Warren Miller, Ski Bum Turned Filmmaker, Dies at 93
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
For example: https://youtu.be/zD5RhNBmc_U
My brother and I used to have spinning competitions down hills. We also used to do slope breakdancing, which is way less cool than it sounds. Anyways, I'm grateful to Warren Miller for inspiring me to be silly on the slopes. I had a better time because of the films that he made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq7Meb_pmMM
Important to recall that this was released in 1997, so probably filmed in 1996, and initiated in 1994-5, so its a look into a post-USSR culture a mere 5 yrs after the dissolution of the USSR.
Or is this just the usual nostalgic everything-was-better-in-the-past stuff?
I think the people like Warren were more or less revolting against the culture of the time. Nowadays it's just the norm - most people aren't really wound up even if they're mostly focusing on improving their skills. Maybe there are fewer people dialing goof to the max but in my experience most young skiers and boarders drink and smoke on the slopes - that sort of thing. Also there's movies like G.N.A.R. that are recent.
In the US there's only one major and one smaller area that don't allow snowboards today. I didn't realize it but there was a lawsuit against one of the areas a couple years back but they won and still don't allow snowboards.
Sad statistic: of people who put on skis for the first time (and remember first timers get free tickets and equipment at most locations in the US): only 25% of them ever put skis on a second time!
Interestingly the percentage of boarders is down a bit though still significant.
>Sad statistic: of people who put on skis for the first time (and remember first timers get free tickets and equipment at most locations in the US): only 25% of them ever put skis on a second time!
Not really surprising. Equipment is much better than it was when I learned but I nonetheless remember skiing having a fairly painful learning curve for me. I'm sure a lot of people go out, they don't really have the right clothing, and they fall a lot, get cold, get wet, and really just don't have a good time. I'm sure it's true for a lot of other sports as well.
On the other hand, if you enjoy pushing yourself physically then skiing can also be a thrilling pursuit of your personal limits. When you are competing with yourself, trying to become better at a hobby you are passionate about, you can definitely become emotional and a bit tense.
There are a lot of people all over the mountain that take it pretty seriously just for the fact that it costs a couple hundred bucks just to rent the equipment and get an all-day lift ticket. If you make $1000 a week and you just paid $200 to go skiing, you might be a little bit annoyed if someone is stopped in the middle of the run to take photos, or skiing behind someone who is mashing the bumps down by side-sliding because they rode a lift to a run they couldn't handle.
We do seem to have a bit of an energy drink inspired progression fetish with certain sports. Warren's movies always seemed magical in that you'd see some people just having fun, there would definitely be some more extreme parts and you might see guys hucking off some giant cliff but there was always a constant thread of just skiing for joy. At least that's how it always looked to me and the parts of the movies I seem to remember the most. One of his last movies showed a bunch of footage from a privatized resort and Warren brought his old friends, like it was 50+ year olds skiing sick powder all by themselves, just old dudes skiing the best powder ever... It might have been the Yellowstone Club, I don't remember.
He made a brand and developed a loyal following, I think in today's world a lot feel that doing some crazy stuff is the easiest way to get the views, and it's all about the views. As for skiing itself, it's very much a family oriented activity in most places. The big resorts all have terrain parks now and some fairly extreme terrain that they've opened up but that vast majority of most mountains is designed to just be fun and relatively safe.
1. There's an aerial shot of pre-eruption Mount St. Helens with commentary of the effect of "Here's a dormant volcano of the Cascades, at least we hope it's dormant."
2. In many of his films, there's a sequence with some kind of oddball snow contraption: monoskis, bikes with fat studded tires, etc. In this film, it was this weird thing called a snowboard.
"He had a good run."
RIP Warren, you made a positive difference in the universe.
"It's our search for freedom," he said. "It's what it's all about - man's instinctive search for freedom."
Definitely a legend who adapted right alongside with the sport!
To be frank, though, I thought both had died years ago.
I’ve realized in recent years that while I don’t think there is a physical soul of any kind, the soul of an individual is the collective influence they had. Much of that lives on long after the person’s light leaves this world. That lasting influence is now, to me, the soul of the individual.
If a person is a notable technologist I think it's of interest, but I would ask the community (who is obviously upvoting these celebrity death posts: I'm in the minority here) whether they really think this is important content for HN.
Watching his movies as a kid was the reason I started putting a video camera on my helmet and video camera in my backpack before GoPro was created.
WME wasn't really pop culture, and I wouldn't categorize Warren Miller as a celebrity. He did use technology to create a life-style business in a category that didn't exist before, which is why I think the post belongs here.