Discussion Topic |
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Sep 11, 2014 - 07:31am PT
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Must . see . movie .
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clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
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Sep 11, 2014 - 07:42am PT
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Some are known with or without a mention.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Sep 11, 2014 - 08:29am PT
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Mick, I liked Bisharat’s essay and admire his writing always. I think he should put sharper edges on this piece though, be bolder and less shaded with his themes. It felt like a draft to me, more musings than positions. I want to hear more why there is so much sadness and disaffection and how a couple of Valley eras might have got it kind of wrong. His personal emphases should take more of a front seat, and show us how.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 11, 2014 - 08:48am PT
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Judging from the trailer, it's a big helping of the Standard Wisdom on how rad and antiauthoritarian we all are for being rock climbers.
The truth, as ever, is more complicated. I'm looking forward to seeing it and maybe I can tell you more about that then.
As far as AB's piece: he's never been afraid to question the conventional wisdom and I think he nails an important point; namely, nostalgia is practically hard-wired into our collective unconscious and the film takes full advantage. Me, I'm kinda over it.
Ed: Peter- maybe the sadness is there because everyone recognizes that when one is attempting to emulate, or recapture, some ideal which one already knows to be kind of bogus, the whole deal feels kind of fake. Living one's own dream is so much more meaningful. This is why the [yet unmade] movie about the climbers who didn't fit into this whole every-Stonemaster/monkey-is-the-living-reincarnation-of-Hendrix/Crowley/Ulysses malarkey would be so much more interesting.
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nah000
climber
canuckistan
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Sep 11, 2014 - 08:52am PT
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i wasn't drawn to this movie, for one of the main reasons that this review focuses on.
based only on the trailer, it appears as if the movie will be focused on more superficial myth building... [obviously, i may be entirely wrong regarding this]
regarding the valley scene [esp. in the 70's], i'm bored with stories told in this manner.
not because they aren't initially entertaining, but because at a certain point once i understand what was done, the question i'm interested in, is why it was done.
every generation has heroic figures, whose stories are worth telling. but there comes a point in the retelling where learning who these "heroes" were intrinsically and why they did what they did, becomes a more important facet to their stories.
for myself, this is because, stories of heroes that we don't learn more about ourselves from [heroes who don't expose their own inner workings or at least their understanding of those inner workings] become at some point in the retelling, ultimately hollow...
while i think climbers [myself included] like to think that there is a purity to our game, and that somehow our heroes, unlike the fallen and complex heroes of so many other sports, are somehow transcendent, it is more complicated and more interesting than that.
if we don't understand some of their humanity, and a bit of why they did what they did, it becomes just one more superficial and/or false history.
we already have enough superficial/false histories in the world surrounding us, than to indulge in them regarding the arena that so many of us have invested so much in. it seems specifically indulgent at this point in history, where, as a general rule, we need more understanding of our preceding histories and fewer self serving myths.
regardless, bisharat's essay made me want to watch the movie. if nothing else so that i can have a better reference point to understand the arguments he is making.
so thanks, andrew bisharat. that is one of the most thought provoking and elucidating pieces of climbing-centric writing i've read in some time.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Sep 11, 2014 - 08:58am PT
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witness the last gasp of the stonemaster legend.
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Bullwinkle
Boulder climber
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Sep 11, 2014 - 09:30am PT
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Legends never Die. . .
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JakeW
Big Wall climber
CA
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Sep 11, 2014 - 10:07am PT
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Nice essay with a variety of perspectives.
History and Legends are always created by the storytellers. The climbing world/valley history is no different. The golden age heroes, stonemasters and stone-monkeys were just the folks that wanted to tell a story or have one told about them. Of course there are other stories that aren't told! But if you want a story told, YOU have to tell it.
This movie is Sender's story, and I bet it will be entertaining and high quality. I bet it will have parts and characters that annoy me too. But i haven't made a movie yet, which is the only valid response to something like this if you want something different...make your own story!
