Sunday night Evelyne and I went to watch the movie "Steep.” Regardless of the comments that follow, this is one of the best ski movies I’ve ever seen (that must speak volume about their usual “quality”.) It’s perhaps because it’s a documentary and besides being inspiring, it contains some great footage of (now) historic nature. It was good to see pioneers like Bill Briggs and Anselme Baud, but for the sake of that movie, why in the world did director Mark Obenhaus “forgot” to include Sylvain Saudan, the father of extreme skiing who got it all started in 1967? In terms of contemporary skiing and sheer exhilaration, Ingrid Backstrom and Seth Morrison definitely stole the show and to me, the late Doug Coombs section was both sad and a bit awkward in the way it was presented. I also found the “base-jumping” section to be almost a distraction from the spirit of the piece. Finally, I questioned the architecture of the film; the Chugach range footage should have concluded the film in all its glory, not the fellows and their brush-up with a spring avalanche somewhere in Iceland…
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2 comments:
Yep, but I haven’t seen the film yet...
I understand [your comment] about Sylvain Saudan, but if he was so much known by the media, especially back in those days, he was essentially the first to “market” the activity and not necessarily in an ethical and even technical way (using choppers to access his descents, assistance by buddies like Michel Lascar to lug the gear… plus the films were questionably edited, etc.) Extreme skiing would evolve quite early, thanks to Patrick Vallençant and me when we did our first descent, and in the process, had set the bar much higher. It’s this advanced performance level that’s featured in this film.
One more thing; just before and until he died at Piz Roseg in 1977, the Tyrolean climber-skier Heini Holzer was brilliantly achieving great first descents both ethically and low-key, while Saudan flooded the media .. . In short, this perhaps is a bit controversial, but it's my view.
Very interesting point you made about Heini Holzer. Coming from you, it is that much more relevant. Saudan was clearly brilliant at promoting himself, proof of it being his film on the McKinley descent being shown for more than 10 years runing across various European skiing resorts. But his descents seem somewhat tame compared to what others have achieved even back then. I haven't seen the movie "Steep" yet, but am quite nostalgic of the generation of climbers/skiers of the 70s, who had limited material and support to do what many wouldn't dare trying even today. In that respect, Vallencant descent of the Artesonraju, for its originality, physical prouesse and sheer visual beauty, stands in my modest view a world apart from the rest. JC
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