TR: Touching the Void

[catbirdseat]

Does the human body build up a tolerance for adrenaline in the same way it does for heroin?

[lummox]

Does the human body build up a tolerance for adrenaline in the same way it does for heroin?

no. in different ways. adrenaline is sposed to be good for keeping good cholesterol levels high. really.

[chelle]

I thought the primary topic of the Beckoning Silence was his climb up the Eiger. Since Touching the Void, he always incorporates his addiction to climbing and the friends he's lost. He's had some interesting points about how high altitude ethics have/are changed/ing (e.g., people only helping others from their own team and stepping over dying people so they could tag a summit.)

[girlclimber]

ehmmic is right, a large portion of the book is about the Eiger. he also talks about ice climbing, death in the mountains, and giving up mountaineering. a great book, imo

 

i got the impression that Touching the Void would be shown only in select theaters, not widespread like most films. does anyone know if this is the case?

[chelle]

I think you're right and it is a short engagement when it is shown. I think in Seattle it is only playing on Friday.

[PONCHO&LEFTY]

Touching the Void something on tv tonight. CNBCs new D. Norville show I think

[Jake]

Anybody know if the film is gonna be in good ole spokane?

[pindude]

Nothing scheduled yet for Spokane, but Mountain Gear is working on bringing it in. As soon as they confirm everything, I'm sure it will be publicized not only through the store but through local rag advertising such as Inlander, Local Planet, S-R Sunday Outdoors section.

 

Being the indie film it is, it is not getting widespread screenings at the "regular" theatres, but perhaps that will present more opportunities for groups, etc. that want to do the work to bring the film in and sponsor it. I personally feel that Touching the Void is the most gripping, first-person, true climbing narrative ever told. I'm looking forward to seeing the flick after hearing the reviews from friends and others who have seen it at Banff Film Fest, etc. Perhaps if it's as good as people say, it will screen in more theatres and run for longer periods of time than now scheduled...?

[mtn_mouse]

Joe Simpson (touching the void) is a guest on David Letterman tonight.

[pindude]

Thanks MM, Joe is as good an interviewee as he is a writer!

[Jedi]

Is there a website that shows where the movie will be shown? Man, the odds are not in my favor living near VA Beach.

[pindude]

Theatrical release dates at official website

[tomtom]

"Touching the Void is boring," says Charles.

[Dustin_B]

"Touching the Void is boring," says Charles.

 

I bet there is a connection between this reviewer's view of climbing (admits he doesn't climb and doesn't know why people do) and his ethnicity (African-American). I'm not racist by or anything but I don't think he is South-African either. We've had this discussion before (climbing versus ethnicity) and this jives with the general consensus.

 

PS - if you click on the link of the author's name at the top of the linked article you will see where I'm getting my assumptions.

[scott_harpell]

TOUCHING THE VOID An exercise in futility for an African.

 

WTF?!?!?

[forrest_m]

I think you're right and it is a short engagement when it is shown. I think in Seattle it is only playing on Friday.

 

according to the egyptian theater web site it is playing for a week, starting fri 1/23 and ending thurs 1/29

[forrest_m]

"Touching the Void is boring," says Charles.

 

for those not in the loop on this, the Stranger is seattle's way-left-of-center alternative weekly and Charles Mudede is their "intellectual" critic, though he's way too mired in 90's post-structuralist academia-speak to really be cutting edge any more. (the stranger also makes a point, especially in the movie reviews, of including hyper-ironic photo captions apparently written by the editors to poke fun at the reviews)

 

anyway, i think he does have a pretty insightful point when he says:

 

This is the double thing that they live for: the actual climb and, be it in a pub, or over supper, or in front of a movie camera, recounting the experience of that climb. But if you are not interested in mountaineering and happen to be in this pub, or sitting at the supper table, or in the movie theater, listening to the story, you will be bored to death.

 

my wife basically has the same comment when my friends and i get together... i haven't seen the film yet, but i can easily imagine that non-climbers might find it boring. that's why big market films that involve climbing (cliffhanger, VL, etc) always fuck up the technical parts, because to a layman, they're BORING and they want to spice them up.

[slothrop]

"Touching the Void is boring," says Charles.

 

I bet there is a connection between this reviewer's view of climbing (admits he doesn't climb and doesn't know why people do) and his ethnicity (African-American). I'm not racist by or anything but I don't think he is South-African either. We've had this discussion before (climbing versus ethnicity) and this jives with the general consensus.

 

PS - if you click on the link of the author's name at the top of the linked article you will see where I'm getting my assumptions.

 

I think the reviewer's view of the film comes from the fact that he's not a climber and is, rather, an urban intellectual with a very specific notion of what film as an art form should be. His ethnicity has nothing to do with it. Forrest's right about how climbing stories bore the hell out of non-climbers (we had a whole thread about this a while back).

 

There were plenty of questions from people in the audience on Tuesday who had no idea what climbing was about. These people were all white, AFAIK.

 

By "South-African" did you mean "white"? Stop pussyfooting around and just say it already. There are plenty of black South Africans -- in fact, the great majority of inhabitants of the nation of South Africa are black.

