Touching the Void (SPOILERS): This is a documentary about mountain climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. Lot's of things go wrong, and at one point Simon is forced to cut the rope, dropping the dangling Joe off the edge of a cliff. The big question of the movie: why does this guy stay alive? My favourite part is when the rope has been cut, and Simpson has fallen partway into the crevasse. He is sitting at the top of an open, gaping, black void. Rather than spend the next 4 days sitting there slowly dying, he decides to lower himself into the blackness. How great is that!? Down he goes, and sure enough there is a way out once he gets to the bottom. It's much too symbolically tidy to actually be a true story! Which brings me to the other thing I liked about the film...its very well crafted narrative. The re-enactments by the actor/climbers were sewn in tightly with the voice-over of the real climbers - there was no duplication of information, and a seamless emotional tone. I became aware of the fact that this story has been told many many times. The guys themselves must be constructing it in their memories, and the book, the lecture circuit, the film, all help to mold into its current, iconic shape.
Kevin Macdonald made the movie. As it went on, it became more mannered. Normally I'd be uncomfortable with that (as with Erroll Morris and his slo-mo coffee cups) but in this case it worked out just fine. I loved the final scenes where Simpson is losing his mind and can't get Boney M out of his head. The film and audio became fragmented, broken and chaotic and it was great. Another powerful visual moment was the closeup of his mouth sucking water from the rock. Sex, death, human in an environment where he does not belong. Sucking up a small muddly water puddle like he was going down on pussy.
One night towards the end he is lying on his back staring up at the stars. He begins to feel as if he has been there for millenia, as if he is part of the rock.
You could tell instantly from their faces which guy (Simon Yates) had cut the rope (and never forgiven himself), and which (Joe Simpson) had miraculously survived (and forgiven his friend for cutting the rope). Simon had darkness in his face and Joe had light (too perky by half).
Also, when Joe decides to lower himself into the crevasse, his knee joint has been shattered in a fall and every hop brings intense pain. This makes his decision even more amazing to me.
I was sad to read at the end that Simon took a lot of grief when they returned to civilization for cutting the rope. For those having this spoiled: Joe's leg is broken, the two climbers are connected by a rope and lowering themselves down the mountain in stages. Joe goes over a precipice and is hanging in space. He can't climb the rope because his hands are frozen and can't see or hear Simon, so he just hangs there. Simon can't see or hear Joe either, in the dense snowstorm--he only knows he hasn't moved for hours. The mountainside is steep and Simon begins losing his seated, rope-holding position in the shifting snow. He has to make a decision: fall to his death with Joe's dead weight dragging him down, or cut the rope to assure his own survival, praying that Joe is either already dead or doesn't have too far to drop. (As it turned out, he fell about 80 feet, but miraculously survived.)
Evidently there were people who believed a mutual suicide pact was the right course in such (extraordinary) circumstances. What's wrong with them? To me it's ethically clear. Saving one life is better than losing two, even if it means being "selfish." (I suppose Joe could have let go, but he had no idea what was going on overhead.) The hardest thing would be living with your guilt--the last thing you need is armchair mountain-climbers piling on. The movie's attention to detail, which you mentioned, leaves nothing to doubt (at least for me) and thoroughly vindicates Simon.
That's an interesting point: Joe could of let go but he never mentioned that as an option. I guess either Joe didn't have a pocketknife or it wasn't accessible. At any rate it is Simon that reaches for his knife and cuts the rope. And the arm chair mountain-climbers were none other then members of the British Mountaineering Council who were meeting to discuss kicking Simon out as a result of this decision. This is the reason Joe Simpson says he wrote the book: to not only defend Simon but to state that Simon's actions saved his life.
Simon does seem less reconciled to this story then Joe and yet there is so much to vindicate him. The British twit who was waiting for them at the base of the mountain revealed a lot when he said, in the event of an accident he hoped it would be SImon who survives.
He said that Simon was more forgiving of him and his lack of knowledge of climbing. Tactless as this comment may seem I think it reveals the headspace of these two hothead Brits coming in to "conquer" Suila Grande. At least Simon was able to relate as a human instead of just an ego-driven climber.
