Legend of Aahhh's: A True Fable

Filmmaker Greg Stump, director of 1988's Blizzard of Aahhh's—the ski film many consider to be the best in its category—here takes a retrospective look at the history of this niche sports film genre. The fact that Blizzard's impact on an emerging generation of freestyle and extreme skiers forms the centerpiece of Legend might seem self-serving, but Stump's larger point is that North American skiers were ready by the late 1980s to break away from cozy resort culture and test themselves by dangerously plummeting down some of the world's steepest mountains. Somewhat startlingly, Stump maintains that German filmmaker Arnold Fanck's 1931 Der Weisse Rausch was the “first real ski movie” (the film starred future director Leni Riefenstahl, who would become an integral part of the Nazi propaganda machine). Stump also highlights the legacies of Warren Miller, Klaus Obermeyer, and the late Dick Barrymore (all of whom appear in interviews here), treating them with deserved respect even as he draws a line between their work and Blizzard, which changed the landscape with its groundbreaking “rockumentary” style and showcasing of known and unknown heroes of the sport. Stump also includes footage of some of his bygone ski buddies, who were determined as youths to break rules behind and in front of the camera. Sure to please ski aficionados, this is recommended. Aud: P. (T. Keogh)