EARTH RIDER

A 90 Minute Ski Film by Mike Marvin
Reviewed by Dick Dorworth
First published in Mountain Gazette 50 years ago

Most films about skiing longer than 30 minutes traditionally fall into the Warren Miller mold, which need not be described here. The few exceptions have focused on racing, such as Dick Barrymore’s The Secret Race and Paul Ryan’s Ski Racer. Avoiding hanging his film on some peg like racing or the Miller format, Mike Marvin, with Earth Rider, has refreshingly ignored the traditions.
The plot is deceptively simple — three guys traveling around the country in a van looking for good skiing. The three skiers, Bob Stokes, Dick Tash and Steve Hunt are different types of skiers, none of them my kind of skier. Stokes, clearly the best of the three, leads the show through the best powder available in such places as Jackson Hole, Grand Targhee, Aspen, Vail, Bear Valley and Squaw Valley.
The photography and editing is well done and fast moving. Good skiing is good skiing. And people who move around are always good subject matter. But none of these is enough to hold together a truly remarkable film experience, held together by three aspects of the film. First, there is Mike Marvin, who produced, directed, filmed, edited, chose the music and personally narrates it whenever and wherever he can show it. Mostly this has been in bars and on college campuses, but things are slowly picking up for Earth Rider and there have been some packed-house auditorium showings. Marvin has shown his film some 180 times around the Western U.S. He wrote of his film, “I wanted it to be not only the most unusual ski film ever done, but the best. It would have everything that the ski audience (the aficionados) would expect from it, but not too much of any one thing. Additionally, it would be based on a dramatic story, believable to and acceptable by the average moviegoer.” In other words, Marvin had a concept. He is reaching for the non-skiing audience in somewhat the way Bruce Brown went for the non-surfers and non-motorcyclists in The Endless Summer and On Any Sunday. His concept works. His personal narration is really good, though he makes too ample use of the put down.
The second reason the film works is that he’s the second ski filmmaker (Paul Ryan was the first) to use music as an integral part of the film. Listenable music anyway. The music by guitarist Leo Kottke and singer-guitarist John Stewart is given to the audience on a four track stereo system. As a Kottke fan, I can tell you it is one fine listening experience. Stewart, an ex-Kingston Trioer, sings some of his own material, including the title song and an amazing piece called “Crazy.”
Which brings us to the third reason this is a film to see — Rick Sylvester skiing off El Capitan. According to the film script, Marvin and his skiers encounter Sylvester at Bear Valley in the spring, just as they are out of the money needed to continue their journey and finish the film. Sylvester lays this incredible dream he has upon their heads — to ski off El Cap with a parachute and capture the experience on film. Marvin backs off until Sylvester says, “And I’ve got $10,000.00 to back it up.” At which point Marvin says, “Lead on!” In actuality, Sylvester was involved in the film from the beginning, owns 24 percent of it, put up much of the money for it, and was scheduled to play a more important role than he, in fact, did. Though the facts are forever lost in the enmity that grew up during the making of the film (and obvious in the film) between Sylvester and Marvin, Sylvester was supposed to be the star of the show; and, in a certain sense, that’s the way it worked out.
Among those who know him, Sylvester is not famous for respect or consideration for the people who try to be his friends, nor is he a master of the art of rational thought, but he is intense. Oh, yes indeed, he is one intense dude. This means that whatever Sylvester is doing he is doing very hard, and with little thought or attention devoted outside the point at hand. I mean, any man who needs to ski off El Cap in order to make a statement about himself is not following the middle path and he is going to have his problems with the people around him, and Sylvester does. However, this intensity has gotten him both up and down El Cap in one piece, up several other fine climbs, and both the Eiger and Everest are in Sylvester’s dreams. Stewart’s song, “Crazy” is used as part of explaining Sylvester’s personality at the right moment in the film. Though there is a voice track that is purported to be Sylvester expounding the philosophy and motives behind the jump, the voice is not Sylvester’s and the words can only be a guess at his philosophy.
What Marvin does with the great El Cap caper is one of the strongest, most beautiful film experiences I have ever known. The build up to the jump is stock drama fare, but extremely powerful. When Sylvester finally gets ready to begin his inrun, the viewer can hardly believe he’s really going to do it. While in the inrun he nearly falls (he is going about 60mph, and he is not a strong skier), and the thought of dribbling over the edge of a 3400 foot cliff must have given Sylvester an extra adrenalin rush that kept him on his feet. And then he goes off the edge of El Capitan. Can you imagine? He actually goes over the edge. The wind which continually moves up the wall from the warmer valley floor knocks him right over backwards. Marvin had several differently positioned cameras on this project, and he shows Rick going over the edge over and over and over. And it just blows your mind. Then there is a shot from above showing Rick falling, falling, like a stone except that he is not a stone but a human being, one of our brothers, with a heart and brain and blood and flesh and failings and hang ups, like the rest of us though maybe more intense. As he falls into the beautiful Yosemite Valley the realization comes of just how close to the edge Sylvester has had to put himself. And all personal feelings, thoughts and knowledge about Sylvester are suddenly stripped away, leaving only the fact of Rick’s outrageous statement. He pulled it off, and all there is to say is: “Chapeau! Hats off to you, Sylvester. May you find peace on the edge, though I do not think it is out there.”