Riding Giants (Special Edition)
by Stacy Peralta
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Darrick Doerner, Dave Kalama, David H. Kalama Jr., Jeff Clark, Laird John HamiltonDirector: Stacy Peralta
Brand: CLARK,JEFF
Producer: Laird John Hamilton
Writer: Stacy Peralta
Producer: Agi Orsi
Producer: Franck Marty
Producer: Jane Kachmer
Producer: Nathalie Delest
Writer: Sam George
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-01-04
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Riding Giants (Special Edition)
Movie Review: my GOD!"
Summary: 5 Stars
"This is the sea" -by Waterboys & Mike Scott
These things you keep
you better throw them away
turn your back
on your soulless days
once you were tethered
now you are free
once you were tethered
now you are free
that was the river
this is the sea
if you're feelin' weary
or you been alone too long
or maybe you been sufferin' from
a few too many
plans that have gone wrong
and you're tryin' to remember
how fine your life used to be
runnin' around banging your drum
like it's 1973
well that was the river
this is the sea
now you say you got trouble
you say you got pain
you say you got nothin' left to believe in
nothin' to hold on to
nothin' but chains
you been scourin' your conscience
and rakin' through your memories
you been scourin' your conscience
and rakin' through your memories
but that was the river
this is the sea
Now I can see you wavering
as you try to decide
you got a war in your head
and it's tearin' you up inside
you're tryin' to make sense
of something that you just don't see
you're tryin' to make sense now
and you know that you once held the key
but that was the river...
this is the sea
Now I hear there's a train
it's comin' down the line
it's yours if you hurry
you got still enough time
you don't need no ticket
and you don't pay no fee
you don't need no ticket
and you don't pay no fee
that was the river
this is the sea
["I don't wanna....not live....because of something that MIGHT happen..." --Laird Hamilton ]
The reality of Big Wave Surfing, is about living without fear. To hell with death. To hell with the fear of what might happen. This is about LIVING. All the song lyrics repeat this message over and over. The deeply spiritual message of RIDING GIANTS, is that the fear of death should not limit living, whether in play or work. Thus, the Chinese Proverb, saying "HE-WHO-FEARS-DEATH-DIES-A-THOUSAND-TIMES" comes to its culmination it big wave surfing. The SUN, WAVES, WIND, and being fully alive in the moment.....good grief. LET GO! This is Zen Buddhism, martial arts, Messianic fervor, Buckaroo Bonzai, and Larry-The-Cable-Guy... all in a package, SHAKIN' STONES!
I am so pleased that "This is the sea" is the very first music on the CD, as it was the epitome of the documentary's music and statement. Mike Scott authored the lyrics with which "Riding Giants" is reprised. It sums up and affirms the comments by big wave surfer Dr. Rennekker in this powerful documentary, stating that big wave surfing is about TRANSFORMATION.
I've seen Riding Giants over 22 times in the past three months, having ordered my own copy for deeper study several weeks ago. I was deeply impressed by the featured surfers, and also by magazine editor Sam George's comments about big wave surfing being a kind of faith.
The powerful combination of lyrics to "This is the sea" with the views of magazine editor Sam George & Dr. Renneker, have a strong effect. As Dr. Rennekker says it;
"It's about eliminating the B*S*."
I'm not a big wave surfer, nor ever will be. I'm a chess player, another sub-culture, which like surfing, is said to sometimes be addictive. There are "waves" in chess also. Great big ones, when you are "in the moment, " balancing on a wave of energy and feeling, excluding all else, and you see a leverage move, and in the silent exuberance of your mind, focused entirely on the wavelike motion of little pieces on the the board, you say; "OH, MY GOD!" Such a moment is depicted in "Riding Giants" in regards to the killer wave ridden off the coast of Tahiti by Laird Hamilton in 2000. Big Wave Surfing is about a kind of mastery, about "letting go". This is not about the river. "This is the SEA, yeah...."
A recurring theme in Life, is that people are searching; searching for some kind of "connected" feeling. The sea is as deep a connection as can be found in the things of the earth. For this we sail, we swim, we leave home and go on "adventures".
This is as powerful a documentary as I have ever seen. The span of time covered, all of the 20th Century and a little before, lends to the docummentary the air of a cultural phenomenon. Powerful, as much for what was not shown, as for the featured film clips of surfers. All the events of world history are a mere blur in the background. In the words of Mike Scott...that world is "...the river. THIS IS THE SEA, yeah!", eternal, because this is about men and women on a board, with only a swim suit and courage. It's about the moment. It's the antithesis of our industrialized, mass educated, media-driven culture, riding glorious mechanization into the New Jerusalem, fearful that something might happen. The waves are free.
The soundtrack is incredible. The soundtrack, the personalities, the phenomenon of personal transformation, the phenomenon of surfing itself, make this a documentary that will endure for decades. This is not about paddling out to catch 5 foot waves along some sunny Southern California coastline. This is about GIANT waves in excess of 20', perhaps as high as a hundred feet, that ....in the words of a young woman big wave surfer, ..." ...you have to just KNOW you're going to make it."
It is not suggested that these unique individuals have done something for mankind; but what they have found for themselves is something that all of us can discover. This is the Sea. Yeah.
Summary of Riding Giants (Special Edition)
From its early Hawaiian roots to its current status as a recreational lifestyle enjoyed worldwide, bigwave surfing is given the definitive exploration by acclaimed director Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys).Riding Giants is more than another blissfulsurfing movie. It's an outstanding documentary about one era in American alternative lifestyles, when surfing was well-suited to a radical culture of social dropouts. Using an amazing array of amateur film clips, shot for the most part in Hawaii and California from the late 1950s and early '60s, director Stacy Peralta traces the rise of surfing's appeal to young men looking to test themselves in an unorthodox (and sexy) milieu--of "living life to the fullest," as former surfer-turned-screenwriter John Milius (Big Wednesday) puts it at one point. Lengthy chapters on the glories of Oahu's Makaha and the "superstition and dread" that accompanied the big-wave challenge of Waimea Bay are riveting and sometimes heroic, particularly told through the memories of surf legend Greg Noll. Great material, too, about the deadly wonders of surfing Mavericks, California, where the rocks will get one if the violent tides don't. --Tom Keogh
Stills from Riding Giants (Click for larger image)
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