Concerning life in the glorious valley. It hasn't been fair and natural for a long time, but that's because of the path of civilized humanity not because of some microscopic decisions by park service people or climbing media folks.
The world is pretty darn overpopulated. Freedom isn't about being able to lay around smoking weed and doing pullups. Its about having a place on the planet to call home. A place where you can make your own shelter and gather your own food. The nostalgic dirtbag lifestyle is a sort of yearning for this, but a confused one. Let's face it, true freedom would involve way too much work and responsibility for most dirtbags, and not nearly enough unique glory for the modern narcissist.
If what you want is to go to yosemite to climb, laugh with friends, smoke weed, and sleep under the stars...this is easy to do! You just can't cluster like sheep in the meadow, line up with tourists at campgrounds and cafeterias, and think freedom is that feeling of doing something right in front of someone that doesn't like it, and then posting it on facebook.
Really though, I remember reading about the stonemasters when I was a kid, and I got INSPIRED! I didn't know sh#t back then, and their stories helped me realize that despite the oppressive restricting feel of modern culture, FUN CAN BE HAD!
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crunch
Social climber
CO
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Sep 11, 2014 - 10:59am PT
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Are Bisharat's criticisms aimed at the movie or are they aimed at the subject of the movie?
"Again, I’m not critiquing the filmmakers but rather building a case that Valley Uprising is more about satisfying our nostalgia for Yosemite in the 1970s than it is about providing an accurate depiction of the evolution of big-wall free climbing."
But that sentence is exactly that, a critique of the filmmakers.
I'm left thinking that Pete and Nick must have done a fantastic job with their movie to have stirred such a plethora of tangled, powerful emotions that sometimes inform, sometimes obscure Bisharat's analysis.
Looking forward to watching it, Friday!
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James
climber
My twin brother's laundry room
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Sep 11, 2014 - 11:01am PT
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Jake- nice thoughts
James
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Sep 11, 2014 - 11:04am PT
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Luckily for my forgiving movie loving mind, I can simply enjoy the movie for what it is, and the characters I have known from it.
I will be blissfully un-bothered by too many deep philosophical questions.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Sep 11, 2014 - 11:09am PT
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Good thinker, god-awful writer.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Sep 11, 2014 - 11:10am PT
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Legends never Die. . .
just ask 'em.
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kaholatingtong
Trad climber
Nevada City
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Sep 11, 2014 - 11:11am PT
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Good Art is always provocative.
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Sep 11, 2014 - 12:05pm PT
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here's a thought:
For a range of climbers of then,
what did they get out of it in the long term - what impact did it make on what they went on to do later?
Of course there will be a variety of answers, and some selection made of which are more interesting or meaningful.
Sometimes supertopo posts have this insight.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 11, 2014 - 12:24pm PT
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what did they get out of it in the long term spl
People do what they do for their own very personal reasons. The great majority survive.
But some don't.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Sep 11, 2014 - 12:36pm PT
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These guys are our Bruce Lee, our Myth. Our Camelot.
I remember first getting into martial arts, wondering just HOW RAD was Bruce Lee. He was invincible, and with no yardstick to measure against in the modern era (ONE INCH PUNCH!! not really applicable..) the novelty surpassed the depth. Later on I would learn about Rickson Gracie, Kimura, Bas Rutten - only after being 'roped in' by the lore of martial arts, though far from reality.
Climbing is no different. In high school I searched for any climbing video and Dean Potter, John Bachar, Dan Osman - these guys represented the sideshow attraction that hooks laymen. The stonemasters were the outliers, the young kids with amazing accomplishments who smoked grass and said F U to the Man.
Well, those are nice things, but they don't really reflect your climbing accomplishments. Later I would learn about the quieter ones, the Charlie Porters and Todd Skinner and a whole cadre of international climbers who have just as much claim to greatness as the stonemasters - but none of the frosting on top.