Also Joe was 25 and Simon was 21. Joe's age combined with his determination made him the leader. It must have been terribly disorienting for Simon to come down from the mountain without Joe.
I heard that these two remained mates throughout the years but that the making of this film caused conflict.
I could go on and on about this film but maybe lastly I would say I find its theme of connection (and hence disconnection) rivetting.
Even in an suburban climbing gym, the belayer has significant responsibility for the safety of his/her climbing partner. Having climbed no higher than a couple hundred feet, I can only speculate the level of the trust and responsibility required for big walls or big mountains.
Here's a thought experiment. You have a piece of rope tied to a harness around your waist and thighs. With your feet on the edge of a cliff, and your legs straight, you lean back so that your body is hanging in mid air, held only by your feet and the rope. If the rope slips, you will fall a long way and hit the ground at 100 mph. Okay, quickly now, who do you want at the other end of the rope?
Joe wrote the book precisely to vindicate Simon, because other climbers had trouble understanding why Simon broke the physical and figurative bond with his partner.
Do these high and mighty British Mountaineering dudes think Simon should have killed himself for his partner? Crikey. Even just re-reading my own summation of the basic problem I think I have enough info to vindicate Simon. Are they all retired mountainclimbers, addled from too much thin atmosphere? I understand the need for a bond and all, that's why you'd never get me up there. But having some macho code in place that ignores simple facts makes it an even scarier way for one to spend one's time. I'm really having difficulty understanding the other side of this. (That's how persuasive the movie is.)
And as for Joe--I think he could have unhooked himself without resort to a pocket knife. Or were his hands too frozen to do that, too? The movie doesn't say. Either way, he just didn't have enough information about Simon's position to know how precarious it was.
It's hard to get off a weighted rope, even if you're just clipped in with a carabiner (yeesh). You'd have to hold the 'biner open while bouncing. Modern practice is to tie in (i.e., tie the rope directly to the climing harness) with a re-woven figure 8 knot, which can't be untied while weighted.
There's a little known fact about climbing or working in a safey harness. A person hanging unconcious in a harness can die after even a short period of time. (Harness Hang Syndrome or Compression Avascularisation Re-perfusion Syndrome). I heard an interview with Joe, but haven't read the book or seen the movie, so I don't know the details, but if Joe was dead weight on a rope for hours, then Simon was justified in thinking Joe was toast.
In a separate email discussion nanmac called me on my spineless decision (my words, not hers - she was nice about it) to change a line from the original text of my review for blog consumption. I've changed it back now to the original way I wrote it, with a more specific sexual analogy to the mud-puddle-sucking.
Sex! Yay! Watch us all scramble to re-read it.
i asked a friend of mine who is a member of the bmc to fill in the issue a little bit. clearly it's a tired issue...here was the response i got.
Seems like a lot of fuss over an issue that hopefully few people ever
have
to contemplate. At the end of the day he could have walked away without
comment and left it well alone as a topical issue. Climbers will and
always
have done things on their own terms and are not known for conforming to
convention.
sounds like a great movie! Who ever put you onto it? They must be awsome.
I took it that Simon's personal guilt was in asuming that Joe was dead and not going over to check the crevas, rather than in having cut the rope. I wonder how much that was behind the public opinion being against him at the time?
spoiler - My favorite part was when the git they had left at base camp asumed that Joe's cries in the night were a ghost, and so didn't want to go out there. I think I'm with Joe, that guy was a zero.
From the descriptions I've heard, Simon really couldn't check Joe's status. Simon was a key part of the belay system holding Joe up (and Simon was slowly slipping). He couldn't step away from that to be an observer, unless a third person was there to belay both Simon and Joe.
yeah, but after the fall once simon had cllimbed down he saw the hole at the bottom of the cliff and didn't go check it out.
I just saw "Touching the Void" last night, and have a few thoughts.
First, Simon looks strikingly similar to Wallace of "Wallace and Gromit."
The fact that Joe started downcliming an icey face without waiting for Simon to set up a proper belay was a foolish mistake. It was far from the first (or last) foolish mistake made by the duo, but it was the first one that bit them hard.
