Mountaineering films (docs)

[BlodwynPig]

Suddenly had a craving to watch mountaineering films. I'm scared of heights and have managed to scale about twice my height and my only abseil I fell about 20 feet and scrambled back up and walked down.

But I got the urge.

The first I watched was the short Herzog documentary "The Dark Glow of the Mountains", which is a great period piece featuring two Austrian climbers and Herzog trying (successfully) to get inside their mind. Tough fuckers. Not much footage is shown of the climb(s) themselves, just a grainy video of them reaching the first peak. There is footage from a long distance of them clambering up the initial part of the mountain and the camera pans upwards, upwards, ever upwards and you are left truly flabbergasted by the task ahead of them.

Then there is footage of an avalanche, which is edited to give the impression "well, that's them fucked" but it wasn't. Shortly after (but a week or so later in real terms) the two come down from the second peak and stroll up to Herzog who casually asks "so, how was it?". They look pretty fine but say it was very very tough. Then there is some footage of one of them bathing in near zero water, where one wrong step would lead him to be sucked down beneath the icy water flow. The same guy is shown earlier in tears after Herzog asks him how he told his mother about the death of his brother on an earlier climbing expedition.

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The next film I watched was Meru, which is a much more recent film about the attempt by three fuckers to scale the unscalable Meru (shark fin) peak. The first and longer section features their failed (but agonisingly) close attempt. I actually felt vertiginous watching this. The literally sheer sheerness of some of the climb was too much, then you had footage of the younger guy free climbing using lightning cracks as hand and foot holds in a desert - GF "he doesn't have a car, so he just gets dropped off in the desert and climbs without any equipment".

Anyway, although these three seem to be a bit more self-centred, self-reverential than the Austrian pair, they still exhibit balls of steel. Lugging 400 pounds of equipment up a sheer rock face and then erecting a small ledge and tent in a snowstorm whilst dangling from a thin piece of rope. Then they get stuck on that ledge for four days with dwindling food and -20 temperatures. The free climber expects to go down once the storm passes, but the other two say "Let's keep going". Motherfucks. Anyway, they realise they cannot scale the last 100m without losing the chance to come back down.

In the intervening 3 years, the free climber crashes off a ledge and fractures his skull and breaks his neck and one other guy gets swept down a mountain in an avalanche (you see him tumbling down and disappearing), but miraculously is unharmed. The third (main) guy thinks the game is up, but no...a few months later up they go again...this time successfully (even though half-way the almost dead guy becomes even more almost deader).

I was dizzy after watching this.

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I also saw the Storyville documentary about the 11 deaths on K2 (Killer Summit). That was more Lovecraftian than mountaineering documentary.

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So, any other recommendations to hurl me into the void?

[Paaaaul]

Touching The Void, is a pretty good reconstruction of a real story.
Not strictly a doc, but closer to a doc than a fiction.

[touchingcloth]

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.

[homesickalien]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzNx4_vKn3U&list=PL2EAE4E961DC50550

A lighthearted amateur backpacker film about a guy and his mates completing the Annapurna Trek in Nepal.  Footage of them messing about is included

If that sounds like hell then by all means don't watch at all. 

However there's some good shots where the music  and mountains seem to blend very well together - Boards of Canada and Caribou make up the soundtrack and it seems to work really well to me.

Plus if you ever go to the mountains with your mates I think the film captures pretty well the fun and the beauty of being outdoors especially somewhere like Nepal - you can tell they're having a great time.

[buzby]

Everest, the IMAX documentary that was being made on the mountain in the 1998 climbing season when the disaster happened that killed 12 climbers (and went on to be documented in Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air).

I used to work with a bloke who was a climber - when he was made redundant he became a professional guide and has been up Everest multiple times now. I used to go out with a woman who was a climber too and from hanging out with the rest of the people from her climbing club there was a definite undercurrent of a death cult about it, to be honest.

[McQ]

I really liked Valley Uprising on Netflix. It's about rock climbers, rather than mountaineers, but it's really a interesting history of climbing in Yosemite valley, and how it ties in with the counter culture in the 50s and 60s. Also, Alex Honnold is bonkers.

[studpuppet]

Beyond The Edge is similar to Touching the Void in that it's a documentary with dramatised elements.

[BlodwynPig]

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I saw Touching the Void when it came out, but I'll certainly dig into the others.

[Dex Sawash]

180° South they do some climbing and trekking with the surfing and general outdoorsy stuff.

[Kane Jones]

[mobias]

As McQ says above if you want to watch a really good climbing documentary I fully recommend Valley Uprising on Netflix. Its a very, very watchable even if you're not really that into rock climbing. Its just an incredibly well made doc which won loads of awards when it came out a few years back.

You'll also learn that Cliffhanger is actually based on a true story, but the story its based on is way, way more interesting and funny.

Also, Alex Honnold is bonkers.

Apparently the upcoming documentary film about him free-soloing El Capitan in Yosemite earlier this year is getting the full movie theatre release. Should be good.

[BlodwynPig]

Sick just looking at this pic

[BlodwynPig]

or this...ffs

[mobias]

Sick just looking at this pic

In that case this should make you vomit. I find watching it oddly beautiful though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgucHtWEGqU

When you watch that clip bare in mind that apparently as they filmed it the first time the camera crew didn't quite get the shots they wanted so he casually walked down to the bottom of the route and did it again for them.

