Date: Fri 11-Sep-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Everest-IMAX-Maritime

Full Text:

IMAX's Latest Goes Right To The Top... Of The World

(with cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

NORWALK -- Visitors to The Maritime Aquarium have always been ready for a

thrill, whether they visited the marine animals throughout the building, the

changing exhibits in the exhibitions halls, or the only IMAX screen in the

state. The Aquarium changes its exhibitions and films fairly regularly, with

each new offering as exciting -- and educating -- as its predecessor.

Currently in the IMAX theatre is Everest , which is quickly becoming one of

the film production company's most popular releases to date. Even the previews

earlier this year at the Maritime Aquarium drew packed houses, according to

publicist Dave Sigworth. Screenings of the gripping and exciting film continue

daily through the end of the year.

The film offers the first large-format images ever brought back from the

summit of Mt Everest. Everest tells the dramatic true story of an expedition

to the 29,000-foot summit -- "the top of the world" -- which was happening at

the time of the infamous May 1996 tragedy in which eight climbers lost their

lives in a deadly storm on the mountain. The film's co-director, David

Breashears, and his team found themselves caught up in the drama of helping to

rescue climbers who survived the storm.

As if the story of climbing to the top of the world were not already exciting

enough, IMAX movies are shown on a screen that is six stories high and eight

stories wide. Viewers feel as if they are not only watching the ascent to the

top of the world, but can also see much of the world at the same time. Everest

is not a film for those with a weak stomach, or even mild vertigo.

Film star Liam Neeson narrates Everest , which opens by introducing each of

the members of the team that will be climbing the mountain. The first people

the audience meets are Ed Viesturs, who is considered America's leading

Himalayan mountaineer, and his wife Paula, who serves as manager at base camp

for the climbing team. Prior to the filming of Everest , Mr Viesturs had

ascended Everest five times. He is the only American, and only one of five

people in the world, to have climbed Everest without the aid of supplemental

oxygen.

Also on the climbing team is Jamling Tenzing Norgay, who made his first-ever

summit of Everest during the production of the IMAX film. Mr Norgay was

following in the footsteps of his legendary father, Tenzing Norgay, who was

with Sir Edmund Hillary on May 29, 1953, when Mr Hillary became the first man

in history to reach the highest peak in the world. The team followed during

Everest uses the South Col route, the same route used by Mr Hillary and Mr

Norgay four decades earlier.

Araceli Segarra, a 26-year old Spaniard, provides some of the best commentary

in the film. The young climber became the first woman from Spain to ascend

Everest during the production of Everest . When the camera first catches up

with Ms Segarra, she is scaling rocks high over an ocean. The shots of her are

indeed dizzying.

A record holder before the Everest climb was captured on film (at 22, Ms

Segarra made the second ascent of a new route on the southwest face of Tibet's

26,290-foot Sisha Pangma), Ms Segarra says she has simply always enjoyed

climbing.

"I'm not trying to prove anything," she says. "I like to climb. It's as simple

as that." Ms Segarra's sense of humor lightens some of the tense climbing

situations during the film. She also provides some of the most emotional

moments of the story when she speaks of climbers who had died at the same time

she was climbing the mountain.

Everest is known for its unpredictable weather, and when this film was being

made in 1996, that weather took the lives of eight people on the mountain, and

injured a number of others. The spirited young Segarra was responsible for the

idea of using a giant Kool-Aid "X" to guide the rescue helicopter that saved

the lives of injured climbers from one of the May 10, 1996 expeditions.

Fortunately, the climber shakes off her own fear and r egains her good spirits

before beginning to climb again. By the time she is approaching The Hillary

Step, a 40-foot high thin crack named for Edmund Hillary 100 feet from the

mountain's summit, her humor and the exhilaration of the moment have returned.

In addition to the people in front of the cameras, it is important to remember

that in order to make this movie, the director and production team had to

ascend the mountain as well, all with the heavy IMAX photographic gear in tow.

Considering that every extra ounce of weight a climber must carry reduces any

vital energy stored up, this was no easy feat.

The film is brilliant. The colors are dazzling, the story is gripping, and the

views are absolutely breathtaking. While watching the film and getting so

caught up in the views and the drama, it is very easy to forget what the

camera crew had to go through in order to get some of the shots. It had to

have helped that director David Breashears is himself not only an Emmy

Award-winning filmmaker but also an accomplished mountaineer.

Mr Breashears sends the camera ahead of the climbers, capturing them as they

struggle to cross icy chasms, or drops it deep into gorges in order to look up

at them as they cross overhead. Having climbed Everest himself (Mr Breashears,

in 1995, became the first American to reach the mountain's summit twice), the

director had great ideas of where to set up the equipment to capture the best

possible shots.

Theatres showing Everest are reporting unprecedented numbers of consecutive

sell-outs, said Dave Sigworth. The May 8-10 Daily Variety box office chart

showed Everest as the 16th most popular film in the country, 66 days into its

release (the same time frame as Good Will Hunting , No 17 on the list, and US

Marshals , No 20). At the time, the film was playing on only 37 screens; the

aforementioned films were at the time still showing on 697 and 706 screens,

respectively.

Everest is easily one of the best films ever produced by IMAX.