For those who lived it, I can understand the nostalgia. For those of us who are looking at a time long ago where we have no measuring stick to accuarately put these feats in perspective, where there ISN'T an easy way to solve "who would win in a fight, King Kong or Godzilla?" - Many climbers can't put the accomplishmetns of the stonemasters into a box of reality and that air of invulnerability and seemingly otherworldly talent is a little island of magic in a world that is static.
I look forward to the film, but I know it isn't for me. It's for the guys at the gym looking at a poster of Caldwell on El Cap as a foreign language, wondering how his 10 foot boulder in the gym is the same, wondering where this all really came from and what pieces of the puzzle he is missing to realize what it is he is taking in as T.C. is a thousand feet off the deck.
Great article, and I agree - the hero worship can get trite. But that's the beauty of good entertainment, reality can get so damn slippery...
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crunch
Social climber
CO
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Sep 11, 2014 - 12:54pm PT
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Later I would learn about the quieter ones, the Charlie Porters and Todd Skinner and a whole cadre of international climbers who have just as much claim to greatness as the stonemasters - but none of the frosting on top.
Quieter? Guess you never met Todd!
I'd suggest the the true "quieter ones" as it relates to the Stonemasters would be folks like Tom Gilje, Maria Cranor, Mari Gingery, Mike Lechlinski, Rick Accomazzo, Mike Graham, et al.
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Roots
Mountain climber
Tustin, CA
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Sep 11, 2014 - 12:55pm PT
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I think his perspective is good. Why not question it (movie) a little...or a lot in his case?
Looking forward to seeing the movie!!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Sep 11, 2014 - 02:52pm PT
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Two cents, gladly shared among my peers. The rest can try to catch up.
This writer, Bishrat, he's clueless.
It took guys their whole extended youths to put this dirtbag, noble hipster vision out there, unknowingly. With no agenda. It's who they were after they went thru the wringer of the crucible, which is a neat invention, the mangler, as it's properly known. Yeah, we line-dried our dirty laundry, too, letting Largo and a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals speak for the SM gen.
They were stonemasterbating based on the porn written by Roper and that buncha rowdies, not just Royal; and his high-flown attempts at rationalization and apology, as appreciated as they were by we younkers, never entered into that, nor did nostalgia, the reason being, there was little to miss. "Climbing" and an associated lifestyle did not exist before that pioneer Camp 4 gang of the Golden Age. But by the time I'd stopped living the vida, we had a back-stock of Ascents and piles of new shiny Mountains and old moldy Summits, and Ament, and Tobin, etc. Even Pratt's visions share some of this centering on one group, only because it's what he knew. I wish he'd written twice as much, but he was, apparently, out getting climbs in and educating new climbers for very little "prohet."
Do yourself a favor, reader, and don't honestly believe, EVER, that any one source/writer/hit can achieve what is achievable only in an extended series a la Ken Burns. It's not possible to put together a single, cohesive bit of history without leaving out a group whose legitimacy is every bit as valid as the Stonemasters' group history. This skews the whole vision when it happens.
I've seen the trailer twice. It certainly will happen in this filmic endeavor, that someone's gonna be slighted or not mentioned, intentionally or not, no matter how well-edited. I believe the filmmakers decided this before they even sat down to write a draft. Besides, there was porbably NO FILM of these others.
The Stonemasters, not as a group, but individually, interacted with other members of other coteries, who did in fact exist alongside them, so it's not all cut-and-dried and wrapped up in a nice commericaly-potent package, but one which still creates nostalgic feelings and informs the young as well.
But it is more pleasing to me to read and chuckle or shake my head over what is written in our Forum than what some wanker for R & I thinks. No disrespect to the author, Birthofrat.
Did I mention that I hate Rock & Ice because it seems to be what the bulk of you here have written at one time or another, and I wouldn't want to go against the grain of sentiment. God forbid I should risk anything...
