Free Solo | |
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Directed by | |
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Starring |
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Cinematography |
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Edited by | Bob Eisenhardt |
Music by | Marco Beltrami |
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Running time | 100 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $2 million [2] |
Box office | $29.4 million [3] |
Free Solo is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin [4] that profiles rock climber Alex Honnold on his quest to perform the first-ever free solo climb of a route on El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park in California, in June 2017. [5] [6]
The film premiered at the 45th Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2018, and also screened at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the People's Choice Award in the Documentaries category. [7] It was released in the United States on September 28, 2018, and grossed over $28 million at the worldwide box office. [8] Free Solo received acclaim from critics and numerous accolades, including winning Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards. [9] [10]
Climber Alex Honnold has been dreaming of free-soloing the 3,000 feet (900 m) rock wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, a feat no one has performed. His choice of big wall climbing route on El Capitan is called Freerider , a route that was created by Alexander Huber in 1998, and which Honnold has completed several times with protection equipment. Freerider is graded at 5.13a (7c+) in difficulty, and no climber has ever completed a big-wall free solo at such a grade of difficulty in rock climbing history.
Alex is a shy loner who has lived and traveled alone in his van for several years, but recently he is sometimes joined by his new girlfriend Sanni McCandless (whom he later married). On one climb with Sanni, while she is feeding Alex's rope through a grigri on his descent, she makes a mistake, and he falls. He visits a physician and discovers he has some vertebral compression fractures. Alex admits to wanting to break up with Sanni over this incident, but decides against it after talking with her and learning the fractures are not very serious.
In the summer of 2016, Alex and Tommy Caldwell go climbing in Morocco to prepare for his El Capitan free solo. The film crew also prepares, discussing where to place cameras to best capture Alex’s climb while minimizing distractions and interference, and also the ethical dilemma of documenting this climb, knowing Alex may die on camera. At some point, Alex accepts an offer to receive an MRI in order to understand his brain's response to fear, and the results show that there is little or no activity in his amygdala in response to average stimuli.
In the fall of 2016, Alex sprains his ankle on El Capitan while traditional climbing (i.e., using ropes and protection equipment) on the first section of Freerider, the giant multi-pitch slab known as Freeblast and graded at 5.11b (6c). Not wanting to miss the chance to do the free climb that year, he only takes a brief break from climbing and resumes his preparations while his foot is still swollen. Around Halloween, Alex and Sanni carve pumpkins with Tommy and his wife and children. In an interview, Alex says his family did not hug and the word "love" was not used in his household, as his father lacked the ability to form emotional bonds.
Alex and Tommy rappel down Freerider on El Capitan, and Alex outlines his route, discussing the areas about which he is apprehensive. One section offers him two alternative pathways, which he calls "The Teflon Corner" (an internal right-angled section with a smooth slippery surface) and "The Boulder Problem" (a particularly intricate piece of the wall that has to be finished with either a jump or a wide "karate kick" stance). Both the crew and Sanni suggest abandoning the plan, and Alex admits he does not want his friends to see him die if he falls while free soloing. News of the death of Swiss climber Ueli Steck, with whom Alex had climbed, causes Alex to reflect on his own risk-taking, but Tommy comments on how little it ultimately seemed to affect Alex. When he finally decides to try to free solo El Capitan, Alex bails after the slab section of Freeblast, and filmmaker Jimmy Chin worries that the filming is putting unnecessary pressure on Alex.
After giving up on his plan to free solo El Capitan that season, Alex and Sanni buy a house in Las Vegas. Then, on June 3, 2017, Alex again attempts a free solo climb of Freerider. Sanni leaves just before he starts, expressing her apprehensions in an interview. The film crew watches nervously as Alex makes his way through each of the most difficult parts of the climb, and one cameraman turns away several times, as he cannot bear to watch. Alex completes the free solo in 3 hours and 56 minutes, celebrating at the top with Jimmy and—over the phone—Sanni. She quickly returns to be with him, and Alex does an interview with a journalist in which he contemplates his future, and the future of free solo climbing.
