The Summit Film tonight 21.35 RTE1

Hugh_C

Deleted User wrote: »

it was the style that for me was the let down. There seeemed to be a lot of reconstruction, which any documentary maker can churn out these days.

The reconstructions in this film were technically brilliant, difficult and overall, very expensive so it's neither true nor fair to say that any documentary maker can churn them out. For the Summit, crew and actors spent time in the Alps shooting the reconstructions, and then these were meticulously composited into 3d representations and photographic likenesses of K2.
I spent a bit of time with Pat Falvey in Oct 2010 and his accounts of shooting the reconstructions are epic. Mind you, most of Pat's stories are epic …

Reconstructions aside, I found the non-linear way of telling the story in the doc a bit confusing, and despite the fact that chronological telling of stories has gone out of fashion (anyone see the ROG doc?), I think the Summit would have benefitted from a more chronological storyline. I must admit, I've read "No Way Down" and this doc left me none the wiser, and with a slightly negative impression of climbers in general. Apart from Cecilie Skog who is both an amazing athlete and incredibly cute

It's a positive thing though that such a (mostly) fine piece of film making comes out of this country.

Hugh_C

Hugh_C wrote: »

The reconstructions in this film were technically brilliant, difficult and overall, very expensive so it's neither true nor fair to say that any documentary maker can churn them out. For the Summit, crew and actors spent time in the Alps shooting the reconstructions, and then these were meticulously composited into 3d representations and photographic likenesses of K2.
I spent a bit of time with Pat Falvey in Oct 2010 and his accounts of shooting the reconstructions are epic. Mind you, most of Pat's stories are epic …

I accept that, but seems to me like money wasted. The scenes were reconstructions, and as I said I am not that gone on the whole idea of reconstructions because they can be churned out...even if these particular types of reconstructions are technically more difficult than others. Have to concede I can't remember one sequence that was so memorable that I'd say that must have cost a fortune in reshaping the Alps to resemble K2. I just am not that gone on that way of presenting a documentary. But as I said before, maybe I'm too fond of the Ken Burns approach.

Hugh_C

Deleted User wrote: »

But as I said before, maybe I'm too fond of the Ken Burns approach.

Granted. There is often no other way to present a story though than partly through reconstruction.

Hugh_C

Hugh_C wrote: »

Granted. There is often no other way to present a story though than partly through reconstruction.

Sometimes it may add something. The documentary referred to above, the Eiger, Wall of Death was a great documentary on some of the tragedies that faced expeditions, like the Toni Kurz tragedy. Little footage, no reconstruction, just well crafted and told, relying on a handful of photos and a great story. For me reconstructions are padding out and may sometimes be dumbing down. Which goes back to my earlier point, not sure there was enough there for a film in all of this, if they scaled back on the reconstructions and got a bit more technical (was there any independent assessment say by others who have climbed K2, not necessarily part of that weekend?) maybe I would have preferred it.

Carawaystick

karltimber wrote: »

hi,

Saw the summit during the week.
Even though it was a tragic story, a compelling one all the same.

Is there any other documentrays similar to this out there - about climbing (doesn't have to be tragic) as I though it was just fasinating the footage of them on top of that mountain.
Not the same as Lug on a Sunday

Thx

oh, and I don't mean Cliffhanger with Silvester :rolleyes:

K

The BBC had a documentary on Peter Haebler and Reinhold Messner climbing Everest without oxygen in '78 the day after the summit was on RTÉ

It was interesting watching the two docs, that the angle of K2 was much steeper than Everest, like 70 vs 45 degrees

kirk buttercup

Anyone know if RTE are showing this again I really wanted to see it but missed it and its gone from RTE player as well

SNAKEDOC

It's on you tube
Type in k2 disaster (2008)
Can't get the link up.

SNAKEDOC

My biggest question was how the American nick rice was able to put up his blog that Ger refused to come down the mountain the documentary does not show host that piece of info got of the mountain. Also the Koreans who failed to start putting up ropes on the bottle neck at the right time and stalled the assent which directly led to the first man falling. Had they kept to their word I think summit in would have happened earlier and everyone would have returned to camp four safely

Carawaystick

SNAKEDOC wrote: »

Also the Koreans who failed to start putting up ropes on the bottle neck at the right time and stalled the assent which directly led to the first man falling. Had they kept to their word I think summit in would have happened earlier and everyone would have returned to camp four safely

I don't think you can expect the same contract rules at 8000m as at sea level.
The Spanish solo climber summed it up, you can only trust yourself and even then...

