Universal PicturesThere are two or three moments in Everest roughly akin to the point-of-view shot in Titanic right before Jack and Rose go in the water, the fishing boat making a vertical climb up the wall of a giant wave in The Perfect Storm, or Slim Pickens riding a missile near the end of Dr. Strangelove.
These are shots of strange, sublime beauty, capable of evoking a visceral response from a part of us influenced by what Poe called the Imp of the Perverse. They cut through the stream of monotonous images we see every day and show us something exceptional.
On some level, perhaps subconscious, we long for the spectacle to be real—to experience the sheer, overwhelming force and fury and terror of what we see on screen. We know, of course, that the reason we cannot see such things is because if we ever did catch a glimpse of them, in the next moment we would be dead.
And yet part of us wonders if it might not be worth it.
Poe’s imaginary imp who sits on our shoulders and urges self-destruction is as good an answer as any given to Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly) when he asks clients of Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal) why they want risk their lives to climb in Everest’s “death zone.” By the end of the film, that question is no longer rhetorical.
Like Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air, which chronicles the same events, Everest refuses to ennoble the deaths of those who went up but did not come down. By floating, flirting with, and maybe even embracing the “they brought it on themselves” argument, the film marches steadfastly past the comforts of melodrama and stakes its flag somewhere on the peaks of tragedy.
Universal PicturesKrakauer’s book (I’m a huge fan) offers not one explanation but a series of interrelated ones, each combining to create a web of causation that feels more deterministic than any angry god. The film picks up on these threads and spends its sweet time showing us each piece of the wobbly Jenga tower. By the mid-90s, what had once been an endeavor practiced only by well-trained, elite climbers had been commercialized and transformed into “guided” expeditions.
Consumers may not have been guaranteed success, but as Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) growls to Hall after nearly falling to his death, he sure didn’t pay the guide $65,000 to wait in line behind a bunch of other climbers all using the same equipment. Fischer says that if someone can’t get to the top on his own, he shouldn’t be on the mountain.
That sounds nice, but there isn’t a huge pool of clients who can pay such exorbitant fees. Commercial pressures, combined with the lack of any regulation (the Nepalese government has no incentive not to monetize the mountain by issuing climbing permits to all who can pay) erode Hall’s initial commitment to safety above all else. At least two people die because, in the end, Hall would not or could not make a climber admit defeat.
The presence of the media makes these commercial interests worse. Fischer and Hall snipe over the presence of Krakauer who has been commissioned to write a cover story for a major magazine. The film insinuates (as does Into Thin Air) that the guides may have been more reluctant to admit failure when they knew the results would be publicized. At one point Hall mutters that he is facing two years in a row without a client at the summit.
Universal PicturesIn how it depicts skilled amateurs venturing where only fools and professionals once dare to tread, Everest acts as a sort of dark foil to Ridley Scott’s The Martian, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this week and will be in theaters on October 2. In this more optimistic science-fiction film, astronaut Mark Watney combats the forces of nature trying to kill him on Mars. His attempts to survive a hostile environment long enough to be rescued ultimately succeed or fail based on his skill—not his spirit. That skill derives from his training.
Everest observes, and critiques, our culture’s tendency to put faith in technology, rather than knowledge. But actually, since that technology is always for sale, the ultimate false god of the story is capitalism: it promises the lie that we can buy what those before us had to earn.
An interesting note for Christianity Today readers: Everest is distributed and co-produced by Universal Pictures, but the presence of Walden Media among the credits might surprise some Christian viewers. That production company, best known for their slate of Narnia adaptations, boasts the tagline on their website: “We tell stories that recapture the imagination, rekindle curiosity, and demonstrate the rewards of virtue.”
That pairing is at least a bit of a head-scratcher. Certainly, Everest is a spectacular film. Its darker questions are well worth grappling with. But unless one wants to make the argument that this woman loves her husband more than that woman, or that snow (unlike rain) does not fall as hard on the just as well as the unjust, it’s hard to see what virtue has to do with it.
Universal PicturesBut I don’t say that as a complaint. It’s a compliment, actually. Most films are committed to triumphal, feel-good endings, and art from Christians (companies or individuals) is oddly no exception. Perhaps we think that tragedy—hamartia, catharsis, starting in order and ending in chaos—is somehow antithetical to our theology of God’s sovereignty and providential love.
But given that the most frequent fatal flaw in great tragedy is hubris—a quality we certainly do not lack in the modern world—perhaps tragedies such as the one depicted in Everest can tell us something about ourselves, the world we live in, and maybe even the God who created us and it.
Caveat Spectator
MPAA warnings for Everest’s PG-13 rating include “intense peril” and “disturbing images.” I can testify that there are both in Everest, though they pretty much fall under the umbrella of “what were you expecting?” We see frozen and mutilated bodies, and the emotional toll of listening to loved ones in mortal peril is hard to endure. But in terms of what is normally called “objectionable content” (swearing, nudity, sex, drugs), the film’s PG-13 rating seems reasonable.
Kenneth R. Morefield (@kenmorefield) is an Associate Professor of English at Campbell University. He is the editor of Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, Volumes I, II, & III, and the founder of 1More Film Blog.