Simon's one man rescue attempt of Joe was simply amazing. I can't blame Simon for cutting loose after holding dead wieght for over an hour. In the deep powder, Simon really had no place to anchor, so he had no real options. But the fact that Joe was stuck is testimate to more of bad planning.
If you recall, Joe was trying to tie prusik knots to the rope while hanging in midair, so that he could ascend back to a spot where he could anchor. Joe dropped one of the prusik loops in the attempt, and two are required to ascend. Modern glacier technique is to have the prusiks or some other ascension method, already in place, based on the assumption that you're going to fall into a crevasse. Although they weren't in a glacier yet, Simon was blindly lowering Joe, and they should have thought about overhang issue.
Here's something else I have a problem with: why weren't they carrying whistles? In the morning after Joe's fall, they were calling each other, but couldn't here. I always carry a whistle in my backpack, in case I fall off a trail and break a leg.
Simon should have gone over to look in the crevasse where Joe fell. But given the hypothermia and dehydration, perhaps he wasn't thinking clearly. By that time Joe had probably already pulled the rope down into the crevasse, since Simon didn't mention seeing it. So there's not much he could have done. Simon had already left the only other rope on the mountain during his own rappel. In fact, for Simon to have even approached the edge of the crevasses without a rope tied to some sort of anchor would have put him at danger of falling on top of Joe.
Ultimately, this is a story of survival through sheer stubborness, and a cautionary tale about the perils of lack of preparation.
Well, I guess I was just making up stuff in my earlier posts. Here's an excerpt from an email of a friend of mine who publishes rock climbing box/website in england...
I wanted to find the definitive
answer to your Touching the Void questions but I haven't been very
successful. I have a copy of an article written by Joe in the Summer of
1985, just after the event. This is by far the most accurate and best
reporting of the whole event, even better to read than the book. In
that there is no mention of why Joe didn't cut the rope himself but I
suspect it was because he didn't have a knife. They aren't the sort of
things every climber carries by default. I don't think he was
frost-bitten at the time.
As for your other point about the BMC kicking him out; I have never
heard this before. I don't think the BMC would be able to kick someone
out like that anyway and most climbers have only got sympathy for both
climbers in the saga. There was never any animosity here towards Simon
Yates. In fact there have been several starker events where
mountaineers have abandoned others who were still alive in order to
save themselves. There is a kind of unwritten rule that you are allowed
to do that. Cutting the rope crystallises it into one dramatic action
but walking away from a tent where your partner is freezing to death
amounts to pretty much the same thing and that probably happens
several times a year around the world. Having said that, I can't recall
an occasion where an abandoned mate has then managed to save himself.
If that happened I expect that the other climber would face some
criticism. Of course they would almost certainly be saving themselves
to get help.
All very grim and why I go no where near mountaineering these days.
Rock climbing is a much more civilised pastime!
I just saw "Touching the Void" and I am astonished that any rational person would criticize Simon's actions. Obviously he was right not to sacrifice himself; staying tied to Joe does no one any good. What I haven't heard anyone mention is that cutting the rope is JOE'S only chance at survival. If Simon is feeling any misplaced guilt he needs to consider that fact. And as for the twits who are criticizing him, are they seriously saying he should have stayed on the rope? That cannot be considered as sane. To make the reality of that choice accessible, do a little imagining. If you were in a position to somehow see both Simon and Joe at the same time, but couldn"t help (you had a broken leg, say), can you possibly hear yourself yelling, as Simon slips toward death, "Whatever you do, don't cut the rope!" Of course not.
Well it sounds from Nanmac's post above like the so-called controversy is the stuff of legends. Funny that we culturally assume others will be petty in ways that we ourselves are not.
|
Touching the Void (SPOILERS): This is a documentary about mountain climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. Lot's of things go wrong, and at one point Simon is forced to cut the rope, dropping the dangling Joe off the edge of a cliff. The big question of the movie: why does this guy stay alive? My favourite part is when the rope has been cut, and Simpson has fallen partway into the crevasse. He is sitting at the top of an open, gaping, black void. Rather than spend the next 4 days sitting there slowly dying, he decides to lower himself into the blackness. How great is that!? Down he goes, and sure enough there is a way out once he gets to the bottom. It's much too symbolically tidy to actually be a true story! Which brings me to the other thing I liked about the film...its very well crafted narrative. The re-enactments by the actor/climbers were sewn in tightly with the voice-over of the real climbers - there was no duplication of information, and a seamless emotional tone. I became aware of the fact that this story has been told many many times. The guys themselves must be constructing it in their memories, and the book, the lecture circuit, the film, all help to mold into its current, iconic shape.
