127 Hours – My Thoughts, Book vs. Film

In 2003, 27-year-old Aron Ralston was out canyoneering alone in Blue John Canyon when after slipping/knocking loose an 800 pound chockstone, found his right arm pinned to the canyon wall.  For once, he hadn’t told anyone where exactly he was going.  After 5 days trapped there, exhausting every option he could think of, and now completely out of food and water, he knew he would die without doing something drastic, so made the decision to amputate his own arm in order to free himself.  He then had to hike his way out of the canyon, which included rappelling down a 65-foot drop.  The book he wrote a year later detailing his experience is aptly named Between a Rock and a Hard Place.  Although he now has a prosthetic arm, Aron continues to climb with a custom designed attachment.  In 2002 he had started attempting solo winter climbs of all of Colorado’s ‘fourteeners’ – that is mountains with peaks of over 14’000 feet high – and has since completed this challenge in 2005.

This kind of story begs to be adapted into a film, and Danny Boyle (Millions, Slumdog Millionaire) came on as director to make it happen.  The result is a gripping film with quick edits and sweeping cinematography (despite the fact that the majority of the film takes place in an incredibly enclosed space).  James Franco was cast as Aron Ralston, and his performance is really well done.  He literally carries this film, as for most of the running length, he is the only one on screen.

 

What has garnered 127 Hours a lot of attention though, is the fact that it does have scenes that a lot of movie goers won’t really want to see on screen.  But these scenes have to be there.  That being said, this is certainly not, and won’t become, a really mainstream film.  Admittedly, I only half-watched the amputation scene, half looked away.  I did commit myself before going in to at least try and watch it though, since I figured this guy actually did this – any discomfort I have watching a reenactment completely pales in comparison.  But despite the extremely graphic nature of the scene, I found I had cringed even more reading the firsthand account in the book than in the theatre.  Maybe this was because I knew precisely when and what was going to happen?  Or maybe, it’s because the book gripped me more from start to finish.

As soon as I finished reading the book a few months back, I watched the trailer for 127 Hours.  Just doing that, I felt I may like the book better, but I went into the film keeping an open mind.  And don’t get me wrong – it’s a really good film.  Just from reading the book, I expected a little more.

 

I felt similarly with the film The Soloist a few years back.  The book was great, the film was good.  Of course, The Soloist was far more fictionalized than 127 Hours, and I think the latter film was more than just ‘good’.  Mainly, what 127 Hours did, other than change a few more minor details, is not show really the other parts of the book that I found made it richer.  Namely, the search put on by Aron’s family and friends, as well as the back story of his life before the accident.

 

I think what I really liked about the book, was how well it profiled the immense physical, emotional, and spiritual struggles Ralston experienced while pinned by the chockstone.  We get so much more about the up’s and down’s of the mental journey he took for those 5 days before he was mentally ready to do all it took to get free.  It’s hard to explain exactly why, but I mostly only saw the physical side in the film, with just inklings to the rest.

 

It is definitely a hard film to watch at times, so for those who are claustrophobic, or really don’t feel like seeing this all play out on screen, I would suggest maybe just reading the book.  The thing with the scene in question though, is although really graphic, it doesn’t feel the same way as watching a really graphically violent action-film like Kick-Ass, for example.  The difference I realized afterward, is that this violence is not to destroy life (i.e. like an action film with lots of killing people), but rather to be able to live it.  No one is killed here – the graphic scene is of a purely surgical nature.  This being said though, because of the reality of the stuff here and the fact that he had to perform this kind of surgery on himself, some will find it harder to watch than films in other genres (in particular those that are fictionalized).

 

I think after reading the book, one of the things I really liked was the fact that despite now having a disability, he continues to climb and live the kind of life he wants.  Some people would give up or stay at home lamenting the fact of what they can’t do now, rather than get back out and try.  This is a really inspirational story about life and what we can succeed to do with the will to live.  I would recommend it in one form or another.

– Erin Corrado