Trois vies et une corde

“… Storck remained oblivious until the end of the film. This devil of a man saw only cinema, never spoke but of cinema, transposing everything on to the spectator’s standpoint. Obsessed with the idea of a real avalanche and unsatisfied with the meagre snow-slides we had so far produced, he drove us so mad one day that we decided to conjure a real torrent. The slope was the steepest on the Mont-Mallet glacier. One of the porters and myself were supposed to release it at the peak to set off the avalanche. The snow was heavy, soft and dangerous – perfect. Storck and his team placed themselves on a slight ledge at the base of the slope. Then he shouted: ‘And you’d better give me an avalanche that stops there, do you hear, there… 50 centimetres from the camera!’…”