Hall, Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5671-8175 (2023) Tommy Caldwell’s The Push: Climbing, Edgework and Media Perceptions of Risk. In: Hall, Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5671-8175 and Hall, Jenny ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5200-4308, (eds.) The Mountain and the Politics of Representation. Liverpool, Liverpool University Press

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Abstract

This chapter aims specifical to interrogate perceptions of risk as they adapt and adjust in relation to experience and, in particular, mediation. In exploring the phenomenological success of a film like Free Solo, it is arguably the edgework in this ‘death-defying’ film which has brought it the previously unseen success and indeed the ‘cultural significance’ that has distinguished it from other climbing films. Peter Donnelly has even defined one of the fundamental characteristics of climbing as ‘the maintenance of a tension balance between difficulty and risk’ (2003: 294) but does acknowledge that all the major controversies in climbing have been ‘concerned with maintaining this tension balance’ (296). Stephen Lyng has defined much of the key work in this area such as when he suggested that ‘the voluntary pursuit of activities that involve a high potential for death, serious physical injury, or psychic harm – activities that I have termed as edgework – has acquired special cultural significance in the contemporary western world’ (Lyng, 2008: 107).

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	Published
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > GV0557 Sports T Technology > TR Photography > TR624-835 Applied photography (including artistic, commerical) T Technology > TR Photography > TR845-899 Cinematography. Films
School/Department:	School of Humanities
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/6118

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