El Capitan is my favorite climbing movie.
Although I've only seen it a couple of times in quick succession (in an employee's tent in the Valley immediately after my first El Cap wall) it comes to mind often. It's poetic, evokes the grandeur and resonant moods of classic bigwall climbing that for some reason is conspicuously missing from so many bigwall documentaries. The film renders bigwall climbing and expands the experience by indulging in artistically generated mood rather than reducing climbing to a concept of 'sport' with uninspired commentary and mediocre music selections substituted for artistic weight.
Occasionally I've searched for online footage but without success. I've never seen it offered for rental. Would love to see it again.
Fred Padula taught at the SF State cinematography dept during, at least, the '70's (cheap shot @ when I got started...climbing...and filming)
I spoke with him during a personal presentation of "El Capitan" at Wheeler Hall on the Berkeley campus (where I endured many a weary Comp Lit lecture with 10 pages due next day). I can't recall if that was before, or after, the central lecture hall got firebombed out by the SLA. After, I think.
Fred was kinda vague when I asked, from the front row during the Q&A session that used to follow these public displays, if he would be so kind as to answer my personal technocrat about that "Moonshot" sequence.
Some kinda carney smoke and mirrors looked like to me.
Anyway, before the Q&A, Fred had screened another film, and this one should still be available through Canyon Cinema on a rental basis:
According to Fred, Glen Denny was a student of his at SF State cinema classes, who'd shot, as a student project, a very nice 16 mm called: "Nayala" or, similar, title. About 15 or 20 minutes running time.
It's quite good. Gary Colliver free solos the S Buttress of Cathedral Pk, up in Tuolumne Meadows. Seems like an autumn light, at least in B&W. There are no people, nor their vehicles, in evidence as the film walks us from the Meadows up to the base and onto the stone.
A few years ago when one of my sons was visiting, we watched this film. I expected him to be totally bored, or at least to laugh at the hippy-trippy nature of the thing. But he really liked it. Stupid kid.
I have a copy on my laptop.
I played it a dozen times at least for other climbers while in C-4 this fall. Total classic !
I got to see it when it first came out at the Robbins shop ;)
Saw the film and bought a copy in 89, right after my first trip up El Cap (3D). I have always liked it. It's so well photographed that watching it totally revives the feelings of being up on the wall. The red shirt that Lito is wearing in the film was saved by someone, and was presented to him at a slide show a few years back. I saw a photo of the presentation, and the look on his face was great.
I spent an afternoon with Fred recently. The remastered DVD looks about 100% better than the VHS version. He's putting the finishing touches on it before releasing it. He's also putting together some bonus footage about what some of the climbers have been up to recently, although a couple, notably Glen, declined to take part. The full story about how the movie got made is really fascinating.
We sold the El Capitan film on VHS for 20 years, hundreds it seems. Then when the world converted to DVD Fred Padula stopped selling it, and said at the time (10+ years ago) that he was working on converting it to DVD. There was a comment above that he was re-doing it for higher quality, which is what we heard too.
But it never happened. I phoned him many times and left messages, but he never responded. For some reason he either lost interest, or perhaps felt it would not sell well enough to be worth the cost of production, but I think costs on making DVDs have fallen so low that can't be a valid reason anymore.
In the real world only three types of film can make money: Hollywood films, children's films, and porn. Most documentaries end up losing money, no matter how good they are. Everest on Imax and a few other climbing films have sold well.
El Capitan does show up at film festivals on 16mm, it was shown at the Taos Mt Film festival a few years ago.
There are many great climbing films that should be re-released: Rebuffat's three films, West Face of Sentinel Rock, and the Nameless Tower with Destivelle, Lowe and Bridwell mentioned above. Leo Dickinson has a new bio film of Don Whillans he won't sell in America because some previous distributors ripped him off.
You can buy an all region DVD player from Amazon for under $100, and then buy and play many European films that will never be released in the USA. I heard that Destivelle and Edlinger made dozens of films for French TV that we have never seen.
The El Capitan film is showing in Louisville, KY, on Feb. 15. Glen Denny will be there to introduce it and answer questions. (He'll also do a slide show there on Feb. 16.) See links:
Riley, you mentioned up thread about buying a copy of the disk? Somehow I think that would be a copyright violation...don't know if I GAVE one to you if it would pass the legalities? Look into it and let me know, I would guess written permission from the owners of the film would circumvent that.
Peace
Let us know!