Color-tinted archival footage of the majestic ice formations at East Rongbuk Glacier in Tibet forms a dramatic backdrop in today’s clip of the newly restored The Epic Of Everest. The film, shot by Captain John Noel while he documented the ultimately doomed 1924 British attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest, has been restored by the BFI with the help of the intrepid director’s daughter Sandra Noel, who is interviewed below. Simon Fisher Turner—who has previously composed soundtracks to Derek Jarman's Edward II and Caravaggio and has more recently worked with DFA’s dance minimalists, Factory Floor—has provided a multilayered new score featuring Nepalese musicians alongside Throbbing Gristle’s Cosey Fanni Tutti, cellist Peter Gregson and drummer Asaf Sirkis. “I first saw an unrestored copy of the film that had hairs, cuts and gashes all over it, but I was still stunned by its beauty and extraordinary camerawork,” says Turner. Noel used modified cameras and pioneering lenses to shoot in the atrocious conditions, and the expedition itself was as much a battle of untested technology against the elements as it was endurance: the climbers made their ascent relying on hemp rope and temperamental oxygen supplies, wearing tweed jackets over wool undergarments and leather boots studded with nails. A haunting moment comes towards the end of the film when tiny figures move slowly up the steep slope, part of a third and final summit attempt made by 36-year-old George Mallory and 22-year-old Andrew Irvine. They were never seen alive again: Mallory’s body was found in 1999; Irvine still lies undiscovered on the mountain.

It is fascinating to hear of your father’s solutions to the conditions.

Sandra Noel: He was very forward thinking and technical. For example he had a rubber casing made for his camera so it wouldn’t freeze to his cheek as he filmed. Some people would say he was first and foremost an artist, but he was a very practical person.

There are expeditions planned to find Irvine’s body and his and Mallory’s cameras to see if they did reach the summit on the final ascent. What do you think your father would have thought of that?

SN: I am very pleased that he had died before Mallory’s body was found. I don't think he would have liked to see that alabaster figure lying on the mountain; it would have brought back memories for him.


Did he feel that they had got to the top?

SN: He had a belief that they reached the summit but died on the way down. That didn’t take away from his sheer delight when Everest was conquered [in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay], because, even if they did get to the top, they didn't get back. You've got to come down again to make it a successful climb.

The Epic of Everest, a BFI National Archive restoration, is in UK cinemas & on BFI Player now. Simon Fisher Turner’s score is out now on Mute.