Why Watch "Everest"? Because It's There!

Everest

Every few years disaster strikes on Mount Everest and multiple debates about climbing the tallest mountain in the world begin. The most basic question that is always at the heart of Everest is, “Why?” The film, Everest, directly posits this question as well, and the characters, in unison, shout George Mallory’s famous line: “Because it’s there!” The characters give serious answers afterward, but that line gets to the root of most reasons why people climb and also why the film exists. Everest is there, and such an imposing example of nature will always fascinate climbers and viewers alike.

There is no shortage of disaster stories from Everest’s deadly history, but the 1996 climbing season was possibly the most documented making it the obvious choice for source material. Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air is the most famous account of the climb, but Everest went with a more broad scope in an attempt to present more viewpoints of the event. This makes Everest more accessible, but the lack of focus also leads to some characters receiving short shrift. That said, enough character building is done to make the human drama a very effective counterbalance to the visual spectacle of the film.

The draw of Everest is definitely the spectacle, though. Any film about Everest needs to be about the beauty of the deadly mountain and the general experience of climbing it. In that regard, Everest is extremely successful. The shots of the mountain are stunning, but, more importantly, the actors seem to be truly struggling as they make their way higher and higher. The film shows how brutal the climb truly is, even when climbers are paying to be shepherded up the mountain. The climbers are basically dying the last few thousand feet since humans aren’t meant to survive at such altitudes. Director Baltasar Kormákur said in an interview that he’s “fine” with putting actors through “a little bit of pain” and it definitely shows.

It’s important for the film to hammer home the difficulty of the climb to make the major question of the film more pertinent. Why put yourself through this? Why risk your life? This question is doubly relevant when you add in the weather conditions that led to the 1996 disaster. Is it worth losing your life for the glory of reaching the top? Everest does not presume to answer this question, but the characters obviously think that it is very much worth it. It’s important that the film ultimately leaves the answer up to the viewer since it is a real world question that is still relevant, especially since Everest’s deadliest day occurred this past April. The bigger question then becomes about commercial climbing. In other words, should less-experienced climbers be allowed to pay professional guides to get them to the top? Multiple times in the film, money is mentioned, and the guides clearly want to get people to the top so they can stay in business. Would the disaster of 1996 have happened if the guides didn’t feel that pressure to get more people to the top, especially with a journalist in two who was going to write about it? The film’s screenwriters (William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy) wisely stop short of blatantly demonizing the practice of guided climbing, leaving it ultimately up to the viewer.

The question of Everest then becomes, “Why recreate these terrible events?” That is difficult to answer. Much like any film based on real, tragic events, there is a tricky line that is toed between reverence and exploitation. “Everest” does not come across as exploitative, but there are moments near the end (which did actually happen) that felt too personal to be recreated, much less witnessed by millions of viewers. (This is a slight SPOILER so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t know the true story and don’t want any part of the film spoiled.) Near the end of the film, one of the main characters, Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), has a conversation with his pregnant wife via a walkie-talkie/satellite phone hook-up as he is dying. It felt too personal to read about it in Into Thin Air, and it felt even more personal watching it recreated. The film seems aware of this, however, as there are multiple reaction shots of characters listening in on the interaction. Everyone is crying, and most people watching the film will be crying as well. This moment is so important because this is where the film might lose the audience. It feels a bit too manipulative, but it actually did happen this way. It’s hard to fault a movie for being melodramatic when it’s based on a real moment. The scene proved to be a double-edged sword for me. It made the film much more emotional and powerful than I expected it to be, but it also convinced me that I never wanted to watch it again.

