FREE SOLO, Big Climbing on the Big Screen
Go see FREE SOLO on the big screen, now. This is a novel and compelling documentary featuring the best in climbing and the best in climbing cinematography.
National Geographic: FREE SOLO, a film by Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (@jimkchin) is a stunning, intimate and unflinching portrait of @AlexHonnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream of free-soloing the 3,200ft El Capitan. Don’t miss #FreeSolo!
Alex Honnold free-soloed El Capitan June 3, 2017 perfecting a route called Freerider in just three hours and fifty-six minutes, a world class route others climb only with technical protection systems and days in the effort. This is something new under our very old Sun. This is the greatest climb of any kind in all of time on the most spectacular rock wall in all of the world. Seeming hyperbole is inescapable, this achievement cannot be exaggerated. The movie trailer will convince you.
A free-solo is a difficult rock-climb without a protection system, alone. Only very difficult free-solo climb’s gain recognition. Only the most difficult gain notoriety. Very few climbers attempt free-soloing. Fewer still maintain the confidence to allow voyeurism. Most recognized high achievers in free-soloing are dead, today.
Alex Honnold’s constellation of strength, endurance and flexibility powers spectacular proprioception, performance without parallel. Wiry Honnold is a natural-born rock-climber, but success is not a birthright in the stony meritocracy that is rock-climbing. Twenty-years of compulsive physical and technical effort laid the groundwork for his Freerider attempt. The successful outcome rose from two-years of meticulous repetitions, hanging around hitting problem spots over and over, laying down a detailed cognitive map of the route and solid motor programs, move by move, protected by rope systems, ultimately enabling steady calm performance sans protections. Nothing in his focused preparations was casual or haphazard. Honnold is not that caricature of death-defying reckless chance. He is the opposite of suicidal.
All the while a novel climbing film was in the making. Gripping tension fuels the movie-goer experience but gripping tension did not fuel Honnold’s climb. Collected knowledge, skills and experience delivered reliable performance–therein lies the magic of all great endeavors, it’s much more than talent, it’s the foundational work.
Free Solo, the production, is a exceptional achievement, too. It raises the bar for climbing and adventure documentary production. Only Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin could have produced this unique documentary. Their uncommonly intimate access allowed by long friendship with Alex Honnold offered windows of opportunity through two plus years of production. We expect spectacular cinematography from Jimmy Chin, and he delivered. I imagine that it was Chai Vasarhelyi who made the most of their close and unique relationship with Honnold. Surely, it was Chai’s insight that elevated the intimacy of the film through the eyes of Honnold’s love interest, Sanni McCandless. Smiling doe-eyed Honnold was Sanni’s endearing challenge. In spite of stony, aloof and and at times callus rebuffs by him, she perseveres. She even attempts to tackle Honnold’s perpetual bad hair days.
The movie explores cruxes, the acute moments within challenges. The crux of the Freerider Route is about 1800 feet above the valley floor on a blank segment of wall. Here, a series of perfected balance moves, toe-tips and fingertips moving along tiny granite nubbins must overcome gravity by tenuous friction. This is the Boulder Problem, the start of pitch 23 (a pitch is a rope-length). Here, a gymnastic balance score no less than 10.0 is necessary to deny the Siren void between the climber’s legs. The crux moves are the climbing climax of the story. Alex’s friends turn away, then look again, not able to watch the unthinkable, unwilling to miss the perfection. What were the odds, I wonder?
Throughout, cameras are kept necessarily distant and many are rigged for remote operation to maintain space from their subject. The intentionallity of the space between protects Honnold from distraction, and more. The space between is filled with the ethics of filming an event so exquisitely dangerous. The space between is personal space separating the film crew, all of them Alex’s friends, from immediacy, come what may. The space between is filled with viewer scale for breathtaking realism, but there is more in this space than these dimensions of the project. The space between separates Alex from all others. This is the space that Chai Vasarhelyi attempts to fill with Honnold’s girlfriend. Chai’s crux is found high on the glassy nose of Honnold’s stony emotional shield. Honnold is her Boulder Problem. Chai illuminates Honnold’s glassy emotional contours under the bright light of Sanni McCandless’ eyes. Honnold is McCandless’ Freerider.
Aspiring outdoorist and would-be climber Sanni McCandless drops her number at a book signing event early in the effort to film Honnold’s preparations. Her girlish dimpled smile commands response. He calls, of course. Right away she is perfecting her ascent, the first route to summit the glassy granite of Honnold’s emotional life, and she is unprotected, a free-soloist from the first hello. Like Honnold, she is equipped with a constellation of physical and emotional features pre-adapting her for the problem. Even so, she must hang around attempting progress, perfecting the moves, finding the route by repeated attempts to gain holds, often by friction alone, and she must recover again and again from stony falls, nudged by guarded, stiff-arming Honnold unable to fully repel her, unable to offer holds or protection for her. Like Honnold, McCandless is in harm’s way by informed choice, both are looking into the abyss, edging ever closer, surrendering to the Siren call, unable or unwilling to step back from looking over the precipice to lift their eyes to the horizon. Or, maybe the scope and depth of their horizon together is beyond our vision, the rest of us limited by temerity?
Spoiler alert! Honnold is alive and well and he bought a home in Las Vegas he shares with Sanni.
FREE SOLO is in theaters, now.
Alex Honnold talks with Joe Rogan about the film, here. Joe Rogan Experience #1189
Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi released this optic, today. What if he Falls, a behind the scenes look at filming and the ethics of filming.
Tom Bain @BainOutdoors