Touching the void

Touching the Void is a 2003 documentary based on the book with the same title (1989 NCR Book Award) written by Joe Simpson.
Both book and documentary narrates the real tribulations of three Brits, two of them mountaineers: Joe Simpson and Simon Yate, and Richard Hawking, during their 1985 attempt on the conquering of an untouched mountain so far then: Peruvian Siula Grande (20,813 ft/ 6344 m.) by its West side.

Big mountain mama - Siula Grande

This peak was attempted by others in the past with no success and was The doc,was actually reconstructing the events by 3 actors representing the protagonists of the real voyage together with the
interviews of the mountaineers. Both Joe and Simon really came back to the famous mountain chain in order to do the documentary.

The Glacier Hell

And this is what really happened:
Joe Simpson, Simon Yate and Richard Hawking parted on 1985 on a climbing journey into the heart of the Huayhuash mountain range. Donkeys take them 5 miles from the base of the mountain and Simon and Joe leave Richard at base camp and the two began climbing the pick, first the rocky slopes, then passing by the lake, geting into the glacier and finally hitting the vertical icy walls of this beauty of nature. Joe leades, Simon folows, as in the old days: one rope connecting both and no staring back. They actually did fairly well on their ascent, though they were surprised of the dimension of the mountain and its peculiar shapes created by the icy snow.

Joe Simpson descending

The ascend took, due to the bad weather, more than the expected and they run out of gas for their stove = they couldn’t melt snow and in order to drink water. Finally the two of them made it into the top, where they could see the other neighbor peaks composing the Cordillera (mountain range) Huayhuash of the Peruvian Andes:
the tallest Yerupaja of 6617 m., Sarapo, Carnicero, etc,…

Joe Simpson during the slow descending

The weather wouldn’t let a lot of space for mistakes for it was very foggy and there was a snow storm while they began to descend the top. Joe was leading the way and on a decisive instant, committed the mistake of stepping forward without actually seeing what was before him and he felt and in consequent broke his leg. In a situation like that, the low temperatures could make your body freeze under the absent of movement.

Siula Grande area map

Mountaineering history was filled with cases of one partner leaving the injury climber behind so the fit one could get some help and go back to the mountain but Simon decided to take Joe on his descend by using a 300 m rope to let Joe slowly slip down hill. During this process, Simon let accidentally Joe slip to fast into the mouth of a deep cliff without knowing it.

Into the frozen cave

There there was Joe, holding with his whole body weight from the rope, watching the cliff and the 60 m of free falling and could not let Simon know what was happening. Simon, on the other hand, was anchored with his feet into a snow hole made with his feet and feeling the stress of the rope fruit of his partner whole wait pending on air, but Simon didn’t know it; what he knew was that his strength to keep the situation as it will soon reach to an end in which he would be left with only two options: either joining Joe in the free falling into the high cliff or cutting the rope so at least one mountaineer could make it and tell the story.

The base of the mountain

Simon made up his mind and extracted his Swiss knife from his pocket and used it. Here is where Joe’s adventure started with the free falling of tens of meters that must have killed him already, during his several days of solo descending though frozen caves, snowy slopes, rocky areas and all without water and a broken leg, very little odds to make it alive.

Through the glacier

In hindsight however, Simon, after descending till the place where Joe felt, he would even looked into it and search for his partner for he it was clear to him Joe could never have made it from that fall and continued towards the camp.

The three Britons + Joe way back on donkeys and rehabilitating

Finally a 2/3 less of body weight Joe will make it into the base camp after three days and five miles, delusional, thirsty to death and cold as hell to joing his two other partners that were preparing to leave the camp after several days of waiting for Joe, convinced Joe died.

Siula Grande + the lake

The film director, Kevin MacDonald, actually took the two mountaineers during the filming days in the mountain and Joe
experienced post traumatic stress syndrome.The film was release on 2004 and made during its first week 96 k usd and a global total of 13 mil usd to date. Touching the void won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 2003 BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards and was featured at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

Siula Grande map

After news arrived to England of the happenings in the mountain, the climbing community was furious with Simon but these news were not accurate and the real story was cleared out by Joe and Simon and both continue to this day, Joe after 6 surgical interventions, to climb worldwide. Joe always supported Simon on the decision he took at all moments.

