Johann
11-24-2009, 11:17 AM
Riding Giants is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. It's all about the big wave riders, the freedom and adrenaline junky surfers who surf waves as big as a house.
Made by Stacy Peralta (DogTown and Z-Boys), it's the first documentary to ever open the Sundance Film Festival.
The whole history of big wave riding is shown.
I was amazed at how much old footage there was, classic (16mm?) footage from the fifties & sixties.
Surfing started many many moons ago, a Polynesian discovery.
It's got a whole mythology about it that had me pining to buy a board and vanish to Hawaii. LOL
We get profiles of the pioneers. Men who just wanted to "catch a wave" and experience the rush that only surfing can provide.
Men like Greg Noll ("THE BULL"), a man who's whole persona lifted the act of surfing to it's greatest heights. He was the first to add personality to the game. He had a presence and elan that awed everybody. When he caught a wave and stood up on his board and went for broke down that wall of water, he was a KING, a Legend. People loved him. He started his own surfboard company and was it's biggest spokeman. He's my favorite subject in this film, besides the awe-inspiring Laird Hamilton and Jeff Clark, two other Legends who I'd never heard of who also did things that deserve massive respect. (In fact, Laird is untouchable as a big wave rider. He did something that no man has ever done. Something almost impossible, in fact. I'll get to that in a bit).
Greg Noll was the first man to surf the biggest wave on record.
There were witnesses, but no cameras recorded it. We have to take the word of those who were there watching from the shore and Greg himself, who says in the film that it was one of the most important moments in his life, like the birth of his son.
You believe it happened. He has no reason to lie about it and the footage we see of him on other waves gives you enough proof that he probably did it. A witness says that when he was at the top of the crest of the wave, he looked like a tiny speck, a dot.
He surfed down the massive wall and wiped out at the bottom. But he did it. He made history.
Several big wave sites are profiled, like the "Mount Everest of Big Wave Surfing": Wiamea Bay in Hawaii, a spooky place on the "North Shore"- considered at it's discovery to be the most dangerous place to surf on the earth. Maverick's- a rocky, extremely dangerous spot not far from San Francisco that was discovered and surfed by Jeff Clark for over a decade before it was discovered and descended upon by the world of big wave riding- where tragedy occurs. (R.I.P. Legend Mr. Foo...)
Then there's Peahi, nicknamed "JAWS"- a fearsome place to surf by the looks of the footage... and of course there's the Mother of all big wave sites on the planet: Teahupoo. It's in Tahiti, and that's where Laird Hamilton did the impossible: he surfed a 70-foot wave. And it was caught on film. To see it is to be stunned. Even Greg Noll says he's the best big wave rider in history. Greg says that when he saw that photo of Laird on the cover of some surfing magazine he said "THAT SHIT IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!!" But Laird is a special man.
His story is touching and amazing. Since he was a little kid he was around the beaches and surfing, latching on to a legend surfer that he was able to get to marry his single Mom and teach him all there is to know about surfing. What did that do? Well, it enabled him to become more than a pioneer. He changed the face of big wave surfing. From designing smaller, ergonomic surfboards to the revolutionary act of tow-ins to catch big waves with jet-skis, he was the man who took it all to the highest level it could get: catching GIANT waves. And surfing them fearlessly.
It's utterly awesome what he did.
We also get to learn about the mindset of surfers, how they get so depressed when there's no waves. Laird's wife says he told her that it's "like being a Dragonslayer and there are no dragons around". The Kerouac-type lifestyle of the early "beach bum" surfers was fascinating to me. It's detailed in the early part of the film and it really was a singular movement, a solitary group of dudes who did that. They paved the way.
Check it out. Ebert and Roeper loved it, it was a smash success and I'd never heard of the damn thing. Glad I rented it.
Thrilling and enriching film. The definitive statement on Big Wave Riding. I could write way more about it, it's so jammed with info and profiles. Check it out, DUDE....
Made by Stacy Peralta (DogTown and Z-Boys), it's the first documentary to ever open the Sundance Film Festival.
The whole history of big wave riding is shown.
I was amazed at how much old footage there was, classic (16mm?) footage from the fifties & sixties.
Surfing started many many moons ago, a Polynesian discovery.
It's got a whole mythology about it that had me pining to buy a board and vanish to Hawaii. LOL
We get profiles of the pioneers. Men who just wanted to "catch a wave" and experience the rush that only surfing can provide.
Men like Greg Noll ("THE BULL"), a man who's whole persona lifted the act of surfing to it's greatest heights. He was the first to add personality to the game. He had a presence and elan that awed everybody. When he caught a wave and stood up on his board and went for broke down that wall of water, he was a KING, a Legend. People loved him. He started his own surfboard company and was it's biggest spokeman. He's my favorite subject in this film, besides the awe-inspiring Laird Hamilton and Jeff Clark, two other Legends who I'd never heard of who also did things that deserve massive respect. (In fact, Laird is untouchable as a big wave rider. He did something that no man has ever done. Something almost impossible, in fact. I'll get to that in a bit).
Greg Noll was the first man to surf the biggest wave on record.
There were witnesses, but no cameras recorded it. We have to take the word of those who were there watching from the shore and Greg himself, who says in the film that it was one of the most important moments in his life, like the birth of his son.
You believe it happened. He has no reason to lie about it and the footage we see of him on other waves gives you enough proof that he probably did it. A witness says that when he was at the top of the crest of the wave, he looked like a tiny speck, a dot.
He surfed down the massive wall and wiped out at the bottom. But he did it. He made history.
Several big wave sites are profiled, like the "Mount Everest of Big Wave Surfing": Wiamea Bay in Hawaii, a spooky place on the "North Shore"- considered at it's discovery to be the most dangerous place to surf on the earth. Maverick's- a rocky, extremely dangerous spot not far from San Francisco that was discovered and surfed by Jeff Clark for over a decade before it was discovered and descended upon by the world of big wave riding- where tragedy occurs. (R.I.P. Legend Mr. Foo...)
Then there's Peahi, nicknamed "JAWS"- a fearsome place to surf by the looks of the footage... and of course there's the Mother of all big wave sites on the planet: Teahupoo. It's in Tahiti, and that's where Laird Hamilton did the impossible: he surfed a 70-foot wave. And it was caught on film. To see it is to be stunned. Even Greg Noll says he's the best big wave rider in history. Greg says that when he saw that photo of Laird on the cover of some surfing magazine he said "THAT SHIT IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!!" But Laird is a special man.
His story is touching and amazing. Since he was a little kid he was around the beaches and surfing, latching on to a legend surfer that he was able to get to marry his single Mom and teach him all there is to know about surfing. What did that do? Well, it enabled him to become more than a pioneer. He changed the face of big wave surfing. From designing smaller, ergonomic surfboards to the revolutionary act of tow-ins to catch big waves with jet-skis, he was the man who took it all to the highest level it could get: catching GIANT waves. And surfing them fearlessly.
It's utterly awesome what he did.
We also get to learn about the mindset of surfers, how they get so depressed when there's no waves. Laird's wife says he told her that it's "like being a Dragonslayer and there are no dragons around". The Kerouac-type lifestyle of the early "beach bum" surfers was fascinating to me. It's detailed in the early part of the film and it really was a singular movement, a solitary group of dudes who did that. They paved the way.
Check it out. Ebert and Roeper loved it, it was a smash success and I'd never heard of the damn thing. Glad I rented it.
Thrilling and enriching film. The definitive statement on Big Wave Riding. I could write way more about it, it's so jammed with info and profiles. Check it out, DUDE....