Simpson was hanging in mid air, Yates was slipping, and unless he cut the rope they would both surely die. Touching the Void Region 2 DVD cover Directed byKevin Macdonald Produced byJohn Smithson StarringBrendan Mackey Nicholas Aaron Ollie Ryall Music byAlex Heffes CinematographyMike Eley Keith Partridge Edited byJustine Wright Production company FilmFour Productions Distributed byPathé Distribution Release date 5 September 2003 12 December 2003 Running time 106 minutes CountryUnited Kingdom LanguageEnglish Budget£2m Box office$13,885,802 Touching the Void is a 2… [3], During the making of the film, the director and producers invited Yates and Simpson to return to Siula Grande in 2002 for the first time since the events of 1985. I simply sat there before the screen, enthralled, fascinated and terrified. Yates' plan was to lower Simpson 300 feet and wait for a tug on the rope. Touching the Void, Essential Revision Notes. We also see the ordeal re-enacted by two actors (Brendan Mackey as Simpson, Nicholas Aaron as Yates), and experienced climbers are used as stunt doubles. Touching The Void - Boney M Brown Girl In The Ring - YouTube Now there is a movie more frightening than my nightmares. He then spends days crawling back to base camp across glaciers and rocks, despite his broken leg, frostbite, and severe dehydration. A good method in theory, but then, after dark, in a snow storm, Yates lowered Simpson over a precipice and left him hanging in mid-air over a drop of unknowable distance.

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. iRevise.com specialises in providing study tools and premium study content for the Junior and Leaving Certificate students in Ireland, as well as GCSE/IGCSE and A-Level/International A-Level students. Touching The Void Summary.

Original music for the film was scored by Alex Heffes. In 1985, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, both experienced mountaineers, set out to ascend the previously unclimbed West Face of Siula Grande in Peru. Touching the Void (2003) Plot.

Showing all 4 items Jump to: Summaries (3) Synopsis (1) Summaries. (In the process, Simpson became a … It didn't work out that way. The Guardian described it as "the most successful documentary in British cinema history".[1]. We know that Simpson survived, because the movie shows the real-life Simpson and Yates, filmed against plain backgrounds, looking straight on into the camera, remembering their adventure in their own words. Snowstorms slowed and blinded them. Welcome to TouchingTheVoid.com, the web site for Joe Simpson, mountaineer, author, conference speaker and the subject of the BAFTA Award winning film “ Touching the Void “. Roped together, they worked with one man always anchored, and so Yates was able to hold the rope when Simpson had a sudden fall. The film stars Brendan Mackey as Joe Simpson, Nicholas Aaron as Simon Yates, and Ollie Ryall as Richard Hawking, and combines dramatizations with interviews with Simpson, Yates, and Hawking. This film is an unforgettable experience, directed by Kevin Macdonald (who made "One Day In September," the Oscar-winner about the 1972 Olympiad) with a kind of brutal directness and simplicity that never tries to add suspense or drama (none is needed!) It went on to gross $4,593,598 in America and $9,292,204 from foreign markets for a worldwide total of $13,885,802 after 20 weeks.[9]. Simpson, despite finding the return emotionally difficult and experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome on his return, eventually said that he was happy with the film and its portrayal of the events. But there is a floor far below, and in the morning he sees light and is able, incredibly, to crawl out to the mountainside. Both of them knew that a broken leg on a two-man climb, with rescue impossible, was a death sentence, and indeed Simpson tells us he was rather surprised that Yates decided to stay with him and try to get him down. but simply tells the story, as we look on in disbelief. He is hungry, dehydrated, and in cruel pain from the bones grinding together in his leg (two aspirins didn't help much). If you plan to see the film -- it will not disappoint you -- you might want to save the rest of the review until later. Yates cannot see where he is lowering Simpson, and inadvertently lowers him over the edge of a large cliff, leaving him suspended by the rope in mid-air. [7], The BBC1's Film 2011 included Brendan Mackey's performance as Joe Simpson in their "Top Five Actors" who "Should Have Won an Oscar", along with Ingrid Bergman (for Casablanca), Anthony Perkins (for Psycho), Ralph Fiennes (for Schindler's List) and Jeff Bridges (for The Big Lebowski). He assumes Simpson is dead and returns to the base camp alone, where he stays to recover. Not for me the discussions about the utility of the "pseudo-documentary format," or questions about how the camera happened to be waiting at the bottom of the crevice when Simpson fell in. Simpson’s book about his improbable survival, Touching the Void, has sold more than 1m copies and in 2003 became a Bafta-winning film. The true story of two climbers and their perilous journey up the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. How he did it provides an experience that at times had me closing my eyes against his agony. Now also a theatre production in the West End, from November 2019. "10 Incredible Documentaries That Weren't Nominated For An Oscar", "BBC One – Film 2011 with Claudia Winkleman", "Touching the Void (2004) – Box Office Mojo", Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Touching_the_Void_(film)&oldid=979179152, Films directed by Kevin Macdonald (director), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 19 September 2020, at 07:58.

The film received largely positive reviews, with 94% of critics' reviews being positive on Rotten Tomatoes. So there he is, in total darkness and bitter cold, his fuel gone so that he cannot melt snow, his lamp battery running low, and no food. Touching the Void is a 2003 docudrama survival film directed by Kevin Macdonald and starring Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron, and Ollie Ryall. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of “Touching The Void” by Joe Simpson. You're so stupid! [8], The film was released in theaters on 23 January 2004 and grossed $96,973 in the opening weekend. Simpson, however, has actually survived the fall and is now trapped in a large crevasse. But it was disastrous: He broke his leg, driving the calf bone up through the knee socket. They limited their supplies to reduce weight, and planned to go up and down quickly. You climbed all the way up there just so you could fall back down!". [4], According to the film's end notes, Yates received a great deal of criticism from the mountaineering community for cutting the rope on his partner during the descent after the climbers returned to Britain and the story of what happened emerged. [6], Peter Knegt at Indiewire called it one of the "10 incredible documentaries that weren't nominated for an Oscar". Touching the Void won Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 57th British Academy Film Awards. Sign in or sign up in order to view resources on iRevise, Sign In The climbers reach the summit to the climax of Thomas Tallis's Spem in alium. Yates descends after surviving a subzero and stormy night on the mountain but cannot find his partner. Learning this, I was reminded of Boss Gettys' line about Citizen Kane: "He's going to need more than one lesson."

"Touching the Void" is the most harrowing movie about mountain climbing I have seen, or can imagine. Yates and Simpson had a 300-foot rope. Simpson and Yates doubled as their younger selves for long-distance shots of the snow-fluted couloirs of Siula Grande. I didn't take a single note during this film. We learn at the end that after two years of surgery Simpson's leg was repaired, and that (but you anticipated this, didn't you?) The ascent was doable, but on the way down, the storms disoriented them and the drifts concealed the hazard of hidden crevices and falls. he went back to climbing again. Critically acclaimed, Touching the Void was listed in PBS's "100 Greatest Documentaries of All Time". Moving Forward Together: Julianne Moore and Bette Midler on The Glorias, NYFF 2020: Malmkrog, Days, I Carry You With Me, AMC's Gangs of London a Bold Continuation of the Mafia Movie Tradition, Bright Wall/Dark Room September 2020: You Can Have Me for Nothing: Escaping the Cynicism of Ace in the Hole by Elizabeth Cantwell. Yates, on the other hand, reported having no emotional response to returning to Siula Grande, and decided to have nothing to do with the film once he had returned from the mountain. So he eventually gambles everything on a strategy that seems madness itself, but was his only option other than waiting for death: He uses the rope to lower himself down into the unknown depths below. In my dreams my rope has come lose and I am falling, falling, and all the way down I am screaming: "Stupid! . According to interviews with Yates however, the climbing community (including Simpson) has always sided with him on that matter, and accused the film of being selectively edited and one-sided.[5]. During one of Simpson's many deliriums, he experiences a very strong reminiscence of a Boney M song he hated thoroughly, "Brown Girl in the Ring"; at one point thinking "Bloody hell, I'm going to die to Boney M". So he cut the rope. Our standard features are FREE, while our Premium users also have access to premium study notes, exam papers, aurals, MCQs, Exam Creator, video tutorials, and sample exam papers. That he did it is manifest, since he survived to write a book and appear in the movie.

What we can hardly believe is what happens next, and what makes the film into an incredible story of human endurance. 16 February 2004. "Touching the Void" is the most harrowing movie about mountain climbing I have seen, or can imagine. After an hour or so, he realized they were at an impasse. Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film, "Joe Simpson interview: 'I'm not an easy person to be with. The book is written in a 13 chapters – the traditionally unlucky number for the superstitious. The pair attempt a self-rescue, deciding to lower Simpson with ropes down the steep and snowy slope while an enormous storm rages on. The movie was shot on location in Peru and also in the Alps, and the climbing sequences are always completely convincing; the use of actors in those scenes is not a distraction because their faces are so bearded, frost-bitten and snow-caked that we can hardly recognize them. Because they were out of earshot in the blizzard, all Yates could know was that the rope was tight and not moving, and his feet were slipping out of the holes he had dug to brace them. I've read reviews from critics who were only moderately stirred by the film (my friend Dave Kehr certainly kept his composure), and I must conclude that their dreams are not haunted as mine are. I've read reviews from critics who were only moderately stirred by the film (my friend Dave Kehr certainly kept his composure), and I must conclude that their dreams are not haunted as mine are. That meant Simpson had dug in and anchored himself and it was safe for Yates to climb down and repeat the process. "Touching the Void" was, for me, more of a horror film than any actual horror film could ever be. Unable to pull Simpson back over the cliff and gradually losing traction in the loose snow, Yates realizes after about an hour that there is little chance of recovery from this situation for either of them and he decides to cut the rope connecting him with Simpson. I hope to God the rest of his speech does not apply to Simpson: "... and he' s going to get more than one lesson.".