How "Free Solo" Filmed The First El Capitan Climb With No Ropes | Vanity Fair
8,962,028
Published 2019-01-11
Free Solo is in open nationwide in theaters and opens in IMAX theaters across the country Jan 11. The movie was nominated for an Academy Award
Information is available at www.nationalgeographic.com/films/free-solo/
Free Solo won the 2019 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
Still haven’t subscribed to Vanity Fair on YouTube? ►► bit.ly/2z6Ya9M
Want to stay in the know? Subscribe to Vanity Fair Magazine and be exquisitely informed ►► vntyfr.com/2RuQGW2
ABOUT VANITY FAIR
Arts and entertainment, business and media, politics, and world affairs—Vanity Fair’s features and exclusive videos capture the people, places, and ideas that define modern culture.
All Comments (21)
-
I’m sitting in a chair watching this and feel like it would be safer I were on the floor instead.
-
Bruh, I don't even free solo my chair to change a lightbulb.
-
Has to be one of the most amazing things ever accomplished by a human.
-
This climb was one of the hardest pieces of filmmaking I have ever watched because I just couldn’t comprehend how he could do that and not fall. Even though I knew that he had survived and broken the record, all I could think as I watched it was “Please don’t fall, please don’t fall”. I cannot even imagine the tension the cameramen were feeling at the time. A truly, truly astonishing feat by an extraordinary human being.
-
Free soloing El Cap is amazing, but no one is talking about me holding my breath through the entire documentary.
-
”He was not interested in dying in front of his friends...” No, I’d imagine most wouldn’t be.
-
I watch this video whenever I want to sweat without exercise.
-
He was all about the climbing and she was all about the character development. 2 different people
-
Mountain goats have a statue of Alex in their secret colony. Look it up.
-
Potentially the greatest athletic feat in history. Unbelievable
-
Even now, even after all the recognition, I think it Alex's achievement still extremely underappreciated by the general public, only climbers know what it really means... What he did should have been utterly impossible, there should be no way a human could top it without ropes.
-
I just rewatched the documentary, and Alex hangboarding directly after the climb is the coldest thing I've ever seen.
-
Jimmy Chin undersells himself here. "I'm a photographer and filmmaker". And also one of the best climbers in the world, no biggie.
-
Id be up 20 feet and be like "call the helicopter"
-
The film was already hard enough to watch knowing full and well he made it out alive—I can’t imagine being one of the cameramen in the moment not knowing if he’d make it. really compounded by the fact that nobody has done something like this before, and at face value it seemed like a genuinely impossible feat.
-
Imagine asking someone who had been climbing without a rope for four hours to slow down so you could get better footage of them. Then imagine they stop what they're doing to look at their phone and they calmly tell you they can't, because they want to get to the top with a better time.
-
waiting for the "how they filmed the film crew that filmed Free solo with no ropes"
-
Never having heard of this movie, I turned it on last night as background noise because I couldn't sleep. Bad move, two hours after it ended I was still laying in bed with sweaty palms contemplating what I'm doing with my life.
-
My hands still sweat to this day when I watch this documentary and I’ve seen it 3 times. The most unbelievable physical accomplishment of any human being in history.
-
I used to watch this climb all the time as a non climber. Now, two days after my first outdoor 5.8 I can barely stomach to see it. I have a whole new appreciation for Alex’s achievement which should be recognized next to the Moon landing as a great historical moment for humans. Sheesh