Reinhold Messner in his writings mentions hallucinations at altitude, as does Chris Bonnington, and a host of other writers who've climbed high.

SNAKEDOC

I understand that completely. Rescue yourself and all that but the korean leader was sat at camp 4 seen smoking a pipe when he had said he would check the ropes at the bottleneck and ensure they were there. He had been put in charge of this at base camp and agreed when your playing with lives you cant be so cavalier about responsability. He could have said no im not doing it pick someone else. The first climber fell as a direct result of his not doing what he said he would do. I see what your saying tht altitude does funny things to a man but these expeditions are not hashed together affairs. In parts of the film it seems that there was no planning but im sure it was quite the contrary. Its not a quick jaunt up lug. I think people have to be held accountable for inaction when they had the opertunity and had said they would do it. That man is the only reason the first man fell. I still believe had the summit attempt left on time and had the ropes been placed where they should have been (instead of having to stop halfway up the bottleneck to cut fresh rope)in a timely fashion the summit would have been a success with all parties returning to camp 4.

BarryD

Eh.. one thing is clear and that is that those present on the mountain at that time have different versions of what happened and when it happened. The documentary discussed here is like any such vehicle, it has to have an editorial slant - a view. So I wouldn't place too much store on it, anymore than a book or newspaper or internet article. I'm still not quite sure what it's purpose was? To set the record straight? To entertain? To remind people of the inherent objective dangers on high mountains?

hiromoto

Interesting Question Barry D, maybe to make a few bob?

BarryD

The TV series, 'The Vikings' started on RTE2 last night. A good bit of it was shot on location at Lough Tay up at Luggala in the Wicklow Hills, the summer before last. At least I think that's what they were making there, had a settlement built on the shores of the lake etc. You'd recognise some of the terrain in the close up shots, deep bracken and scattered pine trees etc. Also some of the distant shots had views of the valley and cliffs but there seemed to be a lot of digital manipulation going on. Same again next week, RTE2 2130 - standard Hollywood material..

Alun

BarryD wrote: »

The TV series, 'The Vikings' started on RTE2 last night. A good bit of it was shot on location at Lough Tay up at Luggala in the Wicklow Hills, the summer before last. At least I think that's what they were making there, had a settlement built on the shores of the lake etc. You'd recognise some of the terrain in the close up shots, deep bracken and scattered pine trees etc. Also some of the distant shots had views of the valley and cliffs but there seemed to be a lot of digital manipulation going on. Same again next week, RTE2 2130 - standard Hollywood material..

It was definitely around Lough Tay. Also more recent than that .. a couple of years ago was season 1 which is what they're showing on RTE now, they just finished filming season 2 last summer. The lakeside village was still there in August/September IIRC.

They used many of the same locations for The Tudors and Camelot as well. There's a lot of CGI involved ... the foreground may be 'real' but there's often a lot of extra scenery inserted in post production. For Camelot they filmed a lot of the castle scenes at Ardmore Studios just behind where I live, and if I were to believe what I saw on the TV apparently I live at the bottom of a massive cliff overlooking the sea

BarryD

Yes, extraordinary how reality can be morphed and bent these days - you just can't believe what you see I think there were shots of the cliffs of Carrigminnaun above Lough Tay with waterfalls pouring over them. There's a very notable overhang high on the crag which gives a good visual cue.

a148pro

I enjoyed this doc. It was certainly imperfect, I think it was the first production by the director, and could have benefited from a good editor. For instance the Bonatti angle was completely superfluous and there was also a doubling up of part of the story (the joy of them arriving at camp 4 as I recall).

I actually thought the reconstructions, in digital terms, were very good, the only naff bits were where acting was involved. Most of it I actually think was original footage as I've seen a good bit of the footage from youtube. Not sure if Pemba participated in some of the reconstructions.

By far the most disappointing thing was the failure to properly articulate the evidence for Ger being a hero. To be honest, leaving aside the fact that his family would like to think that, I think that evidence is quite strong.

We know that the three Koreans were stuck in the ropes. Both Wilco and Marco report encountering them there. Both of them also describe observing Ger helping them before each of them left. Marco says he left after Ger began climbing back up the slope, apparently not responding to him shouting (probably leading to the stories about him 'losing his mind)'.

