[dl] FILM

An experienced climber pushes a group of sightless, teenage novices toward the top of a mountain in the new documentary Blindsight.
                   By Elisabeth Deffner

Climbing to the top of the Seven Summits — the highest peak on each continent — is unquestionably difficult. That’s why fewer than 200 people have ever done it. Harder, still, is climbing to the top of the Seven Summits without being able to see — at all. That’s why only one person, Erik Weihenmayer — a 39-year-old resident of Golden, Colorado, who was born legally blind and lost his vision completely at age 13 — has ever done it.

So what’s harder than climbing all seven of the peaks when you’re blind? How about trying to lead a group of novice climbers, all teenagers, to the top of a 23,000-foot-tall mountain that neighbors Mount Everest? That’s the challenge Weihenmayer took on in 2004. With a camera crew chronicling their every move, Weihenmayer and six students from Braille Without Borders, a groundbreaking Tibet-based school for the blind, hiked up a peak called Lhakpa Ri. Along the very difficult way toward the top, Weihenmayer clashed with the school’s founder, Sabriye Tenberken. Weihenmayer wanted to push hard for the summit. Tenberken, who had initially invited Weihenmayer to simply conduct a “small climbing workshop” with her students, was glad to see the students accomplish any part of the climb. That difference, along with each of the students’ inspirational personal stories, is the basis for the gripping new documentary Blindsight. For his part, Weihenmayer says the film and the climb taught him that achievement isn’t always found at the summit.

On why Weihenmayer says he took on the challenge of the climb: “Sabriye Tenberken’s work makes these kids feel it’s okay to be who they are. I thought it would be cool to continue Sabriye’s work, to make an impact the way I could make it. [I wanted] to teach them that the outdoors is an environment that’s hostile and chaotic, especially if you’re blind. But to flourish in the outdoors helps you in other areas of your life — being able to push through adversity, relying on your team to be able to do that, relying on yourself, using things that are tough to push yourself forward.”

On why climbing blind works best with a team: “Climbing is a great team sport because, especially when you’re blind, you’re trusting a partner. When you think about building your team, it all begins with trust. Climbing has taught me a lot in terms of being blind. You can accept help as long as you can give it in return. Are you a sack of potatoes being dragged to the top or are you contributing?”

On why the kids were just one of his challenges: “The film crew was a piece of the tug-of-war in the climb. They’d say, ‘Could you do that again?’ And you’d be like, ‘Dude, it’s zero degrees out, my hands are numb, the kids’ hands are numb. I can’t do that again.’ ”

On whether he pushed the kids too far: “When I’m listening to the movie, a side of me has winced from time to time and thought, ‘Wow, I hope I’m not the villain of this movie.’ Everyone had very good intentions. The filmmakers did a very good job showing how everyone got to those positions. You kind of understand both sides. It leaves you with questions. And even though we had disagreements, we never lost respect for each other.”

On the meaning of accomplishment: “I think we probably focused too much on, ‘Hey, we’re going to climb a peak — to the summit.’ That’s the big question it leaves me with in the film: How far is too far? Can you reach too far? Did I reach too far with the kids? In retrospect, I would approach it differently and say, ‘We’re going on a great adventure, but it’s not so important what the outcome is.’”

On whether he’d ever try another climb like the one in Blindsight: “Kyila [one of the teenage climbers] said, ‘Erik, we all want to know if you’ll come back next year and take us up Everest.’ I said, ‘But I don’t think you guys like climbing.’ They were like, ‘No, we love climbing!’ Then I said, just to tease them, ‘You guys can’t climb, you’re blind!’ And they said, ‘Yes, we can! We’re going to climb it, you wait and see.’ ”

Inspiration Theater

A brief look at six other great films about overcoming disabilities

The Miracle Worker: This 1962 film was lauded by critics and showered with awards, including two Oscars. It tells the story of how Helen Keller — rendered blind and deaf by what today’s doctors believe was scarlet fever — learns to communicate with sign language, thanks to teacher Annie Sullivan.
DID YOU KNOW? Patty Duke played Keller in the original film, and then, all grown up, took on Anne Bancroft’s role of Annie Sullivan in a 1979 TV remake.