Joe Simpson

In 1999, Carlos Buhler (US) and Mark Price climbed the Siula Grande by the west face and made it into the top, returning to the bottom by rappeling. Not many other climbers actually made it into this mountain due, among other factors, to the political dangerous situation created by the Sendero Luminoso (Maoist guerrilla terrorist movement).

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2738095

People, this is the “real” hurricane that Bob Dylan talked about in his song of the same title, John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946) or better known as Jack Johnson or nicknamed the “Galveston Giant”.
This African American fighter, born in Texas, lived during some troubled times where America was ruled and leaded by an all white regime, for which the “free negroes” where to be kept still apart, totally segregated from the white folks, even in the northern cities. Those northern cities, where the white folks have not even cohabited with the African Americans, where extremely anti black. But, hey, congressmen and even the president of the united states, in fact where quoted using prejudice comments, and the papers were not exception. Looks like Lincoln and the fathers of this nation meant “you are free to live where the white folk tells you to”; liberty under today’s understanding was not existent for an African american during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Jack started his career in a world where you couldn’t fight a Caucasian boxer, he had to make himself into the boxing scenario by fighting other African Americans pugilists, which they were actually tougher that their white colleagues. He reached the point where he had no opponent to fight, he won them all.

The white public worked extra hours trying to figure out how no member of the “supreme” white race was as strong, agile and smart in the ring as Jack was. Nevertheless, what really irritated the whites was not only the fact that Jack was becoming rich, and for a black person that wasn’t very common in those days, but it was the fact that Jack Johnson had a taste for white women. Jack commented many times that he is not to tell whom he can be with or not, he is no slave.

He received critics from both whites and blacks. Other African Americans criticized him for being extravagant, not humble,  dressing all those fancy clothes, speeding expensive cars and being all the time surrounded by white women. his own kind thought that this black figure could bring them only harm and tears with the white institutions. And they were not far from what unfolded.

This Ken Burns´s documentary is almost 100% composed of  black and white stills of the time  while some actual and original film footage is also used. Samuel L. Jackson plays Jack Johnson’s voice reading Jack’s diary and other textual sources of the time, mostly papers.  The camera moves around the old black and white pictures of the time to give the documentary a motin effect. Interviews are also part of this feature, where boxing experts and black celebrities comment on the times, Jack and his career.

Mr. Johnson was not a revolutionary, he was simply a man that lived before his time, he was not prejudiced against other races and colors, he just thought to be natural for any individual, to do his will in a free US, especially if you are rich and famous. He would travel the country with his manager and white companions fighting other boxers, most of them black as well and being generously paid for a night fight, what could take weeks to earn to an average colored man.

Jack was a calm, strong and smart fighter and this caught the eyes of the press. This fighter would not storm into the ring aggressively like many Irish boxers; he would take his time to avoid being punished at all time and deceived you, intelligently, to strike you at the right moment. He was undefeated, had a great smile and he was “cool”.
After his all American trip in search for the next contingent ended and he was the all black world champion, he had naturally to face white fighters and this he tried for a long time, being rejected by these, for they were sure they would be defeated and with them, the title would be lost to the “inferior”black race.

In a totally racist white America, by 1902, Jack won at least in 27 occasions, against white and black contingents until, at least, his first real chance to win the world title when he was 24: in L.A., against Jack Jeffries, the younger brother of at the time current World Champion, Jim Jeffries. Five rounds took Johnson to take down Jack Jeffries, at the end of which Jack Johnson said to Jim Jeffries: “I could take you too”. But Jim F. many times admitted that he would never fight J. Johnson for he didn’t want the title to go to a black man. Jeffries would retire to his ranch and hanged the gloves.

Jack ultimately took the World title from Canadian Tommy Burns in Australia in 1908 in front of an almost all white racist stadium. Knowing that the fight will make it to the american theaters, the police  stopped the camera man from continuing filming the fight in the midst of the 14th round, right at he moment were Mr. Johnson was to knock out the whit boxer in order to avoid more white race humiliation. At the age of 30, Jack Johnson was the heavyweight champion of the world. But the white supremacists will not accept his victory arguing that Burns had never held the title and that Jim Jeffries still was undefeated World champion.

Johnson moved to Chicago and started a new period in his live participating in shows in theaters where he would perform doing physical tricks showing his athletic capabilities. Later on, he would find himself other fighters to be defeated until Jim Jeffries agreed to come back to the ring for a $101.000 price and 2/3 of the filmographic rights. The chosen city to hold the fight would be Reno, Nevada, one of the cities where still boxing was legal. Jeffries had to get himself fit to the fight and managed to loose 25 pounds gained during the retirement years at his farm. In return, Johnson made big Jeffrie hit the ground in the 15th round, and later on Jeffrei would declare to his friends: “I could never win Jack Johnson at my best”.

