(part 5) 1   2   3   4   5  “He would not stop cracking jokes. One I remember, he said ‘David, I knew this trip was going to cost me an arm and a leg, but I bargained them down’.” After bringing Weathers and other survivors off the angry mountain, Breashears, Viesturs, and Schauer decided it was finally their turn to head up and finish what they had started: their $1.7 million dollar film. “Ed [Viesturs] said at the time, ‘Everest is not a death sentence’,” Breashears recalls and agrees. “I don’t want to anthropomorphize the mountain. Everest doesn’t give mercy or deny it. The mountain has its own rhythms and life, and we decide how we fit into that. Sometimes, we fit very poorly.” But sometimes, “we” fit very well. The dizzyingly real IMAX images, coupled with the heart-stopping wonder of Mount Everest, make word descriptions of the film inadequate at best. The higher height versus width ratio of the IMAX screen instantly puts you on the edge of the world, the jet-stream winds stinging your nose, the vertigo clutching your belly as you straddle a 100-foot ice crevasse, your lungs grasping for each shallow breath of the frightfully thin air, your boots squeak-squeak-squeaking against the blue, glacial snow, your eyes moving up, over, side to side, down: everywhere, virtual Everest. “We look for film subjects that will use that extra screen height,” says MacGillivray, “so audiences can feel the environment towering above them.” When the lights come back on, it takes a moment to realize your environment is actually a warm theater, very much at sea level. Your trip has been only two dimensional. Then, with reality returning, your hands find each other to join in the ovation for the man who took you there. “I am very proud of what we did up there,” Breashears says, “I could not have done any better.” Jennifer Jordan is a freelance writer living in Cambridge. She can also be seen and heard on WGBH Channel 2 and 89.7FM as a news anchor and contributor. A competitive triathlete and ultra-runner, she restricts her climbing challenges to 14,000 feet, well below thin air.
	Home  |  IMAX Film  |  About Everest  |  Tour  |  How High?     © 1998 The Tech Museum of Innovation       info@thetech.org   credits