Any emotion created in a scene is also the product of the actors involved. Clarke is great throughout, but he is truly heartbreaking at the end of the film. Keira Knightley, as Hall’s wife, gives an effective performance as well, especially considering that her scenes were just her talking on the phone. The rest of the cast of Everest is equally impressive: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robin Wright, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington, and Emily Watson. Brolin is given the meatiest role as Beck Weathers, a man whose experiences could have been a movie on its own. The rest have their moments, but the only weak point of the film is that some of the cast is underutilized, specifically Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal portrays Scott Fischer, who was known as kind of a rock star mountain climber. This reputation leads to a slightly strange performance as Fischer seems to be constantly drunk and/or angry, but it’s never explained completely. It seems that once Gyllenhaal was cast, the screenwriters wanted to beef up the role, but couldn’t devote enough time to create a fully fleshed out character. That said, Gyllenhaal brings enough charisma to the role to justify his appearance; you’re just left wanting more.

If anything, the main issue with Everest is that you’re left wanting more. It’s a true story with so many characters it’s impossible to feel like the full story has been told in two hours. Thankfully, there are multiple books and articles that delve deeply into the individual experiences. So Everest is more of a snapshot of Everest and all the human drama that comes with it. It is a very effective film that makes you appreciate (and question) the struggle people go through to achieve their dreams. As a short glimpse into the world of commercial climbing and the tragedy it can bring, Everest works on every important level. It won’t (and can’t) answer the question of why people climb Everest, but it does present a fascinating example of people who took up the challenge and paid the ultimate price.

Everest receives a:

An English Teacher Reviews "The Great Gatsby"

Directed by Baz Luhrmann, written by Luhrmann & Craig Pearce, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, and Jason Clarke - Rated PG-13

Preface: This review is mainly for people who have also read the novel.  I didn’t focus much on how the film will be perceived by non-readers simply because I cannot imagine what their experience might be like.  That said, I get the impression that if you liked Baz Luhrmann’s other films, like Romeo + Juliet or Moulin Rouge, then you will like The Great Gatsby.

 

I represent a dark side of America, too, friendo.

 

 

The Great Gatsby has been the bane of high school students for years.  The story, set in the 1920s, is filled with symbolism and disillusionment, two things most teenagers aren’t very concerned with.  As an English teacher, I looked forward to the challenge the book presented as a teaching device, but I was disappointed that there was not an interesting adaptation to show my students after reading.  For better or worse, English teachers all over now have the adaptation they need to show students to get a response. 

 

I am not a “movie teacher.”  By that, I mean that movie days in my class are few and far between.  I may be the “movie guy” to my friends and colleagues, but when it comes to literature, there is no replacement for honestly reading the material.  Faithful adaptations are anathema to my classes.  The only reason to show a class a movie is to aid in their understanding of the source material and, more importantly, get them to think about it in new, interesting ways.  I always require students to write an essay after watching an adaptation.  What can you write about a faithful adaptation?  “I liked watching more than reading”?  “The lighting was good”?  A plain film serves no purpose.  I prefer the crazier adaptations because they keep students interested and opinionated.  When I first read that writer/director Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet) was making The Great Gatsby, I knew this version would be worth watching.

I was able to take my junior class to see The Great Gatsby on opening day (special thanks to Tell City Cinemas for setting up the individual screening for my class).  We had recently finished reading the novel, and I was hoping this adaptation would be interesting enough to get a response from them.  That definitely proved to be the case.  This version of Gatsby is not only interesting, but, more importantly, it’s entertaining.

 

The same qualities I find interesting and entertaining may leave some people baffled, however.  The most obvious element up for debate is the use of music in the film.  The soundtrack is largely made up of current rap and pop artists, yet the film is still firmly set in the 1920s.  I think the music matches up perfectly with the tone of the film.  The music was an odd fit at first, but by the end it seemed natural to me.  Others may disagree with me.  Some people will simply not be able to get past the fact that music from the 2010s is playing while 1920s characters dance.  It can be jarring, but if you’re willing to go with it, I think it is one of the film’s strongest points.