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Sep 11, 2014 - 02:56pm PT
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Do yourself a favor, reader, and don't honestly believe, EVER, that any one source/writer/hit can achieve what is achievable only in an extended series a la Ken Burns. It's not possible to put together a single, cohesive bit of history without leaving out a group whose legitimacy is every bit as valid as the Stonemasters' group history. This skews the whole vision when it happens.
well said!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Sep 11, 2014 - 03:03pm PT
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Thank you.
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Aurora Colorado
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Sep 11, 2014 - 03:14pm PT
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I thought it was an interesting article, although I also like the stonemaster mythology and like to see it promoted. The author is pointing out what exists everywhere, that ambitious people do amazing things, but tend to be as#@&%es too. I think Splater hit the nail on the head. These achievements are not all that important, except to a few people. What is important is how the experience changes you and gives you the confidence to do truly great things.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Sep 11, 2014 - 03:23pm PT
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I thought the article was pretty schizophrenic. He kept throwing out critiques and then caveating them.
Reducing many of the earlier climbers primary motivation to image and ego is ludicrous. Seemed like he has some sort of chip on his shoulder.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 11, 2014 - 03:28pm PT
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Lists possess a beginning.
No end has as yet been found.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Sep 11, 2014 - 03:34pm PT
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Bisharat is a sport climber, a Rifle local, WTF did you expect?
As for the people mentioned above as missing from the movie - they either weren't locals, or they are boring. Todd Skinner was an outsider in every sense. Some of the others mentioned have accomplishments and a reputation so obscure you wouldn't know if it weren't for they themselves telling us all about it - basically here on the Taco - like 30 years later.
In any case - mission accomplished - both Boulder shows are sold out.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Sep 11, 2014 - 03:45pm PT
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Why are we watching this film in 2014? Because there hasn't been an era anything as groundbreaking, compact and awesome as that one.
Wanna spend years making a movie about Watts developing top down bolting at Smith?
Important, yes. As important as the age in question in Yosemite? Not even close.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Sep 11, 2014 - 03:48pm PT
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Its all pretty funny looking back on it all.... from 40 years later...
The stonemaster thing was just something to call each other, had no idea at the time that some of the crazy antics would become stuff of historical note.
Almost all the climbers I meet today, do not know who John Bachar was!!!!!!
Not to mention Tobin.
I hope this movie will show some of them just what was going on at the time.
I am stoked to see and buy the movie.
Thank you Sender Films..
Dean, John and all of you who put in the time and effort to get this done.
Lets make some popcorn
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Barbarian
climber
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Sep 11, 2014 - 04:00pm PT
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Why skip 1980 to 1998 ???
One word: Spandex
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Sep 11, 2014 - 04:12pm PT
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"largely motivated by image and ego"
He uses the word "ego" a bunch of times. Seems like he should look in a mirror. Nothing would really get done in the world if people didn't have a bit of ego to go with the things they find to get stoked about, including somewhat schizophrenic articles like his.
I would also add if someone doesn't capture some of the history of that period now, then when? Wait until more of the players have gone and can't tell the cool stories of their time in the sun?
You gotta make hay while the sun shines. Can't wait to see it. There's time to do the same for the later generations and Bisharat can whine about that when the time comes.
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Sep 11, 2014 - 06:37pm PT
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That thing this guy wrote was just so woefully off-base on so many levels it was breathtaking. The writer -- man, I wouldn't even know where to start in rebutting or calling just straight-up outright bullshit on many of his observations and conclusions. This threadbare scrap of tat reminds me an lot of Jeff Smoot's more ignoble efforts, such as "The Valley Syndrome." Mouse From Merced gets at it, but the article is just total...whatever, but by the second paragraph all I could think was wtf.
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 11, 2014 - 08:23pm PT
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"It took guys their whole extended youths to put this dirtbag, noble hipster vision out there, unknowingly. With no agenda."
