Chuck Fryberger's latest film is premiering at the Boulder Theater tonight so I thought I would give a quick review of it. I have been a big fan of his previous films, Pure and Core, films which garnered mixed reviews from audiences owing in part to Chuck's willingness to experiment with locations, filming techniques, and offbeat themes. With The Scene, those concerns can be set aside. Beautiful camera work, check. Hard routes and problems, check. Interviews with climbing stars, check. But aside from Dave Graham's segment, which is admittedly not very representative of the scene in Boulder (or anywhere else), the feel of the film is much more conventional than past efforts. I found it enjoyable to watch, for sure, but the dynamic visual and emotional range that Chuck has shown elsewhere is mostly absent.
The only scene that hinted at something more innovative, a bit darker and more interesting, was the opener for Bishop, but it's not developed. There are hints of something different in the profile of the comp/pro scene in Innsbruck, a sense of a vacuum beneath the logos, crowds and bright lights, a feeling that, like the slopers and crimps on the problems, the climbers are holding onto, well, nothing really. It is a relief to turn to the limestone around Innsbruck for a little while, though all too brief a while before we are back at a World Cup in Slovenia.
The segment on Spain seems to find its way more successfully than the others though again, there is this avoidance of any exploration of the meaning of all this activity, any searching for a deeper dimension. The potential for getting something more out of an aging Chris Sharma or Dani Andrada seems there but instead they are treated the same as the rest. Just climbers working their way up the chalk marks on a steep limestone wall, apparently with nothing else to do in life. Chris Sharma describes his life as a climber up to this point as mostly "passing through" and the feeling of the film is very similar. Climb a climb, get the word out to the public and sponsors, move on. To where? A muerte?
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6 comments:
after climbing narcissist, it's time for climbing nihilist?
That's putting it a bit strongly but I would love to see a bit more introspection and consideration of what the act of climbing means besides spectacle and a vehicle for selling stuff
"The segment on Spain seems to find its way more successfully than the others though again, there is this avoidance of any exploration of the meaning of all this activity, any searching for a deeper dimension."
Ironic to here this from an avowed boulderer, by definition the shallowest form of climbing (if it can even be called that)
Try Mayan's most recent post, one of the better ruminations on the subject you (in principle anyway) are concerned with:
http://www.mayanclimbs.com/
Anon,
Good call on Mayan's blog. However defining bouldering as "the shallowest form of climbing (if it can even be called that)" is flaunting one's prejudices a bit too obviously. I fail to see the "irony" in any case, since bouldering films (or any film) can lack the same focus on surface at the expense of meaning.
"I fail to see the "irony" in any case, since bouldering films (or any film) can lack the same focus on surface at the expense of meaning."
Who said anything about the "films"? I was referring to the search for meaning. Is that search only validated by how the "films" that try to portray that search are judged?
I was writing about the film The Scene. The search for meaning is often the topic of works of art such as film, etc.
If you are making the argument that bouldering is shallow and therefore my complaint is ironic because I am a boulderer, you would have to explain how bouldering is shallow and precludes any possibility of deeper significance. Let's hear about that some more.
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