 

Equally important is the casting of the film.  The role of Gatsby is important in that it requires an actor who can express elegance, charisma, and boundless hope.  That pretty much describes Leonardo DiCaprio to a T, so obviously he was perfectly cast in this.  It isn’t exactly a stretch of a role for the eternally young actor, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive.  On the more surprising side, Tobey Maguire made for a very effective Nick Carraway.  Maguire’s constant stare of boyish wonder usually annoys me, but it’s the perfect visage for the character of Carraway.  It is especially effective once Nick becomes sickened by those around him and that boyish stare turns into a dead glare.  Carey Mulligan makes it easy to feel sympathy for Daisy.  Joel Edgerton brings perfect physicality to the role of Tom.  Jason Clarke is effective as Wilson in a few short scenes.  And Isla Fisher is decent as Myrtle, but that character felt a little shortchanged in this adaptation.

 

Shortchanged characters aside, Gatsby is a surprisingly faithful adaptation.  Of course there are a few changes here and there, such as the absence of Gatsby’s father and the inclusion of a framing device for the story, but the overall theme of the novel is intact, which is the most important aspect to me.  The theme regarding the death of the American dream is still relevant today (and always will be) which is why the novel is still taught to students across the country.  The film does a good job conveying that theme and an even better job at explaining the symbolism of the novel.  Anyone who’s read the novel probably remembers the green light and the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, and if you don’t remember them, the film will make sure that you do by the end of the 140+ minute running time.  I’m glad both elements received so much attention in the film, though I think some of it was a bit too blatant (Wilson pointing at the eyes and screaming that they are the “eyes of God” comes to mind). 

 

The music, acting, and novel elements are all excellent fodder for a student to write a response, but there’s still the matter of style.  Luhrmann has established himself as an interesting director many times over, but Romeo + Juliet is the best comparison to be made here.  That film featured frenetic elements and borderline cartoonish qualities.  Gatsby takes place in a more realistic world than that film, but it is still frantic.  The driving scenes are insane, the editing is rapid-fire, and the party scenes are pure chaos. 

 


The partying is the main selling point for Gatsby, both as a film and a novel.  I certainly focused on it heavily while teaching it.  The point is not to glorify it, though.  The parties or drinking episodes in the novel are not treated as good times meant to be emulated by others.  Instead, we see the parties through Nick’s eyes, and he has come to the conclusion that these events are not happy moments, but are actually the shallow proceedings of a morally bankrupt group.  It’s easy to get that point when you’re reading about the parties; it’s a bit more difficult to pick up on that message when the parties are visually presented with lavish dance numbers and whatnot, all presented in 3D, no less.  (For the record, I have not seen the film in 3D, but I can hardly imagine that it changes the experience much one way or the other.)  Still, the film does not glorify the lifestyle of the characters.  Others may disagree because the parties take the center stage, but as I watched those scenes, I didn’t think, “Oh, how cool.”  My thoughts drifted more towards, “When will these parties end?”   



The Great Gatsby is essentially about the end of the party.  The novel and the film convey that message to the reader/viewer.  Is it possible that viewers will miss that point?  Of course, but they’ll stay awake through the proceedings.  The biggest hurdle any teacher faces while teaching Gatsby is the boredom complaint.  While I find the themes of the novel fascinating, I definitely encountered a student or two that “just didn’t get it” or “couldn’t get into it.”  As the kids filed out of the movie theater, even the ones who didn’t exactly love the movie told me they were surprised by how interested it kept them.  If that’s not a sign of a successful adaptation of a novel force fed to a teenager, I don’t know what is.





Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)




"I'm so tired of partying.  So very tired."

Yes, that is Slurms McKenzie from Futurama to the right.  I couldn't resist including it.

The framing device bothered me a little bit because it turned Carraway into an alcoholic.  Maybe I'm just too trusting of Carraway as a narrator, but I never got the impression that he was drinking himself into an institution throughout the novel.  In fact, I always pictured him as the sober guy at the party, casting judgment on everyone.  I think the novel backs me up on this since the one scene in which he admits being drunk (at Myrtle's apartment) is a haze of random events (staged wonderfully in the movie, by the way), while the rest of the parties are reported on in quite a sober manner.  Having him constantly drink throws doubt on the entire proceeding.  I know there's a question of his bias as a narrator anyway, but the alcohol makes him seem much more like an unreliable narrator. 