Kevin Macdonald made the movie. As it went on, it became more mannered. Normally I'd be uncomfortable with that (as with Erroll Morris and his slo-mo coffee cups) but in this case it worked out just fine. I loved the final scenes where Simpson is losing his mind and can't get Boney M out of his head. The film and audio became fragmented, broken and chaotic and it was great. Another powerful visual moment was the closeup of his mouth sucking water from the rock. Sex, death, human in an environment where he does not belong. Sucking up a small muddly water puddle like he was going down on pussy.
One night towards the end he is lying on his back staring up at the stars. He begins to feel as if he has been there for millenia, as if he is part of the rock.
You could tell instantly from their faces which guy (Simon Yates) had cut the rope (and never forgiven himself), and which (Joe Simpson) had miraculously survived (and forgiven his friend for cutting the rope). Simon had darkness in his face and Joe had light (too perky by half).
- sally mckay 3-11-2004 5:50 am
Also, when Joe decides to lower himself into the crevasse, his knee joint has been shattered in a fall and every hop brings intense pain. This makes his decision even more amazing to me.
I was sad to read at the end that Simon took a lot of grief when they returned to civilization for cutting the rope. For those having this spoiled: Joe's leg is broken, the two climbers are connected by a rope and lowering themselves down the mountain in stages. Joe goes over a precipice and is hanging in space. He can't climb the rope because his hands are frozen and can't see or hear Simon, so he just hangs there. Simon can't see or hear Joe either, in the dense snowstorm--he only knows he hasn't moved for hours. The mountainside is steep and Simon begins losing his seated, rope-holding position in the shifting snow. He has to make a decision: fall to his death with Joe's dead weight dragging him down, or cut the rope to assure his own survival, praying that Joe is either already dead or doesn't have too far to drop. (As it turned out, he fell about 80 feet, but miraculously survived.)
Evidently there were people who believed a mutual suicide pact was the right course in such (extraordinary) circumstances. What's wrong with them? To me it's ethically clear. Saving one life is better than losing two, even if it means being "selfish." (I suppose Joe could have let go, but he had no idea what was going on overhead.) The hardest thing would be living with your guilt--the last thing you need is armchair mountain-climbers piling on. The movie's attention to detail, which you mentioned, leaves nothing to doubt (at least for me) and thoroughly vindicates Simon.
- tom moody 3-11-2004 6:18 am
That's an interesting point: Joe could of let go but he never mentioned that as an option. I guess either Joe didn't have a pocketknife or it wasn't accessible. At any rate it is Simon that reaches for his knife and cuts the rope. And the arm chair mountain-climbers were none other then members of the British Mountaineering Council who were meeting to discuss kicking Simon out as a result of this decision. This is the reason Joe Simpson says he wrote the book: to not only defend Simon but to state that Simon's actions saved his life.
Simon does seem less reconciled to this story then Joe and yet there is so much to vindicate him. The British twit who was waiting for them at the base of the mountain revealed a lot when he said, in the event of an accident he hoped it would be SImon who survives.
He said that Simon was more forgiving of him and his lack of knowledge of climbing. Tactless as this comment may seem I think it reveals the headspace of these two hothead Brits coming in to "conquer" Suila Grande. At least Simon was able to relate as a human instead of just an ego-driven climber.
Also Joe was 25 and Simon was 21. Joe's age combined with his determination made him the leader. It must have been terribly disorienting for Simon to come down from the mountain without Joe.
I heard that these two remained mates throughout the years but that the making of this film caused conflict.
I could go on and on about this film but maybe lastly I would say I find its theme of connection (and hence disconnection) rivetting.
