This blog will document an artistic collaboration between Ben Coode-Adams and Kris Cohen. The final work, to be performed from 28th-30th May at the Banff Centre, will stage simultaneous, real-time re-enactments of three related events: the first ascent of Everest in 1953, the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, and a commericial climb of Everest in 1996 which ended in disaster.

 
Kris and I went to see the Imax Everest film a couple of nights ago to get us in the mood. From a research point of view it was all a bit phony with a great many of the scenes mocked up. However there were some nice shots of climbers with head torches (which looked super bright to me, was that just reflection off the snow?). There was a good sense of the speed of moving at that altitude, ascending the Lhotse face.

I wonder if the only real way to give an audience a feeling for what Everest is like is to fictionalise it. After all the cold, the altitude, the wind, and the sheer scale of the mountain are practically impossible to show. In fact It is only when Beck Weathers appears in the film that the danger becomes apparent. Up to that point it is a gang of fit attractive young climbers romping about in the snow, who have to narrate the hardship as they all look fine. It is the perennial problem of mountaineering/exploration literature/film that in order to have an engaging story to tell there needs to be disaster. (John Rae, a remarkable explorer in every way, overly competent to the extent of being dull, except for the fact that he discovered the fate of Franklin, enabling that much more exciting story to be told). Invariably disaster is not captured on film as is the case with the Imax film (and Herbert Ponting's Scott film, '90degrees South'). The recent search for Mallory and Irvine only makes good TV and books (how many now?) because it allows the retelling of their story, obviously considerably enhanced by actually finding Mallory's body. I reckon explorers and mountaineers are divided into two, those that court disaster and those that strenuously avoid it. While we may hold Rae, Amundsen, Bonnington and Messner in esteem, even veneration, it is Scott, Shackleton, Joe Simpson and Beck Weathers who capture our imagination.
posted by Ben at 2:02 AM