The Other Side of the Mountain: In 1955, downhill skier Jill Kinmont was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and on her way to competing in the 1956 Winter Olympics. During a competition in Utah, she fell and was paralyzed from the neck down. This 1975 film dramatizes her true story of living with paralysis.
DID YOU KNOW? The movie’s theme song, “Richard’s Window,” was sung by Olivia Newton-John and nominated for an Academy Award.

The Terry Fox Story: This 1983 HBO movie was about a Canadian runner who lost his leg to cancer and then set out on a quest to run across Canada with one prosthetic leg.
DID YOU KNOW? The film starred Eric Fryer, who, like Fox, is an amputee.

My Left Foot: This 1989 star turn for Daniel Day-Lewis tells the true story of Irish writer Christy Brown, who was believed to be developmentally disabled as a child. In fact, Brown was born with cerebral palsy. He teaches himself to write and paint with his left foot, his only controllable limb.
DID YOU KNOW? Though Daniel Day-Lewis is British, the role of Brown was the first in a string of parts — including his roles in The Boxer and In the Name of the Father — in which his character was Irish.

The Mighty: This 1998 film tells the story of two seventh-grade boys (one played by Kieran Culkin, brother of Macaulay) who feel like outsiders. One of the boys has a learning disability, the other has Morquio’s syndrome, which causes his bones to stop growing. But what makes these two different from the other kids bonds them together.
DID YOU KNOW? Just three years after Sharon Stone received an Oscar nomination for her role in Casino, she was nominated for a Golden Globe award for her supporting role in The Mighty.

Ray: The true story of how Ray Charles lost his sight at age six and then went on to become a rhythm-and-blues legend was a hit at the box office in 2004 and at the Oscars.
DID YOU KNOW? Jamie Foxx won a lead-actor Oscar for playing Charles and was nominated for a supporting-actor Oscar in the same year for his part in Collateral. — E.D.

Drew Are You?

With Nancy Drew’s latest adventures headed to DVD, discover how much you know about our greatest teenage crime-scene investigator.     By Bryan Reesman

Nancy Drew is a pretty ordinary teenager, except that in her spare time she solves crimes. That means she’s been threatened, tied up, knocked unconscious, poisoned with gas, pursued by a ferocious canine, and attacked by an erratic robot — among other things. So it makes sense that Emma Roberts was cast as the tremendously talented teenage sleuth in Nancy Drew, a modern, big-screen adaptation that is now out on DVD. After all, who’s more “ordinary” than the look-alike niece of America’s sweetheart, Julia Roberts? To prepare you for the DVD’s release, we share six things you don’t know about Nancy Drew.

1 The new Nancy Drew and the old Nancy Drew have plenty in common. Though Nancy Drew has popped up on TV in recent years, the last time the character headlined her own feature fi lm was in the 1930s. Back then, an actress named Bonita Granville starred in a series of Nancy Drew movies. Like Emma Roberts, whose dad is actor Eric Roberts, Bonita Granville was the daughter of a fi lm actor — Bernard “Bunny” Granville. And also like Emma Roberts, who made her big-screen debut at age nine, Bonita Granville made her fi rst fi lm at age nine. Both were in pretty good company. Roberts starred with Johnny Depp in Blow, and Granville was in Westward Passage with Laurence Olivier.

2 There is one case that even Nancy Drew can’t solve: the case of the missing creator. Nancy Drew’s author, Carolyn Keene, was not quite J.K. Rowling, but she was plenty popular back in her day. Keene received and answered a plethora of fan mail, according to Melanie Rehak, author of Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. Rehak also says Keene was so well known that she was asked to join the Authors Guild and was listed by Who’s Who in America. Thing is, she wasn’t real. The original installments in the Nancy Drew book series were written and edited by various employees of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Most of the books were penned by Mildred Wirt Benson and Harriet Stratemeyer, the daughter of the syndicate’s founder, Edward Stratemeyer. But the two battled over who should get credit for Nancy’s development. “Both Harriet and Mildred each honestly felt that she had made the character the success that she was,” Rehak says. “They had a long-standing disagreement, which their families have continued through the present day, about who was really responsible for the creation of this character.”

