{"id":2731,"date":"2015-09-23T11:56:24","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T10:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=2731"},"modified":"2016-04-15T15:12:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T14:12:04","slug":"everest-the-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=2731","title":{"rendered":"Everest The Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"everest\"<\/a>Everest <\/em>as a film has perhaps been unfairly criticised for having some of the messiness of \u00a0a real-life expedition – too many characters and an untidy ending – \u00a0faults (and strengths) it shares with the other adaptation made from a Jon Krakauer book, Into The Wild<\/em>. And it\u2019s true there are moments the only way you can tell the men with frozen beards apart is by the colour of their product placement North Face jackets.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

The class British scriptwriters – William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy – have fashioned a story which ostensibly has no links with the Krakauer book, but given that it was his Into Thin Air<\/em> which made the 1996 tragedy on Everest so famous, his shadow looms large over it. He also makes an appearance in the film as an embedded journalist in the team who accompanies them to the summit.<\/p>\n

The film hits one nail hard on the head \u2013 that some of the dangers which arise are the consequence of the new phenomenon of commercial guided expeditions up Everest, so that less competent mountaineers are able to attempt a summit they should arguably not be on.\u00a0 But they fail to bring out one crucial argument in Krakauer\u2019s book:\u00a0 whereas in the past all members of a team would look out for one another, now the guides look out for the clients but who is looking out for the guides?\u00a0 Of those who die on screen in the film, three are guides and two clients.<\/p>\n

There is one crucial moment when lead guide Rob Hall has an uncharacteristic failure of judgement and allows himself to escort a client up to the summit way past the cut-off point when they should already be returning; the sort of misjudgement that is easy to happen when people are hypoxic and under extraordinary stress.\u00a0 But also one that occurs when you are no longer dealing with a band of brothers but rather of responsible uncles with their nephews.<\/p>\n

\"Everest_posterThe filmmakers were lucky to have David Brashears on board, both because of his presence on Everest in 1996 at the time the tragedy unfolded (Brashears was making an IMAX film and his character is played by an actor in this one), and for his help on how on earth you make a movie at such challenging altitudes.\u00a0 While some sections were shot on Everest itself \u2013 in mid January, so freezing temperatures \u2013 which cinematographer Salvatore Totino described as extraordinarily difficult in the Hollywood Reporter<\/a> <\/em>\u2013 the Hillary Step, where much of the most intense dramatic action occurs, was recreated at Pinewood. \u00a0As\u00a0the second unit crew were shooting some remaining scenes of the film at Camp II on Everest, an\u00a0avalanche\u00a0struck, killing 16\u00a0Sherpa guides with other expeditions.<\/p>\n

A facile criticism of the film is that this is such an exclusively male affair.\u00a0 This just mirrors the actual expeditions which were almost exclusively male \u2013 although it is true that the two female climbers are given paper thin characterisation \u2013 but also is a reflection of how\u00a0a tunnel-visioned imperative to get to the top of something, regardless of disruption to family, is a not very commendable part of the male psyche.\u00a0 Scenes of the two wives back home \u2013 Rob Hall\u2019s is played by Keira Knightley \u2013 and the way they react as events unfold on the mountain are handled deftly and movingly by Icelandic director Baltasar Korm\u00e1kur<\/a>, an interesting choice, given his indie background. \u00a0The wives\u2019 reactions are not nearly as forthright as those of the widows of some Everest fatalities, who have sometimes expressed bitterness in documentaries at the way their husbands put summits before family.<\/p>\n

The movie succeeds in many ways – a particularly fine performance by Jake Gyllenhaal as rival, maverick guide Scott Fischer, and a stunning recapturing of the landscape of Nepal. \u00a0See it in 3-D, so that, in the best traditions of filmmaking, the movie takes you there in a way which means you never, ever have to do it in real life \u2013 thank God. For one thing, the film amply demonstrates is that the death toll on Everest is not worth it.\u00a0 Anyone who wants to experience a sublime mountain moment can do so elsewhere below the death zone without putting their own lives \u2013 and others \u2013 at risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everest as a film has perhaps been unfairly criticised for having some of the messiness of \u00a0a real-life expedition – too many characters and an untidy ending – \u00a0faults (and strengths) it shares with the other adaptation made from a Jon Krakauer book, Into The Wild. And it\u2019s true there are moments the only way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,15,3],"tags":[138,136,137],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-tibet-and-himalaya","category-travel","tag-brashears","tag-everest","tag-krakauer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2740,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions\/2740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}