- nanmac (guest) 3-11-2004 8:25 am
Even in an suburban climbing gym, the belayer has significant responsibility for the safety of his/her climbing partner. Having climbed no higher than a couple hundred feet, I can only speculate the level of the trust and responsibility required for big walls or big mountains.
Here's a thought experiment. You have a piece of rope tied to a harness around your waist and thighs. With your feet on the edge of a cliff, and your legs straight, you lean back so that your body is hanging in mid air, held only by your feet and the rope. If the rope slips, you will fall a long way and hit the ground at 100 mph. Okay, quickly now, who do you want at the other end of the rope?
Joe wrote the book precisely to vindicate Simon, because other climbers had trouble understanding why Simon broke the physical and figurative bond with his partner.
- mark 3-11-2004 8:34 am
Do these high and mighty British Mountaineering dudes think Simon should have killed himself for his partner? Crikey. Even just re-reading my own summation of the basic problem I think I have enough info to vindicate Simon. Are they all retired mountainclimbers, addled from too much thin atmosphere? I understand the need for a bond and all, that's why you'd never get me up there. But having some macho code in place that ignores simple facts makes it an even scarier way for one to spend one's time. I'm really having difficulty understanding the other side of this. (That's how persuasive the movie is.)
- tom moody 3-11-2004 8:54 am
And as for Joe--I think he could have unhooked himself without resort to a pocket knife. Or were his hands too frozen to do that, too? The movie doesn't say. Either way, he just didn't have enough information about Simon's position to know how precarious it was.
- tom moody 3-11-2004 8:57 am
It's hard to get off a weighted rope, even if you're just clipped in with a carabiner (yeesh). You'd have to hold the 'biner open while bouncing. Modern practice is to tie in (i.e., tie the rope directly to the climing harness) with a re-woven figure 8 knot, which can't be untied while weighted.
There's a little known fact about climbing or working in a safey harness. A person hanging unconcious in a harness can die after even a short period of time. (Harness Hang Syndrome or Compression Avascularisation Re-perfusion Syndrome). I heard an interview with Joe, but haven't read the book or seen the movie, so I don't know the details, but if Joe was dead weight on a rope for hours, then Simon was justified in thinking Joe was toast.
- mark 3-11-2004 1:01 pm
In a separate email discussion nanmac called me on my spineless decision (my words, not hers - she was nice about it) to change a line from the original text of my review for blog consumption. I've changed it back now to the original way I wrote it, with a more specific sexual analogy to the mud-puddle-sucking.
- sally mckay 3-11-2004 5:35 pm
Sex! Yay! Watch us all scramble to re-read it.
- Jean (guest) 3-11-2004 8:07 pm
i asked a friend of mine who is a member of the bmc to fill in the issue a little bit. clearly it's a tired issue...here was the response i got.
Seems like a lot of fuss over an issue that hopefully few people ever
have
to contemplate. At the end of the day he could have walked away without
comment and left it well alone as a topical issue. Climbers will and
always
have done things on their own terms and are not known for conforming to
convention.
- nanmac (guest) 3-11-2004 8:56 pm
sounds like a great movie! Who ever put you onto it? They must be awsome.
I took it that Simon's personal guilt was in asuming that Joe was dead and not going over to check the crevas, rather than in having cut the rope. I wonder how much that was behind the public opinion being against him at the time?
spoiler - My favorite part was when the git they had left at base camp asumed that Joe's cries in the night were a ghost, and so didn't want to go out there. I think I'm with Joe, that guy was a zero.
- joester 3-11-2004 10:47 pm
From the descriptions I've heard, Simon really couldn't check Joe's status. Simon was a key part of the belay system holding Joe up (and Simon was slowly slipping). He couldn't step away from that to be an observer, unless a third person was there to belay both Simon and Joe.
- mark 3-11-2004 11:13 pm
yeah, but after the fall once simon had cllimbed down he saw the hole at the bottom of the cliff and didn't go check it out.
- joester 3-12-2004 6:12 am
I just saw "Touching the Void" last night, and have a few thoughts.
First, Simon looks strikingly similar to Wallace of "Wallace and Gromit."
