New York Times Op-Docs: 10 Meter Tower

Photo: Screenshot from the film

Would you jump? Or would you chicken out? Good questions. This short film by Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson (documentary filmmakers based in Gothenburg, Sweden), offers a fascinating glimpse into human behaviour, when a group of people are challenged—and who challenge themselves—to jump from a ten metre swimming pool tower into the water below. Filmed with six cameras and several microphones, all of which can be clearly seen in the footage, the film captures the participants as they voice doubts to themselves and in some cases to friends who have joined them on the tower. Aertryck and Danielson say:

Our objective in making this film was something of a psychology experiment: We sought to capture people facing a difficult situation, to make a portrait of humans in doubt. We’ve all seen actors playing doubt in fiction films, but we have few true images of the feeling in documentaries. To make them, we decided to put people in a situation powerful enough not to need any classic narrative framework. A high dive seemed like the perfect scenario.

Through an online advertisement, the filmmakers found 67 people, none of whom had ever been on a 10-meter (about 33 feet) diving tower before, and had never jumped from that height. Participants, who ranged in age from late teens to late 60s, were paid the equivalent of $30 to participate — which meant they had to at least climb up to the diving board and walking to its edge. Jumping from the tower was not a requirement of the project.

In our films, which we often call studies, we want to portray human behavior, rather than tell our own stories about it. We hope the result is a series of meaningful references, in the form of moving images. “Ten Meter Tower” may take place in Sweden, but we think it elucidates something essentially human, that transcends culture and origins. Overcoming our most cautious impulses with bravery unites all humankind. It’s something that has shaped us through the ages.

Reading through the comments from people who had watched the film makes for an interesting study in human behaviour of a different sort:

Cynthia New Hampshire > I loved this! Absolutely riveting. I could feel my own anxiety mounting as I internalized their anguish. Not only is this an observation of human trepidation but it's an exercise in empathy. By the end, I felt wrung out!

ronnie.and.peter victoria bc > i did it one time only, when i was 13 yrs old, and I am 64 now. It remains one of my most searing memories.

Then of course, there are those who think that just because they may have jumped into water from a great height, everyone else should be able to do so as well. The implication being that if you can’t you are some sort of wimp.

Laurie Cheshire CT > Have none of you cliff dived as a kid? jumping into a pool with no obstacle sticking out is a piece of cake!

Bill Daub NJ > Of course I would jump! Where do I go to try it? People do this all the time with great form and beauty,

Oh, and for the record, I have never jumped from a three metre tower let alone a ten metre one. Would I do so? I will never know unless I try, and at this stage in my life—I have no intention of trying!

Ten Meter Tower appeared at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It is part of a series produced by independent filmmakers who have received support from the nonprofit Sundance Institute. Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson are documentary filmmakers based in Gothenburg, Sweden, who have worked together since 2013.

Op-Docs is a forum for short, opinionated documentaries, produced with creative latitude by independent filmmakers and artists. You can see more films in the Op-Docs series here at the New York Times website.

Top 10 Destinations for Opera Lovers: Part 2

~ Frommer's asked the editors of OPERA NEWS magazine, whose European Travel issue hits newsstands mid-April, to come up with the top 10 destinations that should be included on every opera lover's roadmap this year.

I listed the first five (in no particular order), in an earlier posting on this blog.

Here are the last five top destinations for lovers of opera.

FRANCE: Paris
Has any place inspired more operas than Paris, perhaps the most romantic city on earth? Paris's newest home for opera is the spacious but somewhat chilly Opéra de la Bastille, which boasts an unrestricted view of the stage from each of its 2,700 seats, but the city's most famous operatic landmark remains the opulent nineteenth-century Palais Garnier, familiar to lovers of Broadway's Phantom of the Opera. Don't miss a chance to visit Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, an Art Deco masterpiece that is one of Europe's prettiest theaters, or the devastatingly elegant Théatre du Châtelet. Also worth a trip is the Salle Favart, its frothy good looks an apt metaphor for the light-hearted attractions of its home company, the Opéra-Comique.

THE UNITED STATES: Civic Opera House, Chicago
Chicago's Civic Opera House is one of the most beautiful buildings in a city that prides itself on its architecture. Built in 1929, this ageless amalgam of Renaissance revival and Art Deco has superb acoustics, excellent sightlines and sumptuous public spaces, including a handsomely proportioned lobby designed by Jules Guerin. The theatre was home to several Chicago opera companies before its most distinguished tenant, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, arrived in 1954. The Lyric established the City of Big Shoulders as an international opera capital, offering the opera world's brightest stars in top-notch productions. After the Lyric season ends in late winter, Chicago's opera lovers hold on until spring, when the adventurous Chicago Opera Theatre presents its three-opera season at the slick new Harris Theatre for Music and Dance in Millennium Park.



SWEDEN: The Drottningholm Court Theatre
Built in 1766 for the Swedish queen, Lovisa Ulrika, the Drottningholm Court Theatre-located in the Royal Domain of Drottningholm, only a short bus or boat ride from the capital city of Stockhom-is a thing of exquisite artifice. The theatre was a beehive of musical and theatrical activity during the late eighteenth century, but when Lovisa Ulrika's son (and political enemy), King Gustaf III was assassinated-an event used as the basis for Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera,-the theatre fell into disuse; it was a storage facility for much of the nineteenth century. Drottningholm was recalled to life in the 1920s and now presents a brief summer season each year, with the repertory usually drawn from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spring and summer tours of the theatre and the palace grounds are relatively infrequent, in order to spare its eighteenth-century charms from the wear-and-tear of twenty-first-century life. Early booking is advisable.

THE UNITED STATES: Santa Fe Opera
In 1957, New York conductor John Crosby started an opera company in a highly unlikely locale: the breathtaking mountains of northern New Mexico. Crosby's impossible dream has endured: every July and August since then, Santa Fe Opera has presented an imaginative, exciting mix of familiar classics, rarely-performed treasures and brand-new works, their casts generally populated by the best young singers in America. Opera lovers from all over the world have been thrilled by Santa Fe's singular natural beauty, an element in the company's appeal celebrated by its dramatically proportioned adobe theatre, which has unequalled views of the high desert landscape - and the heart-stopping beauty of its sunsets. Daytime hours in Santa Fe can be spent sampling the myriad charms of the city itself and of its thriving local community of world-class artists and artisans.

ENGLAND: Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Sussex
The thoroughly English character of Glyndebourne Festival Opera reflects the personality of its eccentric founder, John Christie, who developed the ambitious scheme to offer festival-quality opera performances on his East Sussex estate beginning in 1934. Christie's original theatre was eventually replaced by a completely new facility in 1994, but the abiding presence of the Christie home and the continued involvement of Christie's descendants in festival life have allowed Glyndebourne to retain much of its original atmosphere. The operas of Mozart have been at the core of Glyndebourne's repertory for all of its existence, but more esoteric fare - including some world premieres - is also among the company specialties.

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Image courtesy Civic Opera House, Chicago