3 Nancy Drew’s real creator did not have a daughter who dated Indiana Jones. Because, you see, Indiana Jones is not real. In an episode of the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, young Indy visited Thomas Edison’s lab with his girlfriend — Nancy Stratemeyer. “People always said that she was one of Edward Stratemeyer’s daughters or one of his daughter’s daughters,” Rehak says. “But she was not real.” So, you had a fictional character dating the fictitious daughter of the real-life creator of a fictional character. Go figure.

4 She’s not Nancy Drew everywhere. The original proposal for Nancy Drew conjured up a series of generally alliterative appellations for her: Stella Strong, Helen Hale, and Diana Dare, among them. Thankfully, her creators abandoned those names. But overseas, Nancy isn’t Nancy. In France, she’s Alice Roy. In Finland, Paula Drew, and in Sweden, Kitty Drew. In Germany, Susanne Langen. Russia comes the closest: There, she’s Nensi Dru.

5 TV cut into Nancy’s word count. The original printings of the first 34 Nancy Drew books were each 25 chapters long. Later printings, toward the end of the 1950s, had only 20 chapters. “That started because television had really come up as a competitor to these books,” Rehak says. “They were trying to gear them toward the shortened attention span of kids.” The revisions varied dramatically from book to book. “Some were rewritten to take out politically incorrect things and dated language. Some of them had their entire plots rewritten, and other books just had small things changed or cut down.” Not surprisingly, these days the early printings can fetch a generous sum on eBay.

6 She had girl power before it was cool. Nancy Drew “was pioneering when the books started coming out in the ’30s,” Rehak says. “For a lot of women who grew up in the ’40s and ’50s, she was the only female character they had to show them that they could get what they wanted and be smart and have adventures.”

(Not So) Hard to Handle

Seven years after their last studio release, the Black Crowes are back, making new music with a message. By Kevin Raub

There’s irony in the title of the new Black Crowes album, Warpaint. The Southern rockers who first scored commercial success with 1990’s Shake Your Money Maker and its peppy hit “Hard to Handle” have certainly had their battles. The group went on hiatus after its last studio release, 2001’s Lions. And front man Chris Robinson, who says he was convinced Lions would be the last Crowes album, even went off on his own to produce two excellent solo discs (2002’s New Earth Mud and 2004’s The Magnificent Distance). But now, with Warpaint, the Black Crowes have found peace together again. We asked Robinson to talk about the calm after the storm and to give us a preview of the new music.

The Black Crowes, who had their heyday in the 1990s, experienced quite a rebirth with Lions in 2001. But the band self-imploded shortly thereafter. Was it frustrating for you not to have capitalized on the newfound momentum?

Like anything else, it’s about dynamics. When you’re young, all you want to do is get deeper and deeper into your expression and music. After a while, people get on different pages. Their egos change, people change — all sorts of stuff. To me, I felt Lions was the last Black Crowes album, because I wasn’t happy. Then, when we decided to get back and do the Crowes, I was glad I had walked away from the band when I did and took those years to do some things and relearn some things. As Miles Davis said, “Let the music change me.”

Your approach in releasing Warpaint is unorthodox. For one thing, you decided not to make any of the music available to journalists — including me — or anyone else prior to the official March 4 album release. Why?

We want everyone to hear it. But in the nature of the way technology has changed stuff, I think you want to be able to control your presentation as much as possible. We may be sort of antiquated in that thinking, but that’s the reality of it. We want to try to have the biggest splash we can since we haven’t had any new music in a long time. And, of course, it means we don’t trust you.

You’ve also announced plans for a series of live shows this month where you’ll play Warpaint, and only Warpaint, in its entirety. Really? A whole show without singing “Jealous Again”?

Well, it’s been a good 18 years of “Jealous Again,” so I’m hoping everyone can go without it for a few months. But the reality of it is that this is the most proud we have ever been of a recording, and it really put our locomotive back on the tracks. So, we want to get out there and play it in one unadulterated lump.

Let’s talk about the music. There’s a track on the new album called “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution.” What’s it about?

That’s a jumping-off place for our record. It mirrors the theme of the title, Warpaint. It’s a super rock-and-roll sort of song. But inside of it, it’s saying, ‘There’s freedom to be had in your adventure, but the only way you’re going to be able to feel it is to fight for your own.’ No matter what the fear-driven powers that be are telling you — it could be anything, corporations, banks, etc. — there is always stuff inside of you that’s truly revolutionary.