Gimme a fukkin break. No agenda? What is putting a vision out there, if not an agenda?
ex: “The Stonemasters were all about pushing the limit and pissing off the status quo,” said Steve Roper in the film."- AB
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2 l l
Sport climber
Rancho Verga, CA
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Sep 11, 2014 - 08:30pm PT
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essay Is there goin to be a test on this ?
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wbw
Trad climber
'cross the great divide
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Sep 11, 2014 - 09:04pm PT
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Sure the verbiage around the Stonemasters has been a little much over the years, but what's wrong with being nostalgic. Those guys inspired many of us to pursue climbing as something more than simply sport. I remember buying Yosemite Climber and just knowing I had to aspire to those climbs and that lifestyle. Why would we not be nostalgic about that?
There was that period of time when the climbing rags seemed to be down on the Valley during the 90's (thank goodness I got over reading those a long time ago), and I remember taking trips there and thinking to myself the Valley was the sh#t, is the sh#t and will always be the sh#t. The locals always kept the climbing hard and not dumbed-down for the shameless numbers-chasers. The rock is the best and biggest around which is why such a diverse range of characters have managed to etch their place in climbing history there. Every serious climber that hasn't been to the Valley knows that they're missing an important part of the experience.
Bisharat is clearly a smart guy, but he's all over the map in his review. Just because the Valley might not be relevant to all modern variations of climbing certainly doesn't make it irrelevant.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 11, 2014 - 09:39pm PT
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I took up climbing because I wanted to learn how to get around.
An incident unrelated to climbing persuaded me to stay in the Gunks. We noobs were acting up. Hal Murray, our leader, advised us, "Careful now. You too can be replaced by a nonlinear servomechanism."
The place was full of people I wanted to be around.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 11, 2014 - 10:39pm PT
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I don’t know why Sender films embarked on this project… but they have a relatively good business sense and probably thought it would be commercially successful. And it is certainly true that looking at the “naughty bits” of those times with modern sensibilities would not be controversial. People back then got busted for marijuana possession and did time at federal penitentiaries, for what’s now legal in Colorado.
There is no question why Bisharat wrote the piece, he was asked to by Sender, probably because he can be counted on to create controversy… even a jaded limey like Mick wants to go see what it’s all about. And maybe Bisharat got some renumeration, he is a professional, after all.
And STForum… oy vey! How many threads on this now, 3, 4?
As for the Valley, climbers visit it for obvious reasons… as Largo observed in some past trailer for the movie, that climbers go to the Valley and actually “use” that famous, defining landscape… no one else who visits does. (I asked Largo about the quote and he thought it was a great observation, but didn’t recall making it himself, so either I’m fabricating a memory, or he is losing a memory, or both… we’re old and it’s what we do).
Robbins’ opinion that the Salathe Wall is the greatest rock climb in the world doesn’t have to be taken at face value. You can go and climb it yourself and see if you agree.
Or if you want to you could go climb Separate Reality and see why Dingleman is looking so intense in that classic picture. Wander off on some long lost Sierra Club Rock Climbing Section classic like the Direct Route on the Column, try your hand at Meltdown, confront Crimson Cringe or cruise a golden era classic like Steck-Salathe.
You do any of this and you are drawn into the circle of people who have done the same.
Is it nostalgia or is it just wanting to hear a good story told by good story tellers about a shared experience?
As for the 1970s, in some ways it’s sad that we cut loose in a way unimaginable to those raised today. I grew up on a steady diet of self-sufficiency stories, of leaving home and traveling around the world to a new country. All very powerful stuff. As soon as I could, I left home. Before that, I was out and about on my own. I got myself to where I needed/wanted to be, quite independently of the family. I thought I was expected to be independent, so I was, not only that, I felt, mistakenly or not, a tremendous pressure pushing me away.
I lived in California at the time, got into rock climbing, and on a spring break I got my first ride to the Valley with DonC. We drove in from LA late, pulled over on the Valley loop someplace and put our sleeping bags on the ground and crashed. We didn’t get hassled by the NPS.
