New HBO series looks at iconic, troubled Yosemite climber Dean Potter
Dean Potter was an elite rock climber and high-altitude slackliner who died in 2015 in a wingsuit BASE soar in Yosemite Valley. A docuseries about Potter’s profession referred to as “The Dark Wizard” is premiering on HBO.
Filmmakers Nick Rosen and Peter Mortimer have been gathering analysis on the late Yosemite climbing legend Dean Potter after they uncovered a revelation concerning the man that defines their new HBO docuseries, “The Dark Wizard.”
For most of 20 years — from the mid-Nineteen Nineties till he died throughout a wingsuit BASE leaping crash in 2015 in Yosemite Valley — Potter was a larger-than-life determine on this planet of outside journey sports activities. He accomplished beforehand unthinkable big-wall solo-climbs, graced the covers of shiny magazines and earned a coveted sponsorship from attire firm Patagonia — all whereas exhibiting a countercultural angle befitting his renegade mountain climbing predecessors.
Having filmed his climbing exploits for years, Rosen and Mortimer had been aware of Potter’s excessive competitiveness, temper swings and uncooked emotional outbursts. But it wasn’t till a number of years in the past, as soon as they’d interviewed Potter’s closest surviving mates and skim his private journals, that it clicked: one of many biggest fashionable climbers might have been propelled partially by his private struggles with psychological sickness.
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The filmmakers deliberately keep away from diagnosing Potter, however mates interviewed for the movie series describe a person topic to bouts of mania and despair.
“Not only was it something that was holding him back in life and hurting his relationships and hurting him, but it was also driving a lot of his creative and competitive energy,” Rosen advised the Chronicle.
Dean Potter within the HBO docuseries “The Dark Wizard.”
That’s when the filmmakers knew they needed to inform a narrative about Potter that ran deeper than simply his accomplishments and accolades. The result’s an engrossing 4-part series that provides an unsparing examination of one in all climbing’s most enigmatic and influential figures. The first episode of “The Dark Wizard” airs Tuesday evening on HBO.
“He had this influence on adventure climbing and how far you can push it on these big walls, and he inspired a generation of top climbers,” Rosen stated.
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Potter grew up within the Northeast and fell into the dirtbag climbing way of life within the Nineteen Nineties as a younger man, ultimately discovering inspiration, like so many others, within the big granite partitions of Yosemite Valley. What began as a soulful exploration for Potter morphed right into a aggressive pursuit as soon as he grew to become a sponsored athlete with a status to keep up.
The series depicts Potter at peak efficiency whereas feeding on excessive stress — threatened by a rival climber or affected by points in his private life. Conflict would carry out a darkish and aggressive aspect of Potter that generally fueled his jaw-dropping bodily feats.
“For Dean, the mania could become a source of creative power,” Brad Lynch, one in all Potter’s shut mates, stated throughout an interview for the series.
Dean Potter was an elite rock climber and high-altitude slackliner who died in 2015 in a wingsuit BASE soar in Yosemite Valley. A docuseries on his profession premieres Tuesday on HBO.
Part of his coping concerned searching for ever-riskier pursuits — big-wall free-soloing, wingsuit BASE leaping and untethered high-altitude slacklining — that pushed him to the sting of his talents.
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“I started to realize, his only therapy was the death consequence,” Lynch stated.
In crafting “The Dark Wizard,” Rosen and Mortimer, who collectively have directed dozens of “Reel Rock” climbing movies in addition to the award-winning 2021 documentary “The Alpinist,” drew from 30 to 50 hours of archival footage of Potter. They wove that with contemporary interviews with climbers, filmmakers and Potter’s surviving sister, Elizabeth Potter, who supplied the climber’s journals and is credited as an government producer on the series.
“I think, for us, this is the biggest, most exciting thing we’ve done, for sure,” Mortimer stated.
A notable look within the series is Alex Honnold, the well-known Yosemite climber identified for his ropeless ascent of El Capitan and the ensuing Oscar-winning documentary, “Free Solo.”
Dean Potter is the topic of “The Dark Wizard.”
Growing up within the Sacramento space, Honnold watched Potter’s early feats taking part in on VHS loops in his native climbing gymnasium and acknowledges Potter as an inspirational determine. Eventually, Honnold himself ventured to Yosemite to observe in Potter’s footsteps, performing audacious climbs whereas dwelling out of a van.
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In constructing his personal status, Honnold “obliterates” lots of Potter’s notable climbing information, San Francisco author Dan Duane stated in an interview for the series. “There’s almost a cruelty to it,” he stated of Honnold’s ruthless and systematic method.
With his measured aim and goal-oriented course of, Honnold features as a foil to Potter and his hazardous seek for which means within the mountains. But the movie attracts a thread by means of the 2 climbers and their respective journeys to excellence.
Honnold carried out his unimaginable El Cap free solely two years after Potter’s dying. In the series, Honnold says if there’s one one that may have really appreciated the historic feat, it could have been Potter.
“I think it would have been amazing to talk to Dean about free soloing El Cap,” Honnold stated. “More than almost anyone else on Earth, he could appreciate what went into it. I mean, Dean was the first person to think about it seriously, and he showed the rest of us what’s possible.
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“The climbing world is just not the same without the Dark Wizard.”
