Alex Honnold lives life dangerously.
Honnold, who is 33, is one of the
best-known “free solo” rock climbers
in the world.
That means he climbs
huge rock faces hundreds of meters up
-- alone and without any safety equipment.
Now, one of his riskiest climbs --
the 900-meter-high El Capitan rock
formation in Yosemite National Park
-- is taking him to the Academy Awards.
A film about the 2017 climb has been
nominated for a best documentary Oscar.
It is called “Free Solo.”
It looks
at Honnold’s experience of preparing
for and ascending El Capitan, one of
the most famous climbing places in
the United States.
Many climbers make
it their goal to ascend the huge wall.
But most of them use the usual rock
climbing equipment that helps keeps
them from falling to the ground.
The extreme danger of Honnold’s climb
and the ever-present possibility of
death causes great fear for those
around Honnold in the film.
Even an
extremely small misstep of his foot
or misplacement of a finger could
have sent Honnold falling to his death.
Honnold himself finds it all
liberating.
He said free solo climbing
lets him lose “that sense of self, just
being fully present in what I’m actually
doing, just doing the moves,” Honnold
told the Reuters news agency.
At the center of the documentary is
the problem that filmmakers Jimmy Chin
and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi struggled
with during production: whether recording
Honnold’s climb would make it
more risky for him or lead him to
take chances he would not normally take.
“We trusted him.
We also trusted
our own judgment,” Vasarhelyi said.
“But we had to address the ethical
question.
And that’s why we include
the filmmaking, so that audiences
can understand what we were
struggling with.”
The filmmakers put cameras at
the most difficult points of
the climb so they would not
affect Honnold’s attention.
And
they had special long-distance
cameras on the ground.
But camera operators still had
to film much of Honnold's climb
while connected to the side of
the rock face with ropes.
Vasarhelyi said the comment she
hears most is how inspiring
the film is.
“We’ve been just humbled by this
outpouring from audiences saying
that Alex’s courage gives them
courage and that they’re inspired
to pursue their dreams,” she said.
The Oscars will be presented on
February 24 at a ceremony in
Los Angeles, California.
I’m Ashley Thompson.