Two images impressed me on waking up that crisp spring morning of my first day: the place in reality was beyond anything I had imagined, and a bear was sniffing at an occupied sleeping bag, a part of what I took to be another party of climbers who had done the same thing we had upon their arrival.
Not only were we “free” of our parents to embark on our life’s adventures, but there wasn’t a harsh authority governing the Valley, we seemed free to do what we had come to do, climb.
That I did what any other 16 year old guy would do at that time doesn’t seem heroic or legendary or at all strange. Like any other old guy, I am nostalgic for my youth, but that is a place far away long ago that can never again be attained. It was what it was.
I’m not even sure I was aware of “The Stonemasters” then, though I grew up less than five miles down Baseline Ave. from a lot of them (you can't go to a lot of those places anymore, the Foothill Freeway is dug down that strip of land), and climbed at Rubidoux, and out at J Tree and at Tahquitz Rock and bouldered Mt. Baldy Rd. and they were all there… I didn’t know about a lot of the antics until reading Largo’s pieces in the various magazines years later… but I did know about their accomplishments, they were awesome, inspirational and overwhelming.
I’m not nostalgic about that crew, I didn’t meet most of them till we were all way past those times. I moved off to the east coast and did a graduate student equivalent as a dirtbag in New York City… climbing when I could in the ‘Gunks and New Hampshire… where I continued to miss the leading lights of climbing of those days.
Every year I’m resigned to viewing the Sender Film Tour at the Facelift… I haven’t looked but I’d guess they are on the schedule this year too. I like some of it, it’s all entertaining, Sender is good at that, they have access to the people and the means to produce a professional video which informs, outrages and ultimately entertains.
But sometimes I grow bored with the one way nature of viewing. It’s really passive, we are all stuffed into an overheated room gazing up in the dark, our faces illuminated by the video projection screen (or our cell phones), alone, we respond to the cues provided by the video, not to each other. But we are a viewing society now so it seems normal.
When the isolation of viewing overwhelms the bounds of entertainment I will wander through the Valley navigating back to camp by memory in the pitch dark and find a spot around the fire and listen to the music and share with the others the day’s activities, answering the question “how was the movie?”
And that seems timeless, from the first night ever to today, as if only a day had elapsed and not 45 years. Back home.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 11, 2014 - 10:46pm PT
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That was a really nice piece you wrote, Ed.
Really nice ....
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Sep 11, 2014 - 10:55pm PT
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Thanks for that Ed.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Sep 11, 2014 - 11:15pm PT
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Great perspective Ed. Thanks for sharing.
Andrews a good dude and I think a lot of the hate directed at him isn't warranted. I think it's fairly surprising how easily feathers can be ruffled : /
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Mick Ryan
Trad climber
The Peaks
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 11, 2014 - 11:31pm PT
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Cheers Ed.... and everyone else.
Mick
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Jon H
Trad climber
Teaneck, NJ
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Sep 12, 2014 - 02:04am PT
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Saw the premier tonight in Boulder. It was a fantastic piece of film. Inspiring, hilarious, brimming with nostalgia, and poignant, even to me as a (relatively) new climber with only 14 years under my belt.
Of course people were left out. The film was a feature length 2 hr production and I don't know of any other climbing film to hit the 2 hour mark at all, but there's no way you can tell ~70 years of Valley history in 2 hours. I knew just about every single story in the film, yet the 3 friends I was with are new-ish gym climbers and didn't recognize a single name mentioned other than Honnold.
Of course it would have been fantastic to hear/see some Porter, Skinner, Sorenson, et. al. stories and footage, but I don't think it was in the cards.
All in all, it was worth every penny of the $20 I spent and I encourage everyone to see it when Reel Rock comes to a town near you.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Sep 12, 2014 - 04:02am PT
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I actually read Bisharat's piece yesterday because of this thread but I didn't have anything constructive to say about it. It didn't connect much with my experiences of climbing for more than 35 years and it really didn't make me want to see the movie. However, that wonderful post by Ed Hartouni, up above, is a whole different story.
