news/honnold-free-solos-half-domes-nw-face-2/
you'll note that this is a report written in the past tense, there are no pictures and no film. He just decided one day that today was the day, and after he made sure he could do, he did it, and made sure there was no-one about to film it. As other's have said, the film explores all these concepts. You'd have to watch the film, but your sentiment seems to say that you'll stay away. But you're wrong about Alex Honnold.
Alex will kill himself one day, I have no doubt about that, but he'll do it to himself.
As stated above. He would of climbed in if the cameras weren't there and you can see through his personal that at some point TS he's not happy about it being filmed. He did it for himself, not for us.
Lance Armstrong (yes him) did a great interview with Honnold on his podcast ‘Forward’ just last week
@bensales - thanks for that - was a really good interview.
I remember watching a film on telly about a French female free-climber climbing some stuff, possibly in the Atlas Mountains, can’t remember, but it was terrifying watching her on overhangs, letting go with her feet, and just hanging over a vertical drop, then reaching around with one foot and one hand! I’m feeling anxious just describing what I remember, which was a few years ago now.
I thought the film was great (especially watching it as an ex-climber).
Someone told me that in his last book he said the last big solo his did had a big sense of anticlimax afterwards because he had no one to share it with - hence the media crew this time/way of showing off his exploits.
Regards of what you think of Lance A. A long but quite interesting interview with Honnold. I thought he comes across well. (Alex that is).
Lance interviews Honnold
(Oops posted already)
As a middle aged bod who has climbed for years at punters level i find it bonkers what Honnold does. It makes me cringe and squirm but at the same time much appreciation.
A line across the sky - with Tommy Caldwell in Patagonia
The above in Patagonia was an amazing feet of daring and climbing. The best Alpinists have been trying to do that for more than 20 years
oh that is a good interview. I`ve listened to Lance podcasts before and hated him but this was good. Alex comes across incredibly though, so calm, so not wound up and so knowledgeable. This is much better than the usual sound bite nonsense
Finally got to see this last night. Fantastic film, tense, exciting & emotional.
What impresses me most about him is how meticulous his prep is, he knew every single move he would make on the way up the face.
That combined with his speed when he went through the camping unicorn chickens campsite, I'm guessing they had taken a day to get there... & would probably have been on the face for a couple more & he smashed it out in the morning.
Interview & background with the filmmakers:
https://www.outsideonline.com/2342126/Elizabeth-Chai-Vasarhelyi-free-solo-movie
& it's now been nominated for an Oscar for best documentary.
There was a very poignant moment on a recent Scottish ice climbing film(petzl?) Where Uli Steck pissed up one of the hardest routes there. At tge top he was grinning and really enjoying it. He said something along the lines of
"That was really great. So much fun and not too stressful. I've been doing a lot of speed climbing in the last few years but it was too dangerous and I stopped because I'm worried I'll die"
Alas he restarted soon after that film, and did indeed die (Lhotse?)
PSA for those who might be interested - it's on at the BFI Imax for a week starting on tomorrow night:
https://www.freesolofilm.co.uk
sorry didn't see the new thread Although it deserves to be seen on the big screen (it's one of the most gripping cinematic experiences) this will be on Channel 4 Thursday 23rd May.
thank you!
Except he abseiled off the end of his rope after a successful ascent, rather than dying while soloing.
Not that it really makes any difference, but it wasnt honnold either.
That’s a properly misleading headline.
The last sentence of the piece is really important - we had a strict policy of knotting the end of the rope unless you could definitely see that the end was on the ground. And, although I’ve been out of climbing for a few years , I’ve never seen people simultaneously abseiling on either side of an unsecured rope.
Except he abseiled off the end of his rope after a successful ascent, rather than dying while soloing.
I dont think the article says that's what happened, unless I missed it. It says the cause is unknown.
The comment at the end about knotting the rope was by someone on a climbing forum that in all likelihood wasnt there.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2406215/brad-gobright-climber-dies
It's the inescapable conclusion of what his partner reported. No other failures in the simul-rappelling system they were using. Very sad.
That link gives far more detail. Thanks for posting martinhutch. Simul-rapping isn't something I would fancy. There seems like far too much could go wrong.