Riots would follow all over the US, started by bitter white folks, taken the lives of many black people. A white fellow would try to assassinate Johnson at his house in Chicago.

The white public and authorities couldn’t digest interracial marriage and passed a bill prohibiting white women slavery and prostitution. The fact that Johnson had some prostitutes as personal companions, drove the FBI to open a case against Johnson, sent teams to look for someone to stand against the champion in a court of law and since they couldn’t defeat him in the ring, the did it in the court: an all white jury agreed (like Bob dylan would put it) and gave him 1 year in prison. Johnson scape and spent some time in foreign countries till he voluntarily accepted to spend the year in an american jail.

I will leave the rest for you to see.

Two links to nowadays issues on the topic of the documentary
1.- At this time congressman McCain presses Obama to pardon black boxer? and right this wrong made in the past.
2.- Judge refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.
See this extracted from usatoday Posted by Doug Stanglin October 17, 2009:

Louisiana JP has no regrets over denying marriage license

Baton Rouge’s WAFB-TV reports that state Rep. Regina Barrow of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus has has signed off on a formal complaint requesting that the judiciary commission review the actions of the justice of the peace.
The justice of the peace at the center of the controversy tells WAFB TV in an exlcusive interview that he has no regrets over his actions and would do it again.
“It’s kind of hard to apologize for something that really and truly down in your heart you don’t feel you’ve done wrong,” Keith Bardwell told WAFB’s David Spunt on Saturday.
“I don’t regret what I did and if it ever came up again, I’d have to do the same thing,” Bardwell tells WAFB.
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said in a statement Bardwell’s practices and comments were deeply disturbing.
Not only does his decision directly contradict Supreme Court rulings, it is an example of the ugly bigotry that divided our country for too long,” she said.
Louisiana’s governor and a U.S. senator today have called for the ouster of the justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple, saying his actions clearly broke the law, the Associated Press reports.
The state’s Legislative Black Caucus and constitutional rights groups have also called for an investigation of Bardwell or his resignation.
Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a statement a nine-member commission that reviews lawyers and judges in the state should investigate, the AP reports.
“Disciplinary action should be taken immediately — including the revoking of his license,” Jindal said.

Original post:
A Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple last week says he’s no racist but has drawn a sharp rebuke from civil rights organizations in the state, The Daily Star reports.
The couple say they plan to consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.
Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, defends his actions by saying that it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long, The Star says.
“I’m not a racist,” Bardwell says. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”
Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, said they tried to get a marriage license last week but were told the JP will not sign licenses for interracial marriages.
“I simply can’t believe he can do that. That’s blatant discrimination,” Humphrey says, according to the newspaper.
Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Marjorie R. Esman called Bardwell’s move both “tragic and illegal,” the newspaper says.
Pat Morris, local NAACP president, says she was shocked to hear that the choice of a spouse is still an issue in the parish.
Bardwell, who has been a JP for 34 years, says the state attorney general told him years ago that he would eventually get into trouble for not performing interracial marriages, The Star says.
“I told him if I do, I’ll resign,” Bardwell says. “I have rights too. I’m not obligated to do that just because I’m a justice of the peace.”

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2714054

Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell bring up a magnificent documentary around the first single-handed, non-stop, round-the-world yacht race held in 1968, the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. Two prizes were giving, a golden globe to the man who finishes first in the race, and a 5000 pounds prize for the fastest man, but that was nothing compared to have your name written in the history books. There were no participation requirements, for this race wanted also to award those sailors who were already  at sea on their private round the globe seas sailing adventure, the sailors were to start the race anytime between the 1  till the 31 of October, in order to avoid the winter weather of cape Horn.

According to the written records we have, the first to solo circumnavigate the globe seas was the american Joshua Scolum in 1895 and took him more than 3 years to accomplish with only the help of dead reckoning at his Spray. The difference this time was that it was non stop. For the inspiration of the participants, in 1967, Francis Chichester was knighted by the Queen for his personal adventures and achievements representing the UK and one of the participants, Frenchman Bernard Moitessier will be inspired by Slocum, calling his barque, Joshua. The adventure was filled with dangers and incognitos, for no one knew whether a boat or a human could take it.

