“Let us grant courage and the love of pure adventure their own justification, even if we cannot produce any material support for them.” ~Heinrich Harrer, The White Spider
Thirty years ago, I read the classic of mountaineering literature The White Spider, by Heinrich Harrer, a history of early attempts on the north face of the Eiger and account of the author’s successful 1938 ascent of the 1,800 metre alpine wall. Sunday night, I watched arguably the best climbing movie ever made, built around the epic race to scale this “last great problem of the Western Alps.”
The North Face is a German production (w/ optional English subtitles), written and directed by Philipp Stölzl and brought to life by the astounding cinematography of Kolja Brandt.
Most readers will be familiar with the 1997 Jean-Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet, drawn from Harrer’s story of his escape from a British prisoner of war camp at Dehra Dun, India, his flight north to Lhasa, the Himalayan Shangri-La, and subsequent friendship with the young Dalai Lama.
The film’s star, Brad Pitt, may have been good for box office receipts, but he was not to my mind a convincing Heinrich Harrer. His performance was overshadowed by David Thewlis’s brilliant portayal of Harrer’s companion Peter Aufschnaiter.
Other films, notably The Eiger Sanction, starring Clint Eastwood (and employing Canadian alpinist Chic Scott on the technical team), have borrowed from the story of this early attempt on the dreaded “Eigerwand,” but no cinematic treatment has ever come close — in technical accuracy or narrative fidelity — to the events of July 1936.
The action swings between the sumptuous comforts of the hotel at Kleine Scheidegg, where pampered tourists and journalists observe via telescopes, and the raw terrors unfolding on the storm-lashed face, where an uneasy, unplanned coalition of climbers led by Toni Kurz (BENNO FÜRMANN) and Andi Hinterstoisser (FLORIAN LUKAS), battle first to claim the route for country and glory, and later to escape its icy grip.
The story, but for some minor romantic embellishments, is true to the record — at least to the fragments pieced together in such historical reconstructions as The White Spider.
Mountaineering literature aficionados familiar with Harrer’s harrowing chronicle will not be disappointed with this interpretation. It turns the notorious events into a tour de force of nearly unbearable suspense, even for those who know the story inside out.
Whether you are an active climber, an armchair mountaineer, or simply a lover of great cinema, The North Face is a gripping tale not to be missed.
And, if you are a fan of adventure stories where fact often trumps fiction, check out Harrer’s original books.
[youtube width=”445″ height=”240″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phxLNGSZ7Dc[/youtube]
The White Spider | Kleine Scheidegg Webcam |Seven Years in Tibet | The North Face
Latest Tweets