7 - Heroes and Their Quests

Heroes and Their Quests
by Andrew, Agele & Abdel

   In life, we meet people. We learn about them in person, through the media, such as watching them on TV or Internet. Regardless of how we meet these people, they can influence our lives in a great way. We often look up to them as heroes. Heroes are often represented as a person fulfilling a quest, not only this but a hero can be a person who acts as a model to anyone in the world. Your hero could be one of your family members, a musician, an actor or even yourself ! Thus, in many cases, heroes often challenge pain, to come close to death and to live freely, creating a moment's glory that remains in the memory of the century. It is a person who we admire for his achievement, his strength and courage. In the films Touching the Void and Man on Wire, we look at the theme of the heroes. The main characters in the movies conquer dangerous and horrifying events on their journey where they risk their lives that even a wrong small step could end it.

Touching The Void  

(Kevin Macdonald, 2003, United Kingdom,106 min.)

Alpine mountaineering remains a very dangerous sport to this day, as we learn in the movie Touching The Void, it can be very tough. Throughout the documentary, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates are interviewed about their mountaineering experience on the Siulà Grande (a mountain that is 6,260 m (20,540 ft) high) in Peru. The main issues presented in the documentary are the struggles that these two climbers had to go through. This was the first time that someone had attempted to climb the mountain and with that little information, they couldn't predict much about what to expect, so they decided to just use their previous experience of climbing mountains. We learn that the weather conditions, injuries and emotions that these climbers had to go through during the expedition had a huge impact on their journey. There were plenty of snowstorms that would prevent them from moving forward and that would make them lose their tracks, it was excessively cold and they also ran out of gas to warm themselves up. At one point, Joe breaks his leg and this had a huge impact on their climb. They then decided to climb back down, but in doing so they come across a cliff of snow that got shaped by a snowstorm that got Joe hanging out in the open above a crevice. After almost an hour (30-45 minutes) without receiving a signal from Joe, Simon did not know what happened to his partner, he then decided to cut the rope loose so that he could climb down. This triggered a bit of emotion on both sides, for Simon, he wasn't too sure about how he would tell others that he cut his rope, for Joe, after getting separated, he fell into a crevice making him lonely, but negative emotions aren't the only thing going through his head, he motivates himself and sets goals for himself so that he could survive. Joe finally makes some progress and goes deeper into the crevice, he sees some light and eventually climbs up finding himself on ground level. Thinking that he is gonna survive, he still has a whole rock-field to go through. Thinking that Joe is dead, Simon and his camp watcher decide to burn Joe's clothes as a way to pay their respects to him. The movie ends with Joe surviving this unfortunate journey and finding his way back to camp.

  The interviews were the most important parts to describe the movie, we wouldn’t really be able to understand what these mountaineers were going through without them actually explaining it. The film uses a reconstitution of the climb, in doing so it shows us what the climbers are trying to say, it helps viewers have a sense of participation of actually being there with them and they would feel less bored just watching people talk by building up suspense.

  The topic presented in the film is “Heroes and Their Quest”. The Journey of the Hero by Joseph Campbell and Greima’s Actancial Model are well represented by the documentary. As we saw in class, every fiction movie has something similar, it can be from the movie Lord of The Rings, Star Wars or even Hunger Games. What is this similarity? It is a Journey, every Hero has to overcome series of events to finally get to what they have to fulfill, even in Touching The Void.

So what makes a hero in somebody else's eyes?

The Journey of The Hero in Touching The Void

  The separation from the world starts once Joe gets his rope cut, he falls 70 feet and is left alone in a crevice. He gets his initiation to a source of power when gets really thirsty and eventually finds water, he said it himself that he could feel himself getting stronger as he drinks the water. During this life-threatening event, he gives himself small goals to fulfill, for example, he tells himself that he will walk to a certain distance in the time frame of 10 minutes. His life-enhancing return is after he survives these misfortunate events, he goes back to his normal life and he has to heal from the frostbite and knee injury.

Greima’s Actancial Model Touching The Void

  The six stages of the Actancial Model are represented in the documentary. The sender is themselves, they decided to go on their quest to the summit of Siula Grande to simply maybe add another mountain on their list of mountains that they've climbed. What pushes them to climb this mountain, is the fact that no one has ever climbed it before and that they wanted to be the first. The subjects of the film are Joe Simpson’s and Simon Yates’ journey. They seek experience and to check-off another mountain on their list of mountains that they climbed. They target other climbers as in the climbing community and themselves. Since no one has ever climbed this specific mountain before, Simon and Joe could tell them they story. They help each other climb, but their own self-conscious helps them undergo these series of unlucky events once they get separated. They face off a lot of opponents such as the mountain, the snowstorms, the cold, lack of gas to warm themselves up, the thirst they get, because of the lack of gas, they couldn’t boil anymore snow, Joe’s broken knee, the frostbite the both get on their face and fingers.

Man on Wire
(James Marsh, 2008, United Kingdom, 94 min)

Conquering the Clouds

Man on wire,what do we think of when we hear the quote "Man on Wire"? Probably someone walking on a wire right? First of all, lets start from the very top at the summit. The film is based on a fear-less man, someone who is fearless. In this film he has only one thing running through his mind and that is to make his dream come true by being the first human on planet earth to walk between the well known Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. The courageous man actually became famous by achieving It.