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crankster
Trad climber
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Sep 12, 2014 - 06:41am PT
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"Theres a fine line between boldness and stupidity". Love it.
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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Sep 12, 2014 - 08:13am PT
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Nice Ed, very nice indeed.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 12, 2014 - 08:49am PT
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LOL ^^^^^
modern rock climbers seem more like efficient office workers, instead of besotted visionaries
Haha aaahahaha Too funny.
Kinda true though .....
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Rhodo-Router
Gym climber
sawatch choss
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Sep 12, 2014 - 09:10am PT
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Give the People What They Want.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Sep 12, 2014 - 09:22am PT
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ED Thanks for what you wrote.... spot on.
Bubbles... I think I know you?????
1975..... weeping wall hang???
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Sep 12, 2014 - 09:29am PT
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Saw the film last night.
I have a hard time getting past the 14 yr old caffeinated hipster view of everything rock climbing.
The film (all of these fuk'n films..) seem to come from the perspective of a child from Kansas who's just left home and sees a naked woman for the first time in his life. Instead of going over and saying hi, or even better - trying to get laid - he freaks his sh#t out and Just Has To Tell EVERYONE about it.
Peter and Nick haven't done sh#t in the rock climbing world - and I think it shows in the depth of these films - perspectives of the rock climbing world by and for noobs.
Nice to see Lynn reveal to us, for only a few precious moments, that she's done something else with her life than climb the Nose - would love to hear more - just not through Sender Films...
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jstan
climber
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Sep 12, 2014 - 09:31am PT
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Seems clear we now realize Bachar is dead. And that nothing can be regained. Just as that bunch of kids tries to deal with what they chose to do and what they chose not to do, just as my generation wishes Pratt had not had his regrets, and just as the gym kids are thinking it will never end, there is really one and only one focus. We can affect only one thing.
What we decide to do with the next five minutes.
Be careful if you think that five minutes is no more important than any other five minutes.
Only by simple chance are you here to make your decision.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 12, 2014 - 09:32am PT
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Why are we watching this film in 2014—really? And what does our pervasive nostalgia for 1970s-era Yosemite climbing culture suggest about our sport today?
Bisharat made the fatal mistake.
He called it a sport.
And then the poor bloke narrowed it all down dissected it and took it all too serious and lost his soul ......
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 12, 2014 - 09:35am PT
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^^^^ Amen to that - narcissism is so much more than sport.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Sep 12, 2014 - 09:40am PT
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Ed thanks. I wish the valley was still like that.
I for one am looking forward to this movie. As a younger climber who's done some reading, I am familiar with all these characters. Obviously it's only one part of the story, but as has been said, it's impossible to tell every detail in two hours.
The way these gentlemen pushed into the unknown is very inspiring to me, and i love hearing about, and seeing old images of these climbs. I'm a history nut though. Especially when it comes to climbing or snowboarding. I enjoy seeing how the pioneers of this endeavour pushed the boundaries of the time.
See ya'll in the auditorium! I wanna beer with my movie! :)
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Sep 12, 2014 - 09:56am PT
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Rare Tarbuster sighting. Worth the whole thread.
60 plus posts on ST, evidence enough.
Kids are busy paying for other things. Old folks will pay to see it, HA!!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 12, 2014 - 11:20am PT
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Ed thanks. I wish the valley was still like that.
your welcome, but go to the Valley and experience it as you find it... when we showed up I'm sure that the "Golden Age boys" had already concluded that things were so much worse than when they first started climbing there...
fact is, you can still go out and climb the climbs. There are other hassles, but there always are going to be hassles. The hassles change, the Valley stays pretty much the same.
