Peak experience on IMAX
The filmmakers who lugged a downsized 30-pound IMAX camera to the top of the world for their 1998 Academy Award-nominated “Everest,” are back with eye-popping scenery and a gripping story from the North Face of the Eiger.
“The Alps: Climb of Your Life,” will premier in Spokane on Friday with two special evening shows featuring live presentations by the film’s protagonist, John Harlin III.
The 45-minute film captures some of the history and geology dating back to the Ice Age and how generations of people have learned to live in concert with the enduring power of rock, ice and snow in Europe’s fabled 700-mile long mountain range. Then the filmmakers zero in on the formidable 6,000-foot rock face in Switzerland where Harlin’s father fell to his death in 1966.
John Harlin II became an instant climbing superstar in 1962 by becoming the first American to scale the Eiger’s North Face. When he returned in 1966 as the leader for a team ascending an even more difficult unclimbed route, the world was watching through an international group of reporters as the 30-year-old climber fell 4,000 feet to his death.
(Local note: Eight years elapsed before a pair of young upstart climbers from Spokane became the next Americans to succeed on the North Face. John Roskelley and Chris Kopczynski scaled the Nordwand in 1974 at the same time “The Eiger Sanction” featuring Clint Eastwood was being filmed. One of the cameramen was killed by rockfall.)
John Harlin III was 9 and had already been climbing for three years when his father died. He became an active mountaineer, skier, adventurer, editor, and writer, making a splash with first river descents in Peru, Bolivia, Tibet, Alaska, Canada, the Alps and the United States.
In September of 2005, at the age of 49, he joined a husband-wife team for a three-person climb in his father’s footsteps with an IMAX large-format film crew chronicling the event.
“There have been many climbs I’ve wanted to do or would like to do, but the Eiger is the only climb I’ve ever felt I had to do,” he said.
He picked the right team all around.
Robert and Daniela Jasper have climbed the region extensively from their base in the Swiss Alps. Robert had reached the Eiger summit 15 times.
Who better to join for two nights bivouacked on skinny edges above Europe’s most treacherous rock face on a mountain that has claimed the lives of more than 50 climbers?
Producer Greg MacGillivray said modern helicopters and climbing equipment enabled the adventure to be captured on IMAX, and brought back to 53-foot-tall screens — the best available format for capturing the scale of Europe’s grand mountains range.
“We knew that while shooting on the Eiger we would encounter rock fall, ice fall and extreme cold,” he said. “A cameraman who had worked on “The Eiger Sanction” even warned us that it would be way too risky. But we felt that by using proper planning and the very best cameramen and guides, we could do it with a reasonable degree of safety.”
Stephen Venables, British mountaineer, author and screenwriter for “Alps,” said he knew from the start that Harlin III’s quest would be the perfect peg for an IMAX film.
“He’s not just some gung-ho, peak-bagging mountain cowboy,” he said. “John is a thoughtful, introspective person who is truly passionate about the wilderness. He was the perfect person to combine the dramatic action of a mountaineering adventure with a poignant and educational story.”
“Everest” was a blockbuster that set worldwide box office records for a documentary and remains the most successful giant screen film ever produced, according to the filmmakers.
“Alps” has similar potential.
The film is narrated by actor Michael Gambon, best known as Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter.
Harlin III has written a memoir of his family history and his Eiger climb in “The Eiger Obsession: Facing the Mountain That Killed My Father,” published by Simon & Schuster in 2007.