Some trivia about former University of Texas film prof, Rod Whitaker, and his Pyrennes caving-based thriller Shibumi: While at the University of Texas Rod directed a UT RTF department film called Stasis, with acting by my first RTF film prof Bill Scott and co-writing by Austin filmmaker Richard Kooris. Rod interviewed Austin cavers as background for Shibumi The "fall-in-the-deep-Pyrennes entrance pit" portion of Shibumi was based on the story of Marcel Loubens' fatal fall in the entrance drop of Gouffre Pierre St Martin when his winch harness clamp failed. Many climbers, cavers and Clint Eastwood fans will be more familiar with one of Rod's other novels: The Eiger Sanction. A Hollywood agent once asked me about caving info because his firm, The William Morris Agency, was handling a project to bring Shibumi to the big screen. He later told me the script had been rewritten to drop the cave scenes for action in the basement of a skyscraper and then the project died. I don't know if anyone else tried to make Shibumi into a film. Besides his novels, Rod wrote one of my favorite UT text books, "The Language of Film Rod passed away in 2005. And now a plug: if you want to see some great cave movies, don't miss the ICS SpeleoMedia Salon at ICS. Also featured at Kerrville will be the out-of-competition premier of Joe Datri's "Texas Cavers" See you there, Frank (SpeleoMedia salon judge)
On 6/11/09 5:52 PM, "wa5...@peoplepc.com" <wa5...@peoplepc.com> wrote: > Since we have had movie reports, how about a book report ... > > Fiction: "Shibumi" by Trevanian, pseudonym for Rodney Whitaker > > This book contains a great cave adventure/chase sequence. Add > this read to your summer 'round toit. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
