Riding Giants
Release Date:
July 9, 2004
Limited release
SURF’S UP, DUDE! If you got the chance to see director Stacy Peralta’s skateboard documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, you have a pretty good idea what to expect. But this time Peralta turns his brilliant filmmaking abilities from the land to the ocean.
Peralta uses a combination of archival footage and interviews with surfing legends to tell a history of the sport of surfing -- especially surfing the big waves. The film not only tells about the sport itself, but also the culture that surrounds it. We feel the power of the waves these pioneers conquered and the adrenaline rush they felt.
In terms of finding old surfing footage, Peralta had heard that there was some Super 8 film of Greg Noll’s legendary conquest of a 30-plus foot wave at Makaha in Hawaii on December 4, 1969. He tracked down the man who had it, legendary surfer Shaun Tomson. When Peralta viewed the film, it did show the wave, but only from the wave closing to the water washing across the nearby Kamehameha Highway. The story is that Noll asked Tomson not to show the complete footage and Tomson is keeping his word.
But Peralta found plenty of other footage to use in his documentary. Audiences have been raving about the film since it was shown at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. If you get the chance, try to see this one on the big screen. You just won’t feel the impact of the waves if you wait to get this when it’s released on DVD. (Marty Doskins/BOP)
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