Now, let’s suppose I’m drowning my sorrows and having a nip of Southern Comfort. Which of your new songs would I want to listen to?

“Oh Josephine.” It’s the “5:45 in the morning and the sun is coming up” song. For some of us, there’s great wisdom to be found in those times. There is some clarity in the middle of the chaos. The emotion of the song harks back to where I have personally been and is more optimistic about where love can take you.

Which new song will most surprise die-hard Crowes fans?

Warpaint is what we do: Rootsy, psychedelicovertone- based rock and roll. But maybe “Whoa Mule,” the last song on the record. We were in this beautiful studio in Woodstock, New York, on top of a mountain with a beautiful courtyard. We were working on the song out there, and it sounded really good, so we attached 400 feet of cable together and recorded it outside with all the birds chirping and everything that was going on. We only had a rough framework, but it all came together in one take and everybody played it live. The main message in the song is, “We’re dirty, but we’re dreaming.” In a day and age of shameless promotion, I like the idea that not everyone is squeaky clean, not everyone is shining up to look like everyone else. Some of us are keen to keep our uncombed hair and our dirty jeans.

The Book: No-Man’s Lands: One Man’s Odyssey Through The Odyssey by Scott Huler (Crown, $25). In stores March 11.

Classic works like Homer’s The Odyssey tend to evoke a fight-or-flight response. Readers either consume the book with gusto or run away from it. In Scott Huler’s case, it was read and then run.

With his first child on the way, the 44-year-old author turned to the 2,700-year-old The Odyssey to guide him through one last adventure before he had to start changing diapers. For six months, he backpacked his way through the Mediterranean, retracing the 10-year journey of the fabled Greek warrior Odysseus from the battlefields of Troy to his home in Ithaca.

Huler consulted the vast and still-growing body of Odyssean scholarship to match his journey as closely as possible to Odysseus’s trip to Hell (literally) and back. Though he had to make some creative swaps — he substituted Rome’s catacombs for the halls of Hades, for instance — he tried to stay true to the classic wherever possible.

The Cyclops’s cave on the Sicilian island of Trapani was fairly easy to find: It’s at the end of Via del Ciclope (Cyclops Road). Likewise, sailors for two millennia have known the whereabouts of the Sirens’ island. But not everything was as easy to find. Scylla and Charybdis? The only monsters threatening Huler’s kayak off the coast of eastern Sicily were the oversized cargo ships.

A frequent contributor to National Public Radio, Huler is a highly entertaining travel companion with an oral storyteller’s flair for humor. There’s a hilarious scene in which he imagines how Odysseus’s 10-year separation from his wife, Penelope, might have been different had they simply had e-mail. (“O. — I appreciate your excuses, but Nestor got home two years ago. Whither my sacker of cities?”)

But Huler is a thoughtful traveler as well, aware that the journey is always more important than the destination. And Odysseus’s journey, he argues, isn’t written for the schoolkids upon whom it’s foisted. It’s for middle-aged people who’ve faced difficult trials of their own. No six-headed monsters, perhaps, but struggles with mortality and a quest for a legacy just the same. — Kristin Baird Rattini

The Artist Formerly Known as Ruthless Machiavelli may not be as Machiavellian as you think.

The Book: The Prince, translation by Peter Constantine (Modern Library, $8). In stores March 11.

It’s funny how some people get remembered. For instance, nobody hears the name of Mexican General Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón and says, “Sure, he killed everyone at the Alamo, but he’s the reason we have chewing gum.”

Niccolò Machiavelli is another case in point. Today, we remember him for his 1514 work, The Prince, and we ascribe to both the author and anyone we deem Machiavellian the qualities of ruthlessness and arrogance. But is that what Machiavelli really was? A new translation of The Prince may help answer that question.

True, Machiavelli’s work has, for the past 500 years, become both the source of bedtime stories for all the great despots and the source of countless groans for countless 11th graders. And taken out of context, The Prince may seem like a Ruling Tyrannically for Dummies book, in that it teaches that it is better to be feared than loved.

The thing is, Machiavelli doesn’t really promote cruelty. He simply says that if a ruler’s ultimate goal is to keep the principality together, then fear will generally do the trick. He writes that “[a] prