The Epic of Everest

Comprised entirely of silent footage taken during the Mallory and Irvine expedition of 1924.

I doubt I'm revealing much of a spoiler when I say it didn't end well. Knowing the fate that befell the young men on the mountain, it makes the footage all the more poignant, particularly the early scenes featuring smiling, optimistic faces at the beginning of their challenge.

Although digitally remastered, it's hard to believe your watching footage that is (almost) a century old. The skies, the mountain peaks, and the small, close details captured on film look almost as fresh as anything from the modern era.

There is a subtle ambient soundtrack played throughout the film that really adds to both the impressive, otherworldly landscape of wonder and the creeping, inescapable finality of how it will play out. A strangely disturbing mix of the ephemeral and the eternal. (Easily the most pretentious thing I've typed in years!)

Brilliant.

Newly restored by the British Film Institute with a specially-composed score, THE EPIC OF EVEREST recounts the failed attempt to scale Mount Everest by Mallory, Irvine and their cohorts. Dating from 1924, the film offers a fascinating insight into attitudes at that time. It begins with a description of arriving in Tibet, and the filmmakers' impressions of the locals; there is a combination of strangeness and colonialism that seems typical of Britain and its people at that time. They considered themselves at once superior to yet somehow inhibited by the presence of different ways of life. As the action unfolds, however, so the tone changes, as the members of the expedition discover just how difficult the task of conquering Everest actually is. Judging from the film, their equipment was rudimentary, to say the least; the mountaineers' outfits of puttees and parkas seems more suited to the Scottish Highlands rather than the Himalayas. In the end the two brave mountaineers who made an assault on the Everest's peak fail to return: the film concludes that perhaps they were thwarted not so much by their own hubris, but by the presence of Everest itself, that resisted any attempt at colonization. This is a fascinating conclusion, perhaps suggesting a gradual dawning in the filmmakers' minds that territories (and peoples) do not automatically submit themselves to imperialist rule. Some of the photography is simply breathtaking, given the equipment available at that time. THE EPIC OF EVEREST is well worth watching as a period-piece as well as an insight into mid-Twenties attitudes and how they could be re-evaluated.

The other reviews of this wonderful film will give the reader more than enough motivation to watch it himself. I would like to add the point, however, that Mallory & Co. did not consider themselves to be personally superior to the natives. The film expresses a lot of respect for these hearty and isolated people, including praises for their unremitting cheerfulness towards their work. Such praises have been a part of the history of Everest exploration since that time. The Tibetan and Nepalese quite admirable. However it is probably true that Mallory and Irvine did believe they came from a more advanced society and I think that too is indisputable.

We are so steeped in cultural relativism that we fail to make this distinction. It is a distinction that the natives themselves have made; as over the decades they have adopted as many innovations as have been introduced to their country. After seeing many films of Everest explorations I suspect that they have less nostalgia about their "old ways" and modes of living than many Westerners--steeped in romantic notions about the purity indigenous peoples--believe.

Soon will reach its centennial, J.B.L. Noel's pioneering documentary of mountaineering is restored to its mint condition by the BFI National Archive, THE EPIC OF EVEREST is the official record of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine's fateful 1924 British Mount Everest expedition, and the sole fact of the film's own existence should be hailed and venerated as a tremendous cinematic triumph.

Unthinkable of bringing the entire film-making apparatus to the Everest region at its time, whose nature environs (with its rarefied altitude and gelid temperature) alone seriously challenge the preservation of film stocks, to say nothing of how the team can operate the actual filming process, THE EPIC OF EVEREST solemnly and preciously lifts a corner of the veil off the insurmountable Mount Everest to the eyes of its safely ensconced beholders (color-tinted magnificence evokes a particular otherworldliness which can perfect define the epithet "early filmic").....

continue reading my review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

As a silent film enthusiast and as someone who has taught close to 30 classes on silent movies at the local university, I have seen a LOT of silent movies including a number of silent documentaries but nothing quite like THE EPIC OF EVEREST. I was vaguely aware of the 1924 George Mallory expedition but was unaware that they had taken a movie camera with them and recorded all but the last 2000 feet of the climb (the last part done with an early telephoto lens). I knew that Mallory and his associate Andrew Irvine had perished some 600 feet from the summit and that their bodies had not been recovered (Mallory's was found 75 years later and buried on the mountain). This astonishing documentary while essentially just a documentation of their journey becomes so much more because of the quality and the purity of the images captured by amateur cameraman Captain John Noel. Noel doesn't just record the expedition but enshrines and transforms it by the beauty of the set ups he chose.

The film begins with them setting out and then arriving in a Tibetan village. Although 200 miles away, Mt Everest looms over everything. Noel's camera captures the look and feel of the village and its people. Remember this is almost 100 years ago and much of what he captures has long since slipped into history. The customs and clothing of the villagers of that time have been preserved forever. As they get closer to the mountain, the natural conditions began to change and we are thrust into an unbelievable landscape of ice and snow. The way the camera catches it you'd think you were on a far away planet. The power and majesty of Everest are all around as it literally becomes a force of nature dooming the expedition. While there is a palpable spirituality to the images, they are enhanced by the title cards which occasionally refer to the mountain as a divine entity (Chomo-Lung-Ma "Goddess Mother of the World"). Some also reflect the condescending British colonial attitude of the time.

A major contribution to the effectiveness of the film is the haunting new score commissioned by the British Film Institute and composed by Simon Fisher Turner. It is a balanced mixture of ethnic music and minimalist simplicity augmented by authentic sound effects including the actual wind from the mountain itself. When you realize that these men were not decked out in the latest equipment but with only tweeds and thick coats and gloves to protect themselves, you then realize their courage and fortitude and become amazed at what they actually did manage to accomplish.. While there are natural similarities to SOUTH, Ernest Shackelton's ENDURANCE documentary and the Cooper-Schoedsack saga of Persian tribesman, GRASS, those silent films lack the poetry and potency of Captain Noel's images. I came away from my viewing of this thinking "This is the most amazing documentary I have ever seen!". I know that I'll be revisiting it on several occasions...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.