That said, I still accept the framing device since it gives a reason for the words to appear onscreen.  The teacher/dork in me enjoyed seeing some of Fitzgerald's greatest lines recreated that way.

I was okay with Gatsby's dad not showing up at the end.  It seems almost better that he's absent so he seems that much more alone in death. 

I was not okay with the absence of Daisy and Tom's daughter.  I know she finally shows up in the end, but I think it would have been very effective had she appeared in the other scenes she was supposed to be in, especially the one with Gatsby.  In the novel, Gatsby reacts strangely to the child, appearing to not have believed she existed until that moment.  It is effective because it is part of the crumbling dream he has.  Here is physical proof that Daisy and Tom have something together.  It is obviously not part of his grand fantasy.  I can live without the scene, but I think the film would have been better with it, and it would only have taken up thirty seconds or so of the running time.

Gatsby doesn't freak out and almost punch Tom in the novel, but I enjoyed that change.  In the novel, Gatsby suffers a quiet defeat.  That's fine, and it shows how dreams can, and often do, die silent deaths.  But that scene in the hotel room was building with such tension that a quiet ending would have been a let down.  Everyone is sweating and uncomfortable, there's a topic brought up that would normally be kept quiet, there's an ice pick... That scene needed some yelling to finish it up.  And who better to yell out in fury than DiCaprio?

I was definitely not okay with Gatsby being a scrapbooker.  In the novel, he mentions that he has some "clippings" of Daisy, but it doesn't say he busts out a full scrapbook that has been carefully put together.  I know Gatsby had some time to kill in that five years leading up to the reunion, but I simply can't imagine him sitting home with his Elmer's rubber cement, pasting newspaper articles onto construction paper.  Sure, maybe he had a servant do it, but I don't buy that.  And it's equally ridiculous to imagine him handing newspaper clippings to a maid, demanding that a scrapbook be made.  Am I blowing this out of proportion?  Absolutely.  But sometimes small details like that really bother me.



"Zero Dark Thirty" Is About Much More Than Torture

 

Zero Dark Thirty - Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, written by Mark Boal, starring Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, and Mark Strong - Rated R

 

 

 

 

The killing of Osama bin Laden, or UBL, as he’s referred to in this film, captivated me much as it captivated most of the western world.  It was one of those strange moments in history when we found ourselves cheerful and exuberant because of a death. Okay, not just “a” death, but “the” death of the world’s most infamous terrorist. After the good feelings subsided, the questions began. How did they find him? Who shot him? Where’s the body? Are their pictures? Those types of questions can hold interesting answers, sure, but there are much more important questions, such as: Does this change anything? Was all the work and money spent really worth it? Had people died in vain during the long search? Zero Dark Thirty, the latest from director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), attempts to answer, and at least asks, most if not all of both types of questions.

Zero Dark Thirty handles the why and the how of the manhunt expertly. We’re given multiple examples of the terrorism that explain the need for UBL’s capture, most notably the sounds of 9/11 played over a black screen. Then we are presented with how information was procured not just for UBL’s capture, but also in the attempt to thwart any terrorism. This, of course, is where the film ventures into controversial territory because torture (depending on your definition of the word) was used in the early years of the war on terror. The debate is whether the film condones torture as an effective means of gaining intelligence. Some are using the film as evidence that, yes, torture brought us the information to get UBL. Is that true? Sort of. Certainly advances are made by the investigators in the film thanks to torture, but in no way is this film some ringing endorsement of the practice. If anything, the film makes it clear that torture messes people up on both sides of the situation. It also shows that information can be gained through nonviolent means, as well. Anyway, this film will only start an argument about torture; it won’t finish it.