Nine were the sailors who started the race, one was the sole navigator seeing back UK coast. The protagonists of the quest were 6 Englishmen (John Ridgway, Chay Blyth, Robin Knox-Johnston, Bill King, Nigel Tetley and Donald Crowhurst), 2 french nationals (Loïck Fougeron and Bernard Moitessier) and Italian Alex Carozzo. All of them were experienced sailors, but Crowhurst; six of them retired in the course of the race, 1 sank and rescued and one committed suicide. The wild South Atlantic Sea,with its five-story waves, each of them so different from the previous one, and foresees nothing about the next one was in great part responsable of this.

The solitude, you, the boat and the sea; The need for outer communication with other humans; Under these conditions you start to better knowing yourself, how do you come out and cope with situations and challenges you were never tested before? You start analyzing your creeds, your family, your country, yourself,…

The nine participants would follow the already abandoned clipper route (after the opening of the Suez and Panama canals): from the UK, south into the Atlantic ocean, to pass the cape of Good Hope, towards Australia, New Zealand, the rest of the Pacific, cape of Horn to enter back into the South Atlantic back Northwards to the UK.
This is the kind of quest not for adventure, fame, prestige or money, is a voyage into isolation and the delicate mechanisms of the mind, a battle which many thought you would finish mentally handicapped, like happened with Slocum, who suffered of metal lapses after his prolonged periods of time in completely loneliness with the waves as sole companions.

Some others thought that if it wasn’t your demons dwelling inside you, it would be the sea who´d finish you, as it happened with Joshua Scolum himself, lost in the seas eventually.

Before getting into the real protagonist of this documentary I think it deserves to mention the most intriguing figure of them all: Frenchman Moitessier. He was so mingled, so united with its maritime environment, so in peace with himself, the boat, the elements,… that right before he had almost accomplished the target and finished the race, at the point where he had already surpassed the cape of Horn and being located at the coast of Brazil pointing towards the Northern UK, he reported to his wife at Paris: “We shall meet again later”. At the time when he was already 7 months at sea and 6 weeks from home, Moistessier abandoned the race and turned his  bow again towards the cape of Good Hope, he was sailing on around the world, … for a second time (another 21.000 nautical miles).

The main character in this piece is an unknown to sea sports fans, Donald Crowhurst, an ambitious, creative and charming individual married with 4 kids, who never really made it in any of the careers he started. This was for him his chance to make it big time, to come back home as a hero, to start a new with 5000 quids, to be recognized. He signed a contract with a local promoter, for which if the race is lost, Donald will have to buy back the boat built from scratch from the promoter, meaning, he will be bankrupted, so for Donald, loosing was not an option.

In order to get some more buzz and sponsors for his voyage, he was convinced to set sail 140 miles into the opposite direction of the race, to the North, and reached the coastal village in a 2 week time for what it was supposed to take him only 3 days, instant deception involved him together with the fact that he sailed without having completed any of his security devices, he expected to have them finished aboard at least before encountering the dangers of the South Atlantic. This never happened and made him realize this was probably his last endeavor. He was expected to communicate with new paper editors any time possible to report about his position, status, etc, in order to publish articles on the Sunday Times…and this is what he did…at the beginning.

Once he reached the South Atlantic ocean, the place that made Blyth and Ridgway retired, made him realized that he would never make it, so he started sending fictitious reports of his whereabouts so, while not moving from the Brazilian coast, could wait to the other two remaining sailors to make it back northward to the UK, and choose when to join them back, without actually ever sailing the whole race. The whole plan though will require to fake a sailing journey of hundreds of days inventing all the info in the logs, something quite challenging and even impossible, for after the race, these notebooks would be thoroughly revised by judges.

To come up with all that fake info and be accurate of every single day, and make it fit.
Right after rejoining the two remaining boats in the race, Tetley and Knox, Donald made up his mind and came to the conclusion that the farse would be discovered and total humiliation was not something he was prepared to cope with. The he wrote is his notebook these words:

“when I was 5 years old, I knew all about G’d, he was an old man who would punish me if I was naughty. By the time I was twenty, I decided there was no reason to expect any assistance from G’d, if he existed at all.”

“Man was avoiding his responsibility by constantly looking to G’d for assistance. The cosmic integral, the sum of man adds up to nothing (Sum?=[0]+[0]).”