The film Man on Wire is a British documentary film directed by James Marsh. It is a story of a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit who wants to live up and fulfill his dream to walk on a tight rope in unusual place. In this extraordinary documentary film, James Marsh presents Philippe Petit’s rare footage of the preparations for the event where he strives to achieve what he calls the “crime of the century”. Marsh also presents some interviews with the people who helped Philippe Petit to achieve his dream, with the police officers, with the people who betrayed him and others. Man on Wire is about a hero who overcomes the towers by his courage and positive outlook although it was an illegal act. 

In the film, the main issues raised are how fear is presented and how fear can push you on a totally different level. Philippe is no doubt a person who lives for adrenaline, In the documentary film we can definitely see the fear as the main point. The film presents it very well for example at the beginning of the film, Annie (The girlfriend of Petit) explains the tension that was going on In the car and how every one was kind of scared and nervous to actually do it. She says, "I remember the extremely tense silence in the van... Alan was absolutely sober, Philippe extremely tense,as for me I was petrified,very worried". This part of the film just indicate the presentation of fear, even though the main character Philippe Petit is related to a courageous man it's definitely noticeable he's very petrified to actually do the stunt.One also specific thing it presents is how reality becomes death at one point.When talking about fear most of the time what we do not realize is how our mentality can change. For example: We can be chased by an animal, because of the fact that we are scared, we run much faster or when we're too scared of failing an exam we study much harder to pass. It's the same concept Man on Wire Philippe started on low height but even when he was scared he kept continuing by raising the bar.

The Journey of the hero We see early on in the film where the construction workers and huge trucks are building the tower of World Trade Center. The journey of the hero starts off when Philippe Petit was seventeen years old, he was sitting in a dentist’s office where he sees a page in the newspaper something magnificent, something that inspires him that caught him into his eyes. He visualizes the two buildings that are being and it will be the highest building in the world. He then draws a line between them, which are his wires. Those two towers were built as if they were made for him. He wanted to have this tangible feeling of a challenge to embark on his dream. Philippe Petit talks with his former friends that he wants to cross the towers and they help him to enter his fantasy world to dance across a tight wire. His friends helped him to bring all the equipment and they tied a wire between the Twin Towers and he did it: initiation of the hero. Unfortunately, the return was complicated: Philippe Petit was arrested and eventually found guilty of trespassing. Philippe’s dream lasted for 45 minutes and his fame was much longer to this day. We all know that what he did was truly remarkable and the movie was truly inspiring. Geimas Actancial Model (Man on wire, 2008) According to the Greimas Actancial model, the film is divided into six categories. The sender, who triggers the quest, is Philippe Petit’s dream. He wants to do something that is beyond out of the world. The subject of the movie “Man on Wire”, Petit is going to undertake a fearful and dangerous event : his object is to walk across on a high wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center. The film follows Philippe Petit’s journey where his helpers are his friends to help him out to bring all the equipment necessary. His former girlfriend, Annie, also encourages Philippe Petit to follow his dream. He also practices endlessly, dreaming of conquering the clouds. The installation of the wire is his opponent. It is very complicated as it seems. Also, when the police officers learned about his performance, they came up to the roof of both buildings to try to convince him to get off the wire. The receiver in this film is Philippe Petit. He is the one who benefits the quest of his upcoming challenge.

A lesson to remember: Never give up!

It is obvious that there are a lot of things we can learn through these films, even a blind person can get something out of it. The two films Man on wire and Touching the void are a reflection of each other in terms of themes(what we can actually get), but I think the most important thing we can all take advantage of is "hard work". By what I'm saying by hard work is just determination, courage, the mentality of a warrior in general to never give up even if you're in the worst of circumstances. In Touching the void, Joe Simpson and his partner Simon Yates went to climb a big mountain yet it wasn't the right day to challenge a mountain of the caliber. The weather was so bad you could barely see and their equipment was far from being on point. Personally,the most capturing thing in the movie is how Simpson broke his leg but was still able to make it through. It just shows us the fact that everyone can accomplish anything if you put you're mind to it and never quit. It's kind of the same in Man on wire, Philippe's goal was to walk between New York's World trade center.Philippe couldn't get to the top of building because it was just too hard to get there but, because he was determined to get there nothing was going to stop him and guess what? He did it. Even though you're not in a good position, we can all learn key points within ourselves : Anything is possible.


It's pretty easy to relate the message of those films to life. We all get caught up in different situations in our daily lives ,we all have good times but we can't hide from the bad moments we get, whether you're a rich person or a famous with all the wealth you're going get those moments. Like I said the messages of the two films is to "never give up" this is why people should always keep their head up and to always know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. To me life is just a matter of keeping the train going,Touching the void and Man On Wire were the perfect example to show it to mankind.

The films Touching the Void and Man on Wire, set a perfect example of qualities that every human being own: heroism & courage. Both filmmakers, Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void) and James Marsh (Man on Wire) show us the pain and the struggles of the heroes that they had to face, whether someone is on a fearful journey or for the sake of their fame. These films show the challenges of that these men had to face, were almost impossible to conquer and what they did was truly remarkable. In order to reach our goals, success will only come through hard work and perseverance. Both films were inspiring and touching. They allowed the viewers to experience the emotions of a dramatic and truthful event of the heroes' journeys. They both show us how we are all capable of being our own heroes and they teach us never to give up! To end, we leave with you this touching story of a man who never gave up!