The fact that Joe started downcliming an icey face without waiting for Simon to set up a proper belay was a foolish mistake. It was far from the first (or last) foolish mistake made by the duo, but it was the first one that bit them hard.
Simon's one man rescue attempt of Joe was simply amazing. I can't blame Simon for cutting loose after holding dead wieght for over an hour. In the deep powder, Simon really had no place to anchor, so he had no real options. But the fact that Joe was stuck is testimate to more of bad planning.
If you recall, Joe was trying to tie prusik knots to the rope while hanging in midair, so that he could ascend back to a spot where he could anchor. Joe dropped one of the prusik loops in the attempt, and two are required to ascend. Modern glacier technique is to have the prusiks or some other ascension method, already in place, based on the assumption that you're going to fall into a crevasse. Although they weren't in a glacier yet, Simon was blindly lowering Joe, and they should have thought about overhang issue.
Here's something else I have a problem with: why weren't they carrying whistles? In the morning after Joe's fall, they were calling each other, but couldn't here. I always carry a whistle in my backpack, in case I fall off a trail and break a leg.
Simon should have gone over to look in the crevasse where Joe fell. But given the hypothermia and dehydration, perhaps he wasn't thinking clearly. By that time Joe had probably already pulled the rope down into the crevasse, since Simon didn't mention seeing it. So there's not much he could have done. Simon had already left the only other rope on the mountain during his own rappel. In fact, for Simon to have even approached the edge of the crevasses without a rope tied to some sort of anchor would have put him at danger of falling on top of Joe.
Ultimately, this is a story of survival through sheer stubborness, and a cautionary tale about the perils of lack of preparation.
- mark 3-21-2004 11:34 pm
Well, I guess I was just making up stuff in my earlier posts. Here's an excerpt from an email of a friend of mine who publishes rock climbing box/website in england...
I wanted to find the definitive
answer to your Touching the Void questions but I haven't been very
successful. I have a copy of an article written by Joe in the Summer of
1985, just after the event. This is by far the most accurate and best
reporting of the whole event, even better to read than the book. In
that there is no mention of why Joe didn't cut the rope himself but I
suspect it was because he didn't have a knife. They aren't the sort of
things every climber carries by default. I don't think he was
frost-bitten at the time.
As for your other point about the BMC kicking him out; I have never
heard this before. I don't think the BMC would be able to kick someone
out like that anyway and most climbers have only got sympathy for both
climbers in the saga. There was never any animosity here towards Simon
Yates. In fact there have been several starker events where
mountaineers have abandoned others who were still alive in order to
save themselves. There is a kind of unwritten rule that you are allowed
to do that. Cutting the rope crystallises it into one dramatic action
but walking away from a tent where your partner is freezing to death
amounts to pretty much the same thing and that probably happens
several times a year around the world. Having said that, I can't recall
an occasion where an abandoned mate has then managed to save himself.
If that happened I expect that the other climber would face some
criticism. Of course they would almost certainly be saving themselves
to get help.
All very grim and why I go no where near mountaineering these days.
Rock climbing is a much more civilised pastime!
- nanmac 4-03-2004 5:54 pm
I just saw "Touching the Void" and I am astonished that any rational person would criticize Simon's actions. Obviously he was right not to sacrifice himself; staying tied to Joe does no one any good. What I haven't heard anyone mention is that cutting the rope is JOE'S only chance at survival. If Simon is feeling any misplaced guilt he needs to consider that fact. And as for the twits who are criticizing him, are they seriously saying he should have stayed on the rope? That cannot be considered as sane. To make the reality of that choice accessible, do a little imagining. If you were in a position to somehow see both Simon and Joe at the same time, but couldn"t help (you had a broken leg, say), can you possibly hear yourself yelling, as Simon slips toward death, "Whatever you do, don't cut the rope!" Of course not.
- Bletman (guest) 4-13-2004 7:28 pm
Well it sounds from Nanmac's post above like the so-called controversy is the stuff of legends. Funny that we culturally assume others will be petty in ways that we ourselves are not.
- sally mckay 4-13-2004 9:15 pm