The Alpinist
PART TWO — A HERO’S PORTRAYAL
In a trio of exclusive interviews — Alex Honnold, Brette Harrington and the directors at Sender Films weigh in on the themes from the latest outdoors film to hit the big screen.
Note : This article is Part Two of a three part series. If you haven’t already, you can catch up on Part One here.
PART TWO : A HERO’S PORTRAYAL
Personally, I get drawn to outdoor adventure films for the inspiration, for the reflection and the stoke. If I want brutal, honest reflections of myself, I turn to my mother. And yet there I was, enjoying the opening scenes of the movie, only for the Squamish climbing legend Alan “Hevy Duty” Stevenson to return serve on my own social media exploits.
“I see young climbers everywhere, millions of people, ‘look how good I am’, stroking themselves on Instagram”.
While Hevy might not have intended to lecture me on my use of Instagram, he was certainly drawing polar opposites to the way Marc approached his craft. The Alpinist is a truly refreshing take on the typical hero’s journey, but if you don’t know what your protagonist is planning, then how do you conceive the idea in the first place?
Director Nick didn’t seem phased by this hurdle when conceptualising the narrative: “A young guy out there who was doing stuff at the absolute bleeding edge of difficulty in this high-stakes, rarefied form of climbing — solo alpinism. And yet, literally, you go into any climbing gym, talk to editors of climbing magazines, and they would have never even heard of this guy. Just that premise alone: the most amazing climber you’ve never heard of.”
“Just that premise alone: the most amazing climber you’ve never heard of.”
Nick and Pete began filming The Alpinist at the same time as the global sensation Free Solo, so while it might seem as though The Alpinist is an extension of Alex Honnold’s exploits, they were certainly not connected in their concepts. That said, I asked the pair how they intended on distinguishing themselves from the pop-culture hit.
“When Free Solo had come out and rocked the earth we were like ‘Okay, if that film and Alex Honnold is like the Rolling Stones, then Marc, and this film is like the Sex Pistols or Kurt Cobain. Something more like… punk rock, left of centre.’”
And they’re not wrong. Marc is not your typical film subject. He’s awkward and seems to show little interest in the film.
“I think he felt fairly uncomfortable about it, just being a pretty strong introvert, and not really wanting to show himself to the world like that” Brette admits to me.
Initially, Marc’s total dedication to his experiences and blunt responses on their purpose might appear selfish, but it’s truly refreshing to see a genuine disinterest in fame and acclaim, even when the camera is pointing your way.
“I think one of the things that I love about the film is seeing how committed Marc was to his path” Alex explains. “I mean, he was doing the thing that he loved to do, doing it very well, and he left a permanent mark on climbing by doing those kinds of things.”
Honnold worked with Jimmy Chin and his team on Free Solo closely, so I asked for his take on what challenges the directors of The Alpinist might have faced.
“It must have been harder to document, Marc, because he wasn’t being forthright about his upcoming goals. It’s like, how do you document something when you don’t know what’s coming?”
Nick and Pete seemed unperturbed by the challenges of Marc’s demeanour and focus.
“He was one of the more elusive film subjects we’ve ever worked with. And, you know, that was both challenging because he was sort of on his own program a lot of the time and, you know, it was tough to kind of map our film schedule onto his relentless climbing schedule, and he obviously prioritized climbing over the film.”
“But it was also what drew Pete and I into this guy; the fact that he was so pure in his approach, so focused and so unmediated, honest and unvarnished. That was the stuff that we really, really liked.”
“We saw him as an exponent of this incredible 100 year old tradition of alpinism with these deeply held values, and this very purist, originalist form of climbing and approach to the sport. And at the same time, doing it in a way that’s so cutting edge and athletic and new school.”
Both directors and Brette admit to me that the film started as a film focused around soloing in general. Pete divulged on how this concept changed.
Marc clearly didn’t want to be part of the limelight, but in terms of his skillset, he was sitting on a metaphorical inheritance of grand proportions. Maybe he was just working out what to do with it but, as Brette puts it, Sender Films clearly saw the untapped commercial potential in him.
“[Marc’s mum] is proud of him, but she also knows that [Nick and Pete] are just filmmakers, that they’re gaining a lot from this recognition of her son. Now that the premiere is complete, I think she doesn’t really want to be a part of the progression of the film.”
“He didn’t want to be a superstar.
That was definitely not his goal.”
So what might Marc have wanted out of this film? How would he handle the fame and inevitable consequences of it? We’ll never know, but Brette gave her take on his potential response to the film’s aftermath.
“I don’t think he would have wanted too much. I think he admired all these climbers from history where they had these small autobiographies that talked about all the grand adventures, but he didn’t want to be a superstar.”
“That was definitely not his goal.”
It might not have been Marc’s purpose, but since the release of the trailer, his profile has been dramatically elevated. So I was curious on Nick and Pete’s final take on how Marc’s passing changed the film’s portrayal of him.
“We felt like we had captured this two year trajectory in his climbing, culminating with Patagonia. And so we were in post-production and we had really pieced a lot of it together. When he passed, we didn’t really want to go back and change that much. We didn’t want to change the spirit of that.
It’s funny, there’s that line that Honnold says in the movie, ‘whether you die or you achieve your goals, you’re still the same person’. And we didn’t want to change that person that we saw in our experience with them.”
Thank you for reading Part Two of this three part series!
The Alpinist is now live in theatres across Australia and New Zealand. Click here for screening availability.
Adam Flower
Adam is an Australian creative freelancer and content creator. Willing to put his equipment into situations that most won’t — if it’s outdoors, Adam’s either tried it already or it’s on the bucket list.
Web : www.adsventures.com.au
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