[BlodwynPig]

Vertigo

[Twit 2]

Vertigo

How space quakes like a great kiss, that - maddened at being born for no one - can neither burst forth nor subside.

In that case this should make you vomit. I find watching it oddly beautiful though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgucHtWEGqU

When you watch that clip bare in mind that apparently as they filmed it the first time the camera crew didn't quite get the shots they wanted so he casually walked down to the bottom of the route and did it again for them.

Beautiful indeed, and totally insane. This one makes my heart stop -

https://youtu.be/Phl82D57P58

[mobias]

He's a really interesting guy Alex Honnold when you watch or read interviews with him. He's the total polar opposite of your usual adrenalin junkie macho climbers like Dean Potter. He's very calm, considered and articulate. I love the fact that he apparently finds it as excruciatingly uncomfortable watching footage of him climbing as the rest of us do. Its very different doing it to watching it, so he says anyway. 

I can't find the film on Youtube, it must have been taken down, but if you can try and watch the film of him climbing Moonlight Buttress in Zion national park from a few years back. For some reason I found that way more difficult to watch than his other climbs. I think just the way its filmed makes you appreciate just how utterly fucking mental it is. 

[BlodwynPig]

I only watched a few minutes of that Buttress one and I was sweating and swirling. Almost impossible to watch.

[Pinckle Wicker]

A good one I have watched a few times now is the BBC documentary on the north face of The Eiger:Wall of Death. It charts the whole history of climbers attempts at doing the north face. A lot of research and fantastic archive footage used throughout and featuring the likes of Bonnington and Heinrich Harrer. A real insight into what drives these mountaineers to do it.
https://youtu.be/1h1wG9UMJWA

Coincidentally I did my first outdoors lead climb this week, having been just doing indoor climbing for the past 5 years. The experience of being outdoors on a rock face, with no colour coded holds to guide your route, is completely exhilarating and very much more fearful. I took a fall and that was very scary indeed. Yep, def a diff ball game alright.

[mobias]

Yeah that Wall of Death documentary is another good one. Its been repeated on TV a few times now. Never underestimate the benefits of taking speed when mountaineering is the message I took away from that film.

[newbridge]

Those Alex Honnold free climbing videos are fascinating to me, not because of the danger/height (for whatever reason I find his videos much less dizzying than the ones of GoPro idiots climbing around on top of skyscrapers, or Russian teenagers mucking about on top of radio towers), but because I don't understand the mechanics of what he's doing. How is it that there are sufficient natural footholds to scale a sheer rock face hundreds of feet tall?

[Pinckle Wicker]

Those Alex Honnold free climbing videos are fascinating to me, not because of the danger/height (for whatever reason I find his videos much less dizzying than the ones of GoPro idiots climbing around on top of skyscrapers, or Russian teenagers mucking about on top of radio towers), but because I don't understand the mechanics of what he's doing. How is it that there are sufficient natural footholds to scale a sheer rock face hundreds of feet tall?

It really requires a combination of very good core strength, dexterity and technique. Would actually say luck is a factor too. Re the footholds, it is really a case of climbing shoes and they point your toes in tight and down so you can get purchase on the smallest nooks and crannies.

[mobias]

Any given route in rock climbing is accurately graded and although what Alex Honnold is free-sololing in those films is technically difficult its quite comfortably below the upper most difficulty of grade that he can climb. He almost always heavily rehearses his routes before climbing them without a rope. This film is a very rare example of him on sight free soloing something without having climbed it before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4c-8xWD1Mk

[Pinckle Wicker]

Any given route in rock climbing is accurately graded and although what Alex Honnold is free-sololing in those films is technically difficult its quite comfortably below the upper most difficulty of grade that he can climb. He almost always heavily rehearses his routes before climbing them without a rope. This film is a very rare example of him on sight free soloing something without having climbed it before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4c-8xWD1Mk

A much better answer.

[shh]

Fitzcarraldo

[Pinckle Wicker]

Bumping this thread. I watched a film called Meru (2015) the other day and wholly recommend it for this thread. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2545428/

After attempting but failing to summit Meru in 2008, Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk return to the mountain in order to conquer its peak – a 4,000 foot wall known as the "Shark's Fin". As they climb, the men also document their ascent. "You know, I'm always a climber first," said Chin on balancing climbing with filmmaking. "I'm always thinking about the safety of myself and the team. And I make that evaluation before I take the camera out."[2] The film is a mixture of footage that chronicles both attempts (the failed 2008 and the successful 2011) while crafting a narrative about the climbers' attempts to face their demons. After suffering a horrific accident while filming on location with Chin, Ozturk has a mere five months to recover before their second attempt, battling near-fatal injuries. Four days after Ozturk's accident, Chin returns to the filming location to finish but is caught in a catastrophic avalanche that he miraculously survives with barely a scratch. Anker wrestles with bringing his mentor's dream to fruition and the loss of both him and his climbing partner many years ago.

Also watched a doc called Mountain (2017) which is narrated by Willem Dafoe. Stunning cinematography which spans across all mountain related sports and activities.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6203570/?ref_=fn_al_tt_8

[BlodwynPig]

Meru is great despite some less than relatable protagonists

[itsfredtitmus]

you seen the great white silence?

[hamfist]

180° South they do some climbing and trekking with the surfing and general outdoorsy stuff.

Love that one. Also the sailing bit where the mast breaks...

Nice soundtrack by Modest Mouse Isaac Brock's other project, Ugly Casanova.

[BlodwynPig]

you seen the great white silence?

No

Tbovvered