So as I say, we know they were hanging there all night, some of them upside down, some of them bleeding. One of them lost gloves, Wilco giving him a spare pair. There's also a photo, taken as it happens on Ger's camera by Pemba, given to him on the summit by Ger, where they can be seen caught in the ropes.

We also know that they didn't die there. There's a later photo where they're gone, and Pemba climbed back up, made radio contact with another sherpa who told him that the three had been freed and were completing the traverse. Asked was there anyone else there this Sherpa said there was another climber and described his down suit, which Pemba believes was Ger's, but this climber was knocked off the face in an ice avalanche.

This sherpa, and the Koreans with him, were killed shortly afterwards in another ice avalanche.

Now here's the bit which might have been articulated better in the doc. The Koreans died in a fall more or less at the top of the bottleneck having completed the traverse. Whatever about people's memories at 8000m we know this is the case because Pemba took photos of their bodies (as an aside this is apparently the done thing in the mountains, rather than being macabre it provides hard evidence for families back home, insurers etc). Where those bodies were photographed is nowhere near the fall line of where they had been trapped earlier.

So we know that the Koreans were freed from where they had been tangled and had managed to make their way to where they fell to their deaths.

Now anyone who knows anything about the mountains, and about being above 8000m knows that the three Koreans, having spent the night out in the open, upside down and tangled up, didn't manage to free themselves and cross the bulk of the traverse. Its just not realistic. And the distance they had to travel, between the point at which they are photographed caught in the ropes (the same point at which Marco and Wilco record them being at, and record Ger helping them) and the point at which we know they died, is about 100m (I'm guestimating this from the photos). Either way, this is a very significant distance at that altitude, at least it is if you've spent the night out, hanging upside down, at 8000m. Moreover it involves relatively technical climbing across an ice traverse.

These unfortunate climbers weren't able to help themselves. They hadn't been able to free themselves in the previous hours. Nor had Wilco or Marco succeeded in helping them. Someone got them free. And the only person who could have done that was Ger, who we know spent time helping them, and was last seeing helping them (one of the Pakistani High Altitude porters is also unaccounted for this point so in theory it is possible it was him, but there is no evidence it was, whereas there is evidence that Ger was helping them).

And the last thing Ger is reported doing is climbing back up the slope.

Now Marco's account led to the belief that he had lost his mind which the media seized upon at the time, desperate, as they often are, for quick answers without really knowing the questions. But another, quite feasible possibility is that he actually realised that in order to free them he had to climb up and cut the ropes that were tangling them. This is actually quite logical and may have been the only way in which to free them.

We know in any event that Marco, understandably, wasn't in the best of shape at this time himself. This is hinted at in the doc, and Pemba gives an account of it. Marco it will be recalled collapses at the bottom of the bottleneck and falls asleep. When Pemba finds him it takes him ten minutes to rouse him and when he does Marco is angry with him because he is giving him bottled oxegen (to save his life) therefore depriving Marco of the claim to an oxegenless ascent (again this is a not unheard of reaction in the world of high altitude climbing where people develop a somewhat myopic perspective of the value of life and of perceived achievements in climbing terms).

Marco also gives an account which is somewhat inconsistent with the narrative I'm setting out here in that he claimed to have seen Ger falling, and claimed to have come across his body parts, which in terms of their respective movements, doesn't coincide with Ger having helped free the Koreans. He gave a pretty graphic description of this but to be honest his account seems more like the high altitude halucination noted by another poster above. We know that Pemba was anxious to account for Ger and try and find him and he didn't. If you youtube Norit K2 you will find footage of Pemba the day after these events, i.e., two days after summitting K2, having spent the previous day climbing back up to help, climbing down and finding Wilco, and helping him down, his mental state is actually very good, clearly an impressive guy and I think his memory is to be trusted.

So the Koreans are freed, manage to climb across the traverse, Ger is last seen helping them, having helped them (in Marco's account) for as much as two hours, having climbed upwards and having then been reported by the deceased sherpa as being hit by icefall shortly thereafter.

I think the evidence is actually pretty strong that Ger McDonnell died having rescued those Korean climbers.

If we add to that what we know about Ger from other people, the testimony of Pat Falvey who recalls that Ger in effect saved his life high on Everest and also the fact that Ger had previously participated in a similar rescue high on Denali in Alaska, that evidence becomes stronger.

