Dawn Wall Premier

edelweiss wrote: Just watched it.
It's a shame that such a formidable movie will be in theaters just for one night. Because everyone should see it. On the big screen. 

+100.  I’ve never watched a full-length climbing movie, and expected something focused solely on the route itself; this was so much more!!  I brought my 9-yr-old, who loved it as well.  I’ve just started getting him climbing but the dialog was such that he could grasp the challenges, difficulty, and overall brilliance of what these guys did.  

As annoying as it was to make arrangements to see it on a school night, it was awesome to see it with basically the entire climbing community of Chicago.  Awesome film.

Ted Pinson wrote: As annoying as it was to make arrangements to see it on a school night, it was awesome to see it with basically the entire climbing community of Chicago.  Awesome film.

Agreed. I've never seen so many climbers congregated in "civilization" before, which was cool. Also, Tommy made an appearance in Boulder and gave a little speech before the screening, which was pretty sweet. Such an amazing movie.

Second spoiler alert, obvious link on the film's site shows it'll be available on iTunes in November.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-dawn-wall/id1434788091?mt=6&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

I thought it was fine, not bad, not amazing. If you read the push already only the climbing was new and I would have preferred more of the climbing. Being 3 years old may have worn off the shine for me as well.

Fucking night shift man, play the damn movie during the day time so I have an excuse to take a rest day damnit!

Jeff Luton wrote: Fucking night shift man, play the damn movie during the day time so I have an excuse to take a rest day damnit!

Today’s the last day, but has been screening at 1:20 in Santa Monica all week.

Key take away.

Climb with a Gri-Gri clipped on your proj. 

Great film - though, even better is his book. Make sure you read it if you haven't already. 

It’s rare that an audience has such an emotional reaction to a film.  You could feel people on the edge of their seats while Kevin struggles on pitch 15.  The cheers from the crowd when he finally sent.  It was a nice touch to have the behind the scenes, because it was a truly spectacular effort on the whole crew to make this film possible!

If you get the chance go see it. 

can people who have seen the film comment on how much "new" climbing content is in the film-- eg. footage of the actual climbing that hasn't been released in other formats? 

Nate Tastic wrote: A ton. At least for me there was.  

good to know. I'm tired of going to see films produced by the Sender Films people that end up having no new climbing content in them-- just previously released footage that has been cobbled together into a story. 

tommy and kevin #belaytionshipgoals

also that yellow c3 placement for the camera man, straight out of vertical limit.

Nate Tastic wrote: A ton. At least for me there was.  

I disagree - I thought that there wasn't that much new climbing footage. There are short clips here and there, it's a great story, Tommy and Kevin are legends and all that - but just having a couple new shots of the crux pitches (some of which were shown in the trailer) kind of belie the fact that it was in production for so long along with the 7 years of footage that was actually captured.

E: I agree with the above comment.

mpech wrote: can people who have seen the film comment on how much "new" climbing content is in the film-- eg. footage of the actual climbing that hasn't been released in other formats? 

There is a good amount of climbing but most you will have seen or read about most of it. A lot was on pitch 15 which we have seen climbed a bunch already. I enjoyed watching them work the pitch with what they showed. But as far as working hard pitches to get the send (if you want to compare it) I enjoyed "boys in the bugs" much more. 

Parker Wrozek wrote: E: I agree with the above comment.

There is a good amount of climbing but most you will have seen or read about most of it. A lot was on pitch 15 which we have seen climbed a bunch already. I enjoyed watching them work the pitch with what they showed. But as far as working hard pitches to get the send (if you want to compare it) I enjoyed "boys in the bugs" much more. 

It may not be fair but if you produce a full length feature climbing movie I am going to measure it up against Meru. The Dawn Wall does not come to that level of filming and story telling in my opinion.

thanks for all the replies. Sounds like I won't pay to see this movie, given that I am mostly interested in watching the actual climbing. 

The producers of "Free Solo" were very smart-- they didn't release any footage of the climb before the film was ready...  I imagine such embargoes will be more and more common as climbing content enter the mainstream. 

I loved the movie, and though not much of it was new to me, in either the background stories, or the climbing footage, I thought it was well made. And not everyone had the same background, or had watched snippets on the internet before, so for a general audience, even a general CLIMBING audience, which is what the crowd was, around here, I'd say that the background made the story more interesting.

Would love to see more climbing footage though!

Parker Wrozek wrote: E: I agree with the above comment.

There is a good amount of climbing but most you will have seen or read about most of it. A lot was on pitch 15 which we have seen climbed a bunch already. I enjoyed watching them work the pitch with what they showed. But as far as working hard pitches to get the send (if you want to compare it) I enjoyed "boys in the bugs" much more. 

It may not be fair but if you produce a full length feature climbing movie I am going to measure it up against Meru. The Dawn Wall does not come to that level of filming and story telling in my opinion.

it will be interesting to see what jimmy chin does with Free Solo. i think it will be some seriously incredible footage. but i've read honnolds book and it was meh. doesn't have the same appeal as tommy's life story. so it will be cool to see what jimmy does to add the feels to Free Solo. i honestly don't care about honnolds relationship with his gf. but if anybody can do it, it's jimmy.

Glad I saw it in the theater - it was rad to see El Cap and the Valley up on the big screen that way. Also enjoyed the energy in the theater - all climbers from here in the bay, all of us erupting into applause when Kevin send p15.

But I agree with the people saying it wasn't a great film. Nothing but respect and admiration for the work that the team did in capturing and creating it.

If you're seeing the film solely for the climbing, you may come away glad you saw it but feeling they missed an opportunity to make something truly great.

(Patagonia released this vid in January of 2015 - youtube.com/watch?v=PLd_c4C… - I couldn't say there was anything in the full film 3 years later that surpassed seeing this alone)

  

mpech wrote:

thanks for all the replies. Sounds like I won't pay to see this movie, given that I am mostly interested in watching the actual climbing. 

The producers of "Free Solo" were very smart-- they didn't release any footage of the climb before the film was ready...  I imagine such embargoes will be more and more common as climbing content enter the mainstream. 

I think this was a mistake. The story wasn't new, but I saw TONS of new climbing footage. It was incredible.