One of the few climbing blogs I follow is the Stone Mind by Justin Roth. A few days ago I stumbled upon an older article titled “How to Make a Climbing Movie”. It is a humurous post written to mock the dull / unoriginal storytelling most climbing films seem to adopt these days. The more you read through the article the more you smile as you recognise the ultra-generic patterns used again and again by climbing film makers to convey their stories. Justin goes all the way outlining the cliché scripts and repeated visual narrative tools which are extensively used in climbing films. This way he illustrates how commonplace (to the point of being vulgar or even ridiculous) these films have evolved to be.

In a way, climbing films do nothing more than adhering to the narrative norms of big money Hollywood productions. In mainstream cinema the development of the story and the tools used to convey the plot are to a large extend predetermined and chosen by the production in such a way as to be easily recognisable by the audience. Major surprises or challenges to the audiences’ perceptions are consciously avoided by directors and script writers as is also anything interfering with the unobserved flow of the narrative. When I mention “surprises” I am not referring to plot twists but to fundamental alterations / disruptions to the ways we are used to understanding a story and to the ways we expect it to develop. As viewers we are trained to demand a beginning and an end to our stories, a linear progress of events or at least a progression of events defined inside conventional time boundaries. Flashbacks in time may be permitted as long as they are fully referenced and explained but chaotic time as encountered in surreal films is not to be attempted. Moreover, as viewers we demand a clear moral profile for the heroes and villains. Everyone ought to be clearly defined as a good or a bad guy and all must driven by a natural inclination towards good and evil rather than any embarrassingly confusing grey area human motives and weaknesses. Furthermore as paying audiences we demand to understand the plot and confine it in realistic boundaries. More than anything we demand catharsis, the salvationary closure to the narrative that makes the movie worthwhile to watch in the first place and adds retrospective gravity to the whole plot.

The more a commercial film adheres to these principles the more familiar and easy to follow it will feel to the greater global audience. For commercial films this is a critical and fundamental attribute to maintain. Such films are not art projects aiming to challenge the viewer’s perception or aesthetics. On the contrary, they are consumerised entertainment tools aiming on stimulating basic human sentiments. They need to be neither challenging nor complicated to achive that. Humans are creatures of habit and the process of stimulating their emotions is based on such emotional habitualisation. In commercial films our emotions are guided by well established and easily recognisable patterns. We know when to feel fear, excitement, arousal because we are “told” by image and sound guidance. The story itself usually guides us through recognisable plot patterns. This is the recipe of the entertainment industry and it works well for comemrcial films bound to make money. After all, a film has to be easily consumed and nobody likes something that interferes with their digestion.

This recipe for ease of consumption is hardly surprising on big money films targeting at commercial audiences. The main drive of such productions is to generte cash and thus to be as generic as possible (in order to target as wide audiences as possible). The same might apply for major climbing film productions which these days have reached unsurpased levels of professionalism (and budget) to the benefit of everyone involved (including us viewers which have the chance to enjoy well made visual products).

However, leaving such big -cash oriented- productions aside, it is a bit more difficult to explain why small independent climbing films produced by amateur cinematographers seem also stuck to these narrative patterns described in the Stone Mind’s blog post. Sure we need a straight narrative, sure we need good guys (the struggling but valorous climbers) and bad guys (the ultra hard heinous cruxes), sure we need to adhere to the cliché of the genre (oh the beautiful nature, the running waters and the time lapsed passing clouds!) and demand a catharsis (the Dura Dura must be send- even in a second film) but is this ALL the genre has to give?

This lack of daring and experimentation is kind of disappointing and hard to explain. What the big companies have to loose by risking a weird film, is not so much of a risk for the amateur climbing film maker. It is a bit of a letdown to realise that although most climbing film productions are not professional (and thus cost driven) projects, film makers still seem afraid to divert from the norms that guarantee wide viewability. And yet, climbing films remain stuck to this one dimensional simplistic storytelling which borders with vulgarity and makes most films look like advertisement for outdoor gear. Shall we concede a creativity defeat as a climbing community (is there such a thing as a climbing community anyway? Wait for another post on this…) and recognise that all climbing media even independent ones are part of (and thus heavily influenced by) the generic mega pop culture that surrounds us all? Despite how much we like to delude ourselves as a tribe living an “alternative lifestyle”, in fact we are no less engaged and part of this modern mainstream Western consumerism parade than any weekend mall-visiting family.

So bitching aside, would there be an alternative approach to make a climbing film?

I started writing this post having this subject in mind. So far I have attempted to explain why this trend of using the Hollywood recipe has grown to dominate most creative efforts in the industry. It seems that I ‘ll have to dedicate another post to outline some ideas for a different climbing film. The key here is to focus on the rich story behind the main story. Climbing is a deeply emotional affair and climbers are characterised by extreme sentiments and motives. Exploring these sentiments and plotting some mindmaps might lead to a climbing film which is all about climbing but involves no climbing porn

Stay around…

Photo © by Dan Harris