“Do we go on clinging to the idea that G’d made us or realize that it lies withing us to make G’d. By learning to manipulate the space time continuum, man will become G’d and disappear from the physical universe as we know it.”

“I have become a second generation of cosmic being. I am conceived in the womb of nature, in my own mind, in the womb of the universe. I was forced to admit that nature forces on cosmic beings the only thing they are capable of: the sin of concealment. It is a small sin for a man to comit, but it is a terrible sin for a cosmic being.”

“I am what I am and I see the nature of my offense. I would only resign this game if you would agree that in the next occasion that this game is played it will be played by the rules devised by my great G’d. It is finished. It is finished. It is the mercy.”

“11:15:00. It is the end of my game. The truth has been revealed and it will be done as my family required it to do it.”

“11:20:14 There is no reason for harmful”

Robin Knox-Johnston took the race after 312 days.

Three videos in Italian, on “The Long Way”, about Bernard Moitessier’s journey around the globe, non stop, 1 full circumnavigation of the earth + 1/3 more till Haiti:

Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz

Surfwise is above all adjectives, an inspiring chant of life – life in a different, alternate way, to the standard path we all know. This is the story of the Paskowitz family, a Californian 9- kids patriarchal family who went through their adolescent years, brought together and glued by surf and by the centrifugal force that Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz – the ultimate beach boy, created.

A story of the quest for wisdom and life enriched with experience instead of knowledge and average know-how. Dorian truly touches you with first-hand life wisdom – the kind of wisdom so foreign to any university, college or school. These were the tools that Dorian wanted his kids to acquire when he raised them on a motor-home and embarked on a trip of the surfing way of life: eat healthy, live healthy, surf healthy. To some, these commandments may represent a motto, to others – a marketing technique, and to many Californians today and then – true words of faith.

Paskowitz Family

Doc was above all a surfer, the father of the first surfer family, who directed a surfing camp at San Onofre for many years, where the creme de la creme of surf gathered together, either to teach or to learn, and above all – to share their love for this fantastic sport/culture/philosophy/way of life. Doc taught his 9 children to eat healthy, so as to surf longer, and to contend with little – for when you take more than you need, you are in fact taking from someone else. And still, most of his children today, though some of them resent him – still make a living from surfing. Young Dorian abandoned Texas and chose to become a lifeguard in California.

Dorian Paskowitz at his best

He then studied medicine in Stanford, which he described as “a place to acquire knowledge, not wisdom”. He finally chose Hawaii as a place of residence and got married, but his first wife cheated on him and they were divorced. The trauma from the separation from his second wife led him to travel to  Israel, in search of his Jewish roots, and to seriously research the female sexual cycle, practically.

Dorian Paskowitz, the grandpa

He ended up back in the States, where he met his last wife, of Mexican origin, who received the highest score for her sexual performance, and to whom he is still happily married. It is mainly the story of a man who committed plenty of mistakes, also with the upbringing of his children, but who recognized them – and hoped for better. A truly wise human being. Score: 8.

surfwise family surfers

the family on the caravan

Bigger, Stronger, Faster is a fine documentary on the topic of steroids in the USA around a family of 3 male sport fans who decide to consume them in order to gain muscle. There is a resemblance with some of Michael Moore docs. The structure of this piece of journalism investigation is well formed and takes into account many relevant interviewers for and against the use, from the government, sports organizations and sportsmen. A pass through American history and how the use of steroids is well within American sports for a long time, how there are still discrepancies on what is legal and illegal when using steroids and how these are in used by almost all of pro sport people playing the game of stopping taking them at a certain moment in time so they are not caught by the doping test, Carl Lewis and Arnold Schwarzenegger included. Bottom line: everybody does steroids, if the drug company gives a cut to the government = the drug is legal. Alcohol and smoking kill hundreds of thousands yearly, while steroids produces reversible effects on the taker, yeah, and some people died while they used them, but the cause of death was another sickness they had. Score: 8.

Very interested documentary about the life and career of bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno. A deep inside in the life of a group of people totally dedicated, permanently training, dieting, focused under the unique goal of being proclaimed the best male body in the world: Mr. Olympia. Outstanding personalities make the difference for those determined to go down in the history of bodybuilding. Lou lost almost 85% of his hearing when he was 3 and was picked by the other kids and put aside, which tembled his own self steme and security. Lou found in muscle discipline a way to be protected from outside aggression (father included) and be perceived like an icon to b admired. Perseverance, martial behavior and a strong need to be recognized.

Score: 7.5