The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)

Directors:

Bruce Nyznik
Lawrence Schiller

Release Date:

19 September 1975 (Canada)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A Japanese skier ultimately dreamed of literally skiing Mt. Everest. He planned to ski some 8,000 feet down an icy glacier at a 40 to 45 degree angle...

Plot Keywords:

Skiing | Narration | Mount Everest | Independent Film

Awards:

Won Oscar.

Cast

Yuichiro Miura	...	Skier
Douglas Rain	...	Narrator

Runtime:

Canada:85 min | USA:86 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:G

Filming Locations:

Mt. Everest, Nepal

Company:

Creative Films

Quotes:

Narrator: The first barrier in the ascent of Everest is a huge ice fall. It looks like the tongue of some gigantic demon. More lives have been lost here than on Everest itself. It rises 1600 feet--a world of dangerous, fragile beauty; a cascade of massive blocks of ice moving imperceptibly from the glacier above...

Misleading title

I found this gem in a rack the local video rental store had of tapes which are exchanged among various rental outlets. 'The Man who Skied Down Everest'. Hmm... never heard about it. The box reads of some Japanese fellow who always wanted to ski down Everest and actually did it. Sounds interesting. I rented it. As expected it was documentary style. The first part can be summarized so: "I always wanted to ski down mount Everest". This is followed by some footage of preparation for the event. LOTS of preparation footage. OK, I suppose it takes a lot of preparation. Then we are treated to a protracted piece on the skier, Yuichiro Miura's philosophy on life etc. More filler follows and I begin to wonder where the skiing fits in to this show. More preparation is shown and they begin to make the trip to the mountain. More philosophy is shown. At last they arrive at the mountain and maybe perhaps he will get around to skiing down the friggin' thing. Lots of climbing footage later there is a description of the parachute device intended to slow Miuras' speed on the steep slope. Finally he straps on the skis and gets ready to go.

He's off... He skis about twenty feet and his skis shoot out from under him, he deploys the parachute and tumbles in an inglorious bundle for some distance down the mountain and that's that. End of story. What the heck was that?

OK I can buy that he always wanted to ski down Everest, made extensive preparations and actually tried it with camera crew in tow. It didn't work and he ended up tumbling down and almost killing himself, so what egregious hubris would inspire the man to release a film of it and call it skiing down Everest? Perhaps the title,"The Man Who's Feet Shot Out From Under Him and He Slid On His Ass Down Everest" was just too long for the tape box.