Prior to filming, directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin struggled with the ethical ramifications and decisions behind creating Free Solo, knowing Honnold could die on camera. [11] Ultimately, they decided to go through with the film and devoted some time to documenting its own production process, with Chin and his camera crew discussing the challenge of not endangering climber Alex Honnold by distracting him or putting any pressure at all on him to attempt the climb. According to Vasarhelyi, filming without endangering Honnold was achieved only thanks to careful planning and practice. [12]
The production team captured 700 hours of footage using 12 cameras. [13] This included cameramen on the ground, cameramen on the cliff face, remote trigger cameras, and a helicopter with a 1,000 mm lens to capture the 4k video. [14] [13] The cameramen were able to so effectively capture Honnold’s climb from different vantage points because they were all experienced climbers themselves. [14] Wireless mics could not be used to record sound from Honnold due to his distance from the cameras, [12] so the filmmakers created a special recording device and had Honnold carry it inside his chalk bag. [12]
The film was made by National Geographic Partners, [15] which at the time of the film's release was majority-owned by 21st Century Fox, with the remainder owned by the National Geographic Society. [16]
Free Solo premiered on August 31, 2018, at the 45th Telluride Film Festival, and it was shown at multiple film festivals internationally, including at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, after that. [8] It was released in theaters in the U.S. on September 28. [8]
The film grossed $17.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $11.1 million in other territories, for a total worldwide box office gross of $28.6 million. [17]
Its opening weekend, Free Solo earned $300,804 from four theaters, its per-venue average of $75,201 surpassing both Eighth Grade for the highest per-venue average of 2018, and An Inconvenient Sequel (2017) for the highest-ever per-venue average for a documentary. [18] The film expanded to 41 theaters its second weekend, earning $562,786, [19] and then grossed $859,051 from 129 theaters its third weekend [20] and $1 million from 251 theaters its fourth weekend. [21] During its fifth weekend in theaters, the film earned $1.06 million from 394 theaters, bringing its total box office gross to over $5 million. [22]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 160 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Free Solo depicts athletic feats that many viewers will find beyond reason – and grounds the attempts in passions that are all but universal." [23] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100 based on reviews from 25 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [24]
Peter Debruge of Variety praised the pacing of the film, saying: "Apart from a slow stretch around the hour mark, the filmmakers keep things lively (with a big assist from Marco Beltrami's pulse-quickening score, the nail-biting opposite of Tim McGraw's soaring end-credits single, "Gravity")." [25] Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair called the film "bracingly made" and felt the filmmakers properly conveyed the challenges and dangers faced by Honnold in his endeavors: "Free Solo's detailed, transfixing portrait of their hero will at least show some sort of barrier to entry, communicating to those eager wannabes that very few people indeed are built quite like Alex Honnold. And thank goodness, in a way, for that." [26]
Michael Hale of Sight and Sound praised the filming techniques and resulting effect, saying that an image reminiscent of Greek mythology is evoked as Honnold is captured scaling the immense wall of El Capitan. [27] John Doyle of The Globe and Mail commended the "texture" of film, specifically the tension and intensity as Honnold repeatedly risks death, as well as the relatability of the scenes with Honnold and his girlfriend. [28]
Sam Wollastan of The Irish Times wrote that the film effectively captures an amazing athletic feat, the emotional development of Honnold, and the budding romance between Honnold and McCandless. [29] Jane Mulkerrins of The Times also praised this emotional development arc, remarking on the duality of the film as it examines Honnold's preparation and climb alongside his relationship with McCandless: "[Free Solo] captures the death-defying climb with vertigo-inducing camerawork. We see Honnold getting ready for the climb… At the same time, the armour of invincibility he's built up over the years fractures when he begins to fall in love with Sanni.” [30]
Hans Florine is an American rock climber, who holds the record for the number of ascents of Yosemite Valley's El Capitan and is known for holding the speed record on The Nose of Yosemite’s El Capitan 8 different times. Hans' last speed record on The Nose was accomplished with Alex Honnold for climbing The Nose in 2:23:46, on June 17, 2012. In addition to climbing El Capitan over 175 times, Hans also holds the record for the number of ascents of The Nose, climbing it more than 111 times.
El Capitan is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith is about 3,000 feet (914 m) from base to summit along its tallest face and is a world-famous location for big wall climbing, including the disciplines of aid climbing, free climbing, and more recently for free solo climbing.
Alexander Huber is a German rock climber who is considered one of the greatest and most influential climbers in the history of rock climbing. Huber came to prominence in the early 1990s as the world's strongest sport climber after the passing of Wolfgang Güllich. He is the second-ever person to redpoint a 9a (5.14d) graded route by ascending Om in 1992, and has come to be known as the first-ever person to redpoint a 9a+ (5.15a) graded route from his 1996 ascent of Open Air.
Solo climbing, or soloing, is a style of climbing in which the climber climbs a route alone, without the assistance of a belayer. By its very nature, it presents a higher degree of risk to the climber, and in some cases, is considered extremely high risk.