As a climber you get to know some pretty intimate details... imagine looking at an image and thinking "I've been there, the rock texture is sort of grainy at that spot," the feel of glacier polish, the smell of bay trees mixed with angry ants, the smell of chalk mixed with granite dust, the warmth of the sun as you emerge from some deep chimney, the heat of the sun before you duck into the shadow of a corner.
forsan et olim meminisse iuvabit
The Aeneid, Book 1, line 203
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Sep 12, 2014 - 12:15pm PT
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fact is, you can still go out and climb the climbs. There are other hassles, but there always are going to be hassles. The hassles change, the Valley stays pretty much the same.
You're right of course. Just gotta learn how to play the game to make the hang work. Kinda like training for real life i guess! Lol
The rocks will always be there, and they are our link to the past. It's pretty cool to think about all the people who climbed these routes long before i ever even got my first glimpse of the valley.
C u at Facelift Ed!
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Sep 12, 2014 - 12:37pm PT
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Ed,
Exactly right. I am reminded of reading a Higgins' piece around 1980 or so lamenting that the Meadows had been overrun by young punks from LA and that the golden age of TM climbing was over.
I was probably one of those punks he was referring to and I reflected that the end of Tom's golden age was the beginning of my own.
I saw the film last night and enjoyed it. Young Yosemite climbers are experiencing their own golden ages right now, and I'll bet their experiences on the rock are not diminished much by crowds and camping hassles.
Rick
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Aurora Colorado
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Sep 12, 2014 - 02:07pm PT
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Why skip 1980 to 1998 ???
One word: Spandex
Hmm, this roughly coincides with the Bee Gees. I would still wear it, and consider it fashionable in camp 4, but then again I grew up watching Soul Train. Lycra is a great thermal layer, ideal for backcountry except for the wild colors.
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steve s
Trad climber
eldo
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Sep 12, 2014 - 04:51pm PT
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Ed,s post was great and Werner hit the nail on the proverbial head , for a lot of us climbing is not a " sport" ! There is much more to it than just calling it a sport .....especially in the late 70,s and into the 80,s. Even now I do not consider it a sport. Peace and fuk-nes Steve S. Now Puke.
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Sep 12, 2014 - 06:22pm PT
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Great thoughts Ed!
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Double D
climber
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Sep 13, 2014 - 01:27pm PT
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Nice read Ed.
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Bullwinkle
Boulder climber
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Sep 18, 2014 - 09:30am PT
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I'm not sure what Film Bitcharat saw but the Upraising is a great film, it's about Freedom and it Rocks. . .df
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AE
climber
Boulder, CO
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I enjoyed the film for what it was, on the first night premier at Chautauqua, but also relate well to Bisharat's critique.
First, after 7 years of effort, congrats to these blokes on a very professional film that will certainly appeal to a much broader audience than most other "insider" flicks that smack of a different set of cliches - to paraphrase the ironic assessment of climbing mag articles of 30 years ago, "The World's Greatest Climb, by the World's Greatest Climber- Me".
This is of course both the strength and shortcoming of the movie. The storyboard demands a clear flow, free of too many footnotes and messy asides which drag or confuse the plot; here, they chose to simplify greatly, manufacturing a bit in the eras but arguably justifiable, nevertheless.
My personal peeve is how the historian/filmmakers once again create or reinforce the prevalent paradigms and except for new, obscure footage, offered no new revelations to challenge them. YC is obviously a shrewd businessman, who seems to conveniently forget all the partners like Frost, a real designer too nice to seek the spotlight, Salathe whose pitons he copied, etc.
I would like to know why Mort Hempel has conveniently been discarded in the polite history of climbing, both in the Valley and the Tetons, etc. Perhaps a mentor/equal to Pratt, the man who reputedly dragged Yvon up the Snazz (and Yvon's marginal contribution to Tetons lore being his one-time record longest leader fall?). He still lives in Boulder, I believe, but nobody bothered to pay his ticket to the Camp 4 reunion, or otherwise look deeper into the darker side of one whose climbing ambitions did not fulfill the script requirements.
Just my two cents.
Short version, if you don't like the movie, please make your own and put it out there for all the flamers to judge.
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