Journalist Jon Krakauer is doing publicity rounds for Prophet’s Prey, a documentary about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Krakauer appears as a reporter who played a role in jailing Warren Jeffs, the polygamist sect leader. In addition, a fictionalized version of Krakauer (played by Michael Kelly) appears in theaters this weekend.
Universal Pictures’ Everest shows the Krakauer character in what he considers to be a negative light. While Krakauer’s fellow climbers become trapped in blizzard conditions, his character remains in his tent. Krakauer had a few things to say in his defense. In short, he calls the film, “total bull.”
Krakauer is the author of 1997’s In Thin Air, his memoir of the disastrous climb also portrayed in Everest. Both works focus upon the 1996 tragedy wherein eight climbers lost their lives in an unanticipated storm. Universal Pictures did not base their film upon Krakauer’s book, which was licensed to Sony Pictures (and resulted in a television movie). Krakauer says he was never consulted by Everest producers. His main beef lies with notion that his character took refuge while others perished. Krakauer “considers the film a personal affront” from director Baltasar Kormakur:
[Krakauer’s] particularly aggrieved by a scene in which his character is asked to help with the rescue by Russian guide Anatoli Boukreev but replies he cannot because he is “snow blind.”
“I never had that conversation,” Krakauer says. “Anatoli came to several tents, and not even sherpas could go out. I’m not saying I could have, or would have. What I’m saying is, no one came to my tent and asked.”
“Our intention in the tent scene that Mr. Krakauer mentions was to illustrate how helpless people were and why they might not have been able to go out and rescue people…” says Kormakur in a reply sent to The Times through his publicist. “They were not malicious. They were helpless.”
Krakauer laments selling Into Thin Air‘s movie rights in the first place. He says other people told him to “take the money,” but Krakauer says, “I curse myself for selling it at all.” He accuses both the TV film and Everest of taking dramatic license with the 1996 tragedy.
(Via LA Times)