Because of the torture elements, Zero Dark Thirty can be a difficult film to watch, but that’s the point. The main character, CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain), appears to serve as a representative of the audience when we first see her. She is in the interrogation chamber, and she seems sickened by what she sees. Thankfully, Maya is not simply a personification of how the audience should feel because, once left alone with the detainee, she does not cry or turn into a sympathetic, helpful woman. Instead, she coldly lets the detainee know that they want information, and they are going to get it.

 

If Zero Dark Thirty is anything more than a procedural about the UBL manhunt, then it is a character portrait of Maya.  Perhaps Maya does not necessarily represent the audience so much as she is the personification of the war on terror.  Are terrible means justified by the ends?  Just how long can people keep fighting this war?  Maya has to go through all of that along with being faced with actual terrorism.  It is because of this focus, and Chastain’s amazing performance, that Zero Dark Thirty becomes much more than a docudrama.  Chastain is equal parts victim and perpetrator.  I don’t mean that legally speaking, but emotionally.  It’s a very hard balance to strike without seeming completely inconsistent, but Chastain is able to convey, believably, a character than can cry one moment and face down her boss or a detainee the next.

 

The rest of the cast is impressive, as well, if not for performances then for the sheer variety of it.  The standout, aside from Chastain, has to be Jason Clarke, as a slightly eccentric interrogator.  He brings some serious intensity to the role and a surprising amount of much needed comedic relief.  I’m not sure why he’s being left out of the previews so much because he carries a bit of the film’s weight.  The rest of the cast is great, but those two performances really stood out to me.

 

Watching the previews, one would assume that this film is largely about the raid on UBL’s compound.  This is misleading, just as the focus on Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt in the previews is misleading (they are minor characters in the overall film).  Zero Dark Thirty is a modern spy film in that the majority of it is about the inner politics of the CIA and how information is gathered, lost, painstakingly analyzed, ignored, etc.  It is interesting that James Bond is experiencing a resurgence the same year that this film is released because Maya represents a realistic Bond character in that she is not allowed to do all the things Bond can do even though her ultimate goal is similar to Bond’s in that she wants to stop the bad guy.  There is nothing glamorous about the work Maya does.  To be honest, most of it is boring.  The tediousness of the work explains the lengthy running time of the film (over two and a half hours).  This was not a simple task, and it was also bogged down in politics.  There’s no need to try and spice that up and lie about how things work in the modern spy world.  It may seem strange to praise a film for focusing on tedium, but I feel that it helps the audience identify with Maya’s struggle throughout. 

 

Perhaps tedious is not the best word because I truly found all of the film to be interesting.  It’s just that at some point, since we all know the ending, you start to think, “Okay, come on, we get it, move on.”  This is what Maya is thinking the entire time, as well, though, which is why it works. 

 

There are certain spy elements that may seem a bit boring as Maya goes through files and videos, but Zero Dark Thirty also features some extremely skillfully filmed action elements.  Director Kathryn Bigelow (who was inexplicably snubbed by the Academy) has done an amazing job of recreating events and filming them in a clear way that is easy to follow.  And while Zero Dark Thirty may not contain as many insanely tense moments as The Hurt Locker, it still surpasses that film in ambition and technique.  Bigelow is certainly experiencing the apex of her career right now.  Credit is due to screenwriter Mark Boal, too, as he has turned in an exhaustively researched script that never feels fake or too extensive. 

 

Overall, I am glad I held off from compiling my top ten list until I had seen this film because it will certainly be on it.  Zero Dark Thirty is an immensely effective, entertaining, and thought-provoking film that features a masterful leading performance.  It pretty much does everything that I think a movie should do, and it does it well.  Don’t look to Zero Dark Thirty to form your opinion on torture, look to it for a much larger picture of the war on terror and what it has all been about.  It won’t answer all of the questions for you, necessarily, but it will make you think, and that is much more effective.