I didn't know Ger and don't know his family or have any connection with anyone involved in this incident. I'm just an armchair mountaineer. But I think a pretty strong impression of Ger comes across from that film. And he seemed to me a larger than life character, a fantastic ambassador for our country, and a person of deep principles and commitments, precisely the kind of person who wouldn't have it in him to climb past those Koreans knowing he was leaving them to their deaths. And he seemed like he was great craic too.

There can be no proof at that altitude, in terms of people's recollections, but the camera doesn't lie. Those Koreans were freed and managed to climb a decent way across the traverse before they too were hit by icefall. They didn't do it alone and Ger was the last person left who could have helped them.

I think there is very strong evidence that Ger McDonnell is a hero, a true Irish hero, whose memory should be honored by all of us. And if each of the people who head into those altitudes, and perhaps each of us in our own more mundane worlds, could take a bit of the way Ger lived his life into our own, the world would be a better place.

He who saves one life saves the world entire

*that took a long time, I should go to bed, but if it changes anyone's perspective or honours Ger's memory appropriately, its worth it

Esel

^ Thanks for that very detailed and considered post.

My own opinion is that in that situation, one's primary responsibility is to oneself (and by implication to one's loved ones). Fair enough if your best friend is the one in trouble, but even then...

Having said that, the onus changes somewhat if there is a guide/client relationship involved - although even this could become moot in a life-or-death situation, regardless of the altitude. If, by delaying and trying to rescue another climber, you place yourself in a situation where it is very likely that you yourself will not survive, is that the right thing to do?

In the final analysis, though, it comes down to a very personal decision. There should be no fault ascribed, no matter what that decision is. We who have not been there can have no real comprehension of the thought processes involved - especially in the scenario under discussion, where even basic mental functionning is at best impaired, to say the least.

a148pro

Yeah I should point out that i'm not in any way critical of Marco or Wilco for not doing more - they absolutely made the right decision to move on, the proof of that is that both of them needed the help of others to get off the mountain, without which they would have died.

In fact that's another flaw in the doc, the failure to tell the story of wilco's rescue, which is remarkable. Basically he was suffering snow blindness so he knew he had to get down. He could neither find the fixed ropes nor see where he was going, so he kept descending and got hopelessly lost.

He hadn't had food or water for two days and ended up spending two nights out in the open without tent or sleeping bag, above 8000m. But how they actually found him is the most amazing part. He had a sat phone but he couldn't see properly so couldn't pull up the numbers saved on it. But he knew one number of a friend in Holland and could ring him by feeling the digits on the phone.

He spoke to him a few times and he was able to relay to people still on the mountain that wilco was still alive, he was presumed dead at that stage, but no one in the lower camps could see him and wilco wasn't able to tell them where he was.

It must have been a situation of utter helpness, so near and yet so far with a man's life hanging in the balance. But then the friend realised that the sat phone company would have GPS coordinates of the call. He got in touch with them and managed to pull a few strings to convince them to reveal the location, not easy because it's private data and Pakistan is a sensitive area Geo politically. But in the end they got the data for his last call before the phone died and realised he had climbed down the wrong side of the mountain, and was actually slightly below camp 3. They were able to relay this to pemba who was able to go out and find him and bring him back to camp.

It's difficult to overstate how fecked you'd be after two nights out in the open at that height, snow blind with no food or water, but again you can see footage of pemba with wilco when he brings him back to camp on youtube and it's remarkable to see how with it the two are. I think wilco went on to lose all his toes. And is talking about going back to k2. Pretty single minded individual.

a148pro

I'm not a particular fan of this website, and you have to pay to read the full story (it used to be free as I remember reading it there) but you can see the photos from the day in the free bit which illustrate the points I make above. They awarded Ger the adventurer of the year award for 2008 after his story came out.

http://www.explorersweb.com/everest_k2/news.php?id=18038

Hugh_C

a148pro wrote: »

It was certainly imperfect, I think it was the first production by the director, and could have benefited from a good editor.

The director is Nick Ryan, and he's got a load of productions under his belt both as producer and director and other roles. A very experienced filmmaker …

I'm a pro editor by trade and wasn't overly impressed with the non-linear telling of the story. It was over-complicated and the non-linearity of it was a weakness for me. As it happens, the editor, Ben Stark, won an award for The Summit.

I think this was shown again on BBC recently and renamed "K2: Killer Summit". Not sure this was a decision that had anything to do with the crowd who make it, but it sounded a bit tacky to me.

a148pro

Yeah I started watching it because of the title, thinking it was something different but was same one alright