PRODUCTION NOTES
Over the last fifteen years, many people have tried to make a film of Joe Simpson's "Touching the Void," including Sally Field, who hoped to turn it into a feature film starring Tom Cruise.
Perhaps the story resisted fictionalisation as its power comes from its being rooted in reality. It was with that in mind that journalist and co-producer Sue Summers first contacted Simpson about having a film version be produced by Darlow Smithson, a leading British independent production company with a special expertise in docudrama.
Summers was so taken by the power of "Touching the Void" that she immediately recognized its potential as a film. "It is about human endurance and overcoming a terrible situation against all odds. I think it's very inspirational – so many people have found this story very inspiring in their own lives." Darlow Smithson's John Smithson readily agreed and was so excited by the project that put some of
his company responsibilities aside to serve as producer on "Touching The Void."
After years of attempts to turn this story into a film, Simpson warmed to the approach that Darlow Smithson was proposing. "If you had invented storylines to make things work, it just wouldn't seem true. Likewise, a lot of people have said about the book that if it had been written as fiction it would have been seen as laughable."
"It occurred to us that a dramatized documentary could tell the true story in a way that a feature never could," says Summers.
Bringing documentary and drama together for mainstream cinema release presented new challenges to director Kevin Macdonald, best known for "One Day in September," which won the best documentary Academy Award for 2000. "The dramatized sections in documentaries are usually played by faceless figures simply illustrating the actions and we really wanted to steer clear of that," says Macdonald. "We wanted
you to be really with the real people and the actors—it's a fine balance but I think we found two excellent actors with good physical resemblance to Joe and Simon."
The film was shot in three distinct sections. First, Simpson and Yates were interviewed in a London studio. Then the filmmakers went to Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes, during a narrow window of good weather in the month of June. The third phase of filming took place in the Alps in October.
Siula Grande is extremely isolated and there are no real roads to this 21,000 feet giant. The base camp is at a higher altitude than Europe's highest peak, Mont Blanc, so the thinness of the air alone was an enormous challenge for the crew. After the road ran out, the cast and crew had to trek for three days through the foothills to reach the base camp. The location was so high and isolated that it was impossible to use helicopters
so equipment and supplies were carried on the backs of eighty donkeys.
The sheer scale of the climb and the remote and dangerous terrain made a full film shoot impossible so the crew focused on filming visuals of the Siula Grande mountain and recording Simpson and Yates' reactions as they revisited the mountain together for the first time. This latter element led to a new challenge that neither the crew nor Simpson and Yates had expected. Joe in particular was overwhelmed with the emotional reactions
he experienced upon arriving at Siula Grande again. "I thought that I would just be able to deal with it," says Joe, "but I found that things really affected me strongly in ways I had never expected….I remembered it all and started having a freak-out in my head. I wasn't shaking but I felt like I was. It was like someone walking over your grave. I had forgotten just how appalling it was being reduced to almost nothing."
The greatest challenges came with the filming in the Alps, which took place in treacherous terrain and temperatures that sometimes dropped to twenty below zero. "The air was thin, dehydration was a constant issue and hypothermia remained a threat day and night," says producer John Smithson. "We all had basic training about where to walk, where not to walk, when to wear crampons, always wearing a harness, always
being roped together. You would be lowered into a crevasse, break through the snow and realize that there was actually a huge cathedral like space underneath it that you could have fallen into."
"It was terribly difficult," says Macdonald. "The camera freezing up, the lenses fogging over, the actors and ourselves getting pulled aside by the safety guys because they said it was too cold and we were going to get frostbitten. We had to go in and out half an hour at a time. And it's a lot of action with no dialogue so you've got to be very physical nonstop. Every day was a fight just to get things done."
But Macdonald felt that all the hardship was worthwhile. "It was an amazing experience," says Macdonald. "There are landscapes in the film that people have never seen before and have never been shown in film. Beautiful, awe-inspiring and also very frightening – it gave me nightmares actually."
At its heart, "Touching the Void" is about enduring the unendurable. How does one act when you are facing challenges—physical, mental and moral? How do you find the will to make a decision and live with the consequences? Where do you find the energy to press on when others give up?
"You hear stories of people who have gone through great hardship like this, says Macdonald," and I think it fulfills a psychological need. Because we all lead such comfortable, cozy lives, hearing stories of people who have really tested themselves takes us back to what is truly important."
"I don't like getting close to death or being so scared – it's a horrible sensation," says Simpson. "But the satisfaction is in dealing with it, not cracking up, staying in control and getting out of it."
"If you get near death it's not good but you get a very clear perspective of what's important, and it's not your mortgage and it's not your job, it's just the fact that you are here. After something like this happens, you have a changed perspective…and you know about living." |
