Dispatches: Alex Honnold on “Free Solo”

Outside Podcast

Sports, Wilderness

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2018

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The new movie Free Solo is arguably the greatest film about climbing that’s ever been made. In just over 90 minutes, it chronicles Alex Honnold’s astonishing no-ropes ascent of the 3,000-foot sheer face of Yosemite’s El Capitan, which he completed one morning in June, 2017. Even more impressively, it captures the unique mindset of Honnold, a perfectionist whose years-long obsessive pursuit of his dream gets complicated by an ever-present camera crew and his growing love for his new girlfriend. As you might guess, being the focus of a deeply personal Oscar-caliber documentary and then answering probing questions by a constant stream of reporters and fans has had an impact on the guy. Outside executive editor Michael Roberts chased Honnold down on his film tour to ask about the risks and rewards of telling your whole story.

Transcript

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1:00.0	From Outside magazine and PRX, these are dispatches Meru came out about climbing the sharks fin route on one of the most difficult and dangerous peaks in Himalayas, it had a lot of the usual
1:24.8	trappings of the normal climbing biking ski film, big mountains, breathtaking cinematography,
1:31.8	and a healthy dose of product placement.
1:34.8	But unlike your average Warren Miller flick, at the heart of Meru was a really compelling story
1:39.4	about climbers confronting their own worst fears and coming back from tragedy.
1:44.0	Conrad Anker lost his best friend in a climbing accident.
	...

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