EDGE OF DESPAIR `TOUCHING THE VOID' BRINGS CLIMBERS BACK TO PLACE THAT NEARLY KILLED THEM.Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer Over the years, friends have encouraged mountain climber Joe Simpson Joe Simpson may be:
``Put your finger on the table and smash it as hard as you can,'' he'd tell them. ``Two days later you're not going to put that same finger on the table and smash it again just to see if it hurt as much as you thought it did. There's no closure. There's no catharsis catharsis Purging or purification of emotions through art. The term is derived from the Greek katharsis (“purgation,” “cleansing”), a medical term used by Aristotle as a metaphor to describe the effects of dramatic tragedy on the spectator: by at all. It's just reliving a trauma.'' And yet, relive it he did last year, when Simpson, Yates and filmmaker Kevin Macdonald traveled to Peru to shoot some footage for a gripping film version of the story. Macdonald's ``Touching the Void,'' which screened last fall to much acclaim at the Telluride Telluride (tĕl`yərīd), town (1990 pop. 1,309), seat of San Miguel co., SW Colo., on the San Miguel River in the San Juan Mts., inc. 1887. and Toronto film festivals, combines contemporary interviews and dramatic re-creations of the adventure itself, with young actors playing the participants. The result is a gripping tale of survival unlike any climbing movie ever made. (The film opens in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. on Friday, and it did terrific business in a limited opening in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. last weekend.) Peak performance When Simpson and Yates ventured to Peru in 1985, they were a couple of headstrong head·strong adj. 1. Determined to have one's own way; stubbornly and often recklessly willful. See Synonyms at obstinate, unruly. 2. Resulting from willfulness and obstinacy. British youths, eager to climb a mountain that had never been scaled. And they were indeed the first mountaineers to reach the summit of the 20,800-foot Siula Grande peak in the Andes range. Then, during their descent, Simpson landed awkwardly, shattering his leg. With no one around to help, Yates lowered Simpson down the mountain using a 300-foot rope. When the rope ran out, Simpson dug into the ridge face and waited for Yates to follow. This worked for a while until Yates, in the pitch-black night, lowered Simpson over a cliff. Simpson was left dangling in midair, unable to grab the ridge. Yates, meanwhile, was being pulled off the mountain by Simpson's weight. ``I had to do something,'' Yates says during the film. What he did remains one of the most controversial topics in climbing: Yates took a knife - Simpson's knife, by the way - and cut the rope. Simpson plunged into a deep glacial crevasse crevasse (krəvăs`), large crack in the upper surface of a glacier, formed by tension acting upon the brittle ice. Transverse crevasses occur where the grade of the glacier bed becomes suddenly steeper; longitudinal crevasses, where the glacier . That Simpson and Yates are both still around to tell the story doesn't diminish the tale's power. In fact, Hollywood has been trying to make a movie version of ``Touching the Void'' since Simpson's book was published in 1987. Simpson has sold the rights several times, most notably to Tom Cruise. But screenwriters could never find a way to make the story work, since, for most of the time, the two climbers are apart, making communication impossible. ``It all takes place in their heads,'' says Macdonald, who won an Oscar for his 2000 documentary ``One Day in September.'' ``The guilt, the terror, the fear. Their emotional journeys are as important as the physical journey they took down the mountain.'' Back to basics It's terrain that Simpson knows well. In addition to writing about it, Simpson, when not climbing, has traveled the world as a corporate motivational speaker A motivational speaker is a professional speaker, facilitator or trainer who speaks to audiences, usually for a fee. The keynote speech generally takes place either at the beginning of the event, or the close of the event. , telling his ``Void'' story in a well-rehearsed, 45-minute speech. He told it so many times that it eventually became somebody else's story. Macdonald knew this and spent 20 hours with Simpson in filmed interviews, trying to break through the 43-year-old Brit's pat answers and defense mechanisms. ``It became sort of a battle, because about halfway through, I thought, 'You bastard, you want to make me cry. Well, I'm not doing that,' '' Simpson recalls. ``I don't like the idea of being emotional in public. I find it quite shaming. But he nearly succeeded. He managed to make me remember the story with a clarity that was actually very upsetting. I had put those memories in a steel box and, 15 years later, Kevin pried pried 1 v. Past tense and past participle of pry1. it open.'' That was nothing compared to the climbers' return to the Andes. Macdonald brought them along as consultants and wanted to shoot an interview there that would serve as the film's coda. (The footage, subsequently cut, will be on the DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. .) But because he hadn't yet cast his actors, Macdonald asked Simpson and Yates to re-enact re·en·act also re-en·act tr.v. re·en·act·ed, re·en·act·ing, re·en·acts 1. To enact again: reenact a law. 2. a couple of scenes for some wide shots. ``It completely did my head in,'' Simpson says. ``I dressed up in this gear, and I had this constant feeling that I was going to look up and the camera crew would just disappear and the last 17 years hadn't happened. It was almost druglike in its intensity.'' Unlocking the box When Simpson returned to his home in Sheffield, England, he began having panic attacks panic attacks, n.pl distressing episodes where an individual experiences