Multi-pitch climbing is a type of climbing that typically takes place on routes that are more than a single rope length in height, and thus where the lead climber cannot complete the climb as a single pitch. Where the number of pitches exceeds 6–10, it can become big wall climbing, or where the pitches are in a mixed rock and ice mountain environment, it can become alpine climbing. Multi-pitch rock climbs can come in traditional, sport, and aid formats. Some have free soloed multi-pitch routes.
Tommy Caldwell is an American rock climber who has set records in sport climbing, traditional climbing, and in big-wall climbing. Caldwell made the first free ascents of several major routes on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
Free solo climbing, or free soloing, is a form of rock climbing where the climbers climb solo without ropes or other protective equipment, using only their climbing shoes and their climbing chalk. Free soloing is the most dangerous form of climbing, and, unlike bouldering, free soloists climb above safe heights, where a fall can be fatal. Though many climbers have free soloed climbing grades they are very comfortable on, only a tiny group free solo regularly, and at grades closer to the limit of their abilities.
Rope-solo climbing or rope-soloing is a form of solo climbing, but unlike with free solo climbing, which is also performed alone and with no climbing protection whatsoever, the rope-solo climber uses a mechanical self-belay device and rope system, which enables them to use the standard climbing protection to protect themselves in the event of a fall.
Jimmy Chin is an American professional mountain athlete, photographer, skier, film director, and author.
Dean Spaulding Potter was an American free climber, alpinist, BASE jumper, and highliner. He completed many hard first ascents, free solo ascents, speed ascents, and enchainments in Yosemite National Park and Patagonia. He won the Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year in 2003. In 2015, he died in a wingsuit flying accident in Yosemite National Park.
Big wall climbing is a form of rock climbing that takes place on long multi-pitch routes that normally require a full day, if not several days, to ascend. In addition, big wall routes are typically sustained and exposed, where the climbers remain suspended from the rock face, even sleeping hanging from the face, with limited options to sit down or escape unless they abseil back down the whole route, which is a complex and risky action. It is therefore a physically and mentally demanding form of climbing.
Simul-climbing is a climbing technique where a pair of climbers who are attached by a rope simultaneously ascend a multi-pitch climbing route. It contrasts with lead climbing where the leader ascends a given pitch on the route while the second climber remains in a fixed position to belay the leader in case they fall. Simul-climbing is not free solo climbing, as the lead simul-climber will clip the rope into points of climbing protection as they ascend. Simul-climbing is different from a rope team and short-roping, which are used for flatter terrain that doesn't typically need protection points.
The Nose is a big wall climbing route up El Capitan. Once considered impossible to climb, El Capitan is now the standard for big wall climbing. It is recognized in the historic climbing text Fifty Classic Climbs of North America and considered a classic around the world.
Alex Honnold is an American rock climber best known for his free solo ascents of big walls. Honnold rose to worldwide fame in June 2017 when he became the first person to free solo a route on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, a climb described in The New York Times as "one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever." Honnold also holds the record for the fastest ascent of the "Yosemite Triple Crown", an 18-hour, 50-minute link-up of Mount Watkins, The Nose, and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome. In 2015, he won a Piolet d'Or in alpine climbing with Tommy Caldwell for their completion of the enchainment of the Cerro Chaltén Group in Patagonia over 5 days.
Sender Films is an American film production company based in Boulder, Colorado. Productions include outdoor adventure films, television shows, and commercials.
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017. Their first scripted film venture was Nyad, a biopic chronicling Diana Nyad's quest to be the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida.
Hazel Findlay is a British traditional climber, sport climber and big wall climber. She was the first female British climber to climb a route graded E9, and a route graded 8c (5.14b). She did the third ascent of the Yosemite traditional route Magic Line 5.14c (8c+). She has free climbed El Capitán four times on four different routes and made many first female ascents on other routes. Climbing magazine gave her their Golden Piton Award (Alpine) for traditional climbing in 2013.
Mark Synnott is an American professional rock climber and author. He is an internationally certified mountain guide and member of The North Face athlete team. Synnott specializes in remote first ascents of big wall climbs.
Brad Gobright was an American rock climber known for free solo climbing.
The Alpinist is a 2021 American documentary film directed by Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen about Marc-André Leclerc, a free-spirited and little-known 23-year-old Canadian rock climber, ice climber, and alpinist. From 2015 to 2016, a film crew followed Leclerc as he solo climbed some of the most difficult and dangerous alpine climbing routes in the world.