 

I bet that one of the reasons you're named Dustin and like George W. Bush so much is that you're white. I'm not racist or anything, by the way.

 

[Dustin_B]

Yes, I did mean black when I said not South African. Never been there but it seems like all the folks I've seen from South Africa are white, but whatever. The author's name had nothing to do with my assumption that he was black (it was the other articles he's written that led me to that assumption) so I fail to understand your analogy between my name and me being white. But whatever, again. You really missed my whole point though which was that this supports a long standing debate on cc.com about why black people don't climb. He brings up a point about why he doesn't climb in the article!!! Get it now?

 

PS - although I am flattered, what makes you think I am like W? Cause I'm from Texas? thats pretty profound cowboy.

[cj001f]

I think the reviewer's view of the film comes from the fact that he's not a climber and is, rather, an urban intellectual with a very specific notion of what film as an art form should be. His ethnicity has nothing to do with it.

I'd say he brought ethnicity into it:

"As an African who comes from one of the poorest countries in the world, a place where a majority of the population lives perpetually in harm's way, you can easily imagine what went through my mind when I heard an evidently well-to-do Englishman say these words with that air of pomposity (if not boredom) that's always the mark of a public school education. But it would be too easy to criticize this film on such terms; it would place me on too high a moral ground. Being something of a gentleman, I would much prefer to take this drama-documentary to task on a more leveled plane, and confront it only as a work of cinema."

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that Yates & Simpson weren't products of a "public" (private) school education.

[forrest_m]

I think the reviewer's view of the film comes from the fact that he's not a climber and is, rather, an urban intellectual with a very specific notion of what film as an art form should be. His ethnicity has nothing to do with it.

 

except that he himself drags his ethnicity into the review in the first paragraph when he says:

 

As an African who comes from one of the poorest countries in the world, a place where a majority of the population lives perpetually in harm's way, you can easily imagine what went through my mind when I heard an evidently well-to-do Englishman say these words

 

when he tells us that we can imagine what he's thinking, he's essentially asking us to invoke whatever stereotype we have of movie reviewers who come from poor african countries. This strikes me as a cheap ploy to trivialize the movie, but perhaps it also indicates that as a work of art, the movie isn't compelling enough to overcome his own predjudices. I imagine that the true story of a person who reacts to modern life being "so safe, so predictable, so controlled...." by being sexually or morally adventurous would get a different reaction.

 

The fact that he automatically associates mountaineering with the social and economic elite shows that he doesn't know much about climbing. But we knew that already.

[catbirdseat]

Egyptian Theater

801 E. Pine St.

Seattle

 

Touching the Void Showtimes for Friday, Jan 23

1:45, 4:20, 7:00, and 9:30 pm

 

Ticket Prices $9 for adults. The price for the 1:45 showing only is $6. Advanced tickets can be bought at the box office. Parking for $4 up to 8 hours in the Seattle Central CC parking garage.

 

Call 206-781-5755

[ryland_moore]

I think that Letterman seemed to bring up a good point in that he was interested in the movie and sat on the edge of his seat not because it was a movie about climbing, but about the will to live and how the human body goes into another gear when fighting to live. Comparing this film or book to any other story of survival or expedition and adventurte when something goes terribly wrong is what will keep non-climbers attention.

[tomtom]

I think the reviewer's view of the film comes from the fact that he's not a climber and is, rather, an urban intellectual with a very specific notion of what film as an art form should be. His ethnicity has nothing to do with it.

I'd say he brought ethnicity into it:

"As an African who comes from one of the poorest countries in the world, a place where a majority of the population lives perpetually in harm's way, you can easily imagine what went through my mind when I heard an evidently well-to-do Englishman say these words with that air of pomposity (if not boredom) that's always the mark of a public school education. But it would be too easy to criticize this film on such terms; it would place me on too high a moral ground. Being something of a gentleman, I would much prefer to take this drama-documentary to task on a more leveled plane, and confront it only as a work of cinema."

 

Although Mr. Mudede may know others that may occupy the moral high ground in Africa, he currently cannot, as he is now lives in a reasonably multi-cultural city prospering as a "film critic," where his biggest dangers are paper cuts and being bored at the cinema.

 

Sorry Charlie.

[slothrop]

Although Mr. Mudede may know others that may occupy the moral high ground in Africa, he currently cannot, as he is now lives in a reasonably multi-cultural city prospering as a "film critic," where his biggest dangers are paper cuts and being bored at the cinema.

 

Sorry Charlie.

 

So true. I'd like to see Mudede and Joe Simpson "discuss" the film.

 

Dustin, all I mean to say is that you've got your logic turned around. You can reasonably state things about groups of people, like "there aren't many black climbers", but it doesn't make any sense to say "he doesn't like to climb because he's black" about an individual. I might as well say, "you are a big fan of Dubya because you're white", an equally dumb statement disguised by sarcasm in my previous post. I don't think Mudede gets it, either -- he likes looking through the lens of race too much.

 

South Africa population stats