palpitations, anxiety, apprehension, sweating, trembling, etc. Can last several minutes and recur unpredictably. and was constantly looking over his shoulder, paranoid about being stabbed or attacked from behind. He'd go to a pub - and remember this bloke isn't given to public displays of emotion - and find his eyes welling up with tears. Finally, he went to a doctor and was diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mental disorder that follows an occurrence of extreme psychological stress, such as that encountered in war or resulting from violence, childhood abuse, sexual abuse, or serious accident. . Simpson was told to see a psychiatrist, but it took 6 1/2 months for him to be given an appointment. (``That's the British health system,'' he wryly notes, sipping a pint of Newcastle and smoking one of an endless stream of cigarettes.) Six weeks of talking with close friends made the attacks go away. ``I pretty much put it back in the steel box,'' Simpson says. ``And that's it. I'm not going there again.'' Yates, who is declining all interview requests, had a falling out with the filmmakers, largely due, Simpson believes, to some awful personal circumstances. Besides, Simpson notes, Yates is tired of being forever known as the man who cut the rope. ``I wrote the book for one reason - to exonerate Simon,'' Simpson says. ``I figured a thousand climbers would read it and they'd get off his back. But it turned out to have a wider appeal where the mountains were just the theater and it was the stuff happening to the individuals that people related to.'' Says Macdonald: ``It's a story about confronting fears and being alone and in pain and confronting the idea of dying alone. In corny corn·y adj. corn·i·er, corn·i·est Trite, dated, melodramatic, or mawkishly sentimental. [From corn1. terms, it's about the triumph of the human spirit. If Joe had believed in God, he probably wouldn't have survived. It's about relying on yourself when things become totally hopeless.'' Boots on the ground "Boots on the ground" is an all-purpose term used to describe ground forces actually fighting in a war or conflict at the time of speaking, rather than troops not engaged or being transported to the fighting. Simpson stopped climbing two years ago. The psychological burden of losing so many friends in the mountains (he counts 20, 10 being ``good friends and five I never stop thinking about'') weighed on him, and he couldn't accept it anymore. Besides, he's no longer obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. like he once was. There are too many other interests: writing, gliding, fishing, gardening. Since Macdonald's movie is classified as a documentary, Simpson still owns the theatrical rights to ``Touching the Void.'' And he expects to sell them again. ``They could make a good film, but it would take a brave producer and director to do it,'' Simpson says. ``The irony is they would change it and have me crawling down to the girl I love, when, in fact, the girl I was seeing at the time took a look at me in my plaster cast and said, 'Look, I think now that you're all smashed up, we should split up.' Not a good Hollywood ending, is it?'' Glenn Whipp, (818) 713-3672 glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com The other side of the mountain ``They're a load of crap,'' climber and author Joe Simpson says of Hollywood mountain movies. And that about says it all, doesn't it? A brief history: THE WHITE TOWER (1950) Premise: Five men and a woman try to scale a mountain in the Alps. Some make it; some don't. Peak: Claude Rains death scene. Valley: Glenn Ford Gwyllyn Samuel Newton "Glenn" Ford (May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006) was an acclaimed Canadian-born actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades. Ford is best known for playing either cowboys or ordinary men in unusual circumstances. and Lloyd Bridges deadly acting encounter. THIRD MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN (1959) Premise: Disney family The family of Elias Disney (son of Kepple Disney and Mary Richardson):
Peak: Herbert Lom's funny hat. Valley: James MacArthur's funny acting. THE EIGER SANCTION (1975) Premise: Assassin (Clint Eastwood) is blackmailed into murdering a mountain climber. Peak: Thrilling climax on a mountain face. Valley: Sluggish pacing the rest of the time. CLIFFHANGER cliff·hang·er n. 1. A melodramatic serial in which each episode ends in suspense. 2. A suspenseful situation occurring at the end of a chapter, scene, or episode. 3. (1993) Premise: Traumatized climber (Sylvester Stallone) makes for the Rockies after thugs hijack and crash a U.S. Treasury U.S. Treasury Created in 1798, the United States Department of the Treasury is the government (Cabinet) department responsible for issuing all Treasury bonds, notes and bills. Some of the government branches operating under the U.S. Treasury umbrella include the IRS, U.S. plane. Peak: Opening rescue sequence with Stallone trying to save a young woman hanging from a rope over a deep abyss. Valley: Dialogue more frightening than hanging from a rope over a deep abyss. VERTICAL LIMIT (2000) Premise: Climber (Chris O'Donnell) must rescue his sister, trapped in the Himalayas. Nitroglycerine ni·tro·glyc·er·in also ni·tro·glyc·er·ine n. A thick, pale yellow liquid, C3H5N3O9, that is explosive on concussion or exposure to sudden heat. is involved. Peak: Avalanche! Valley: Nitroglycerine! - G.W. CAPTION(S): 4 photos, box Photo: (1 -- 2 -- color) DEATH DEFYING Mountain climber Joe Simpson's tale of survival comes to life in `Touching the Void' (3) no caption (scene from movie ``Touching the Void'') (4) Joe Simpson on the memory of his climbing disaster Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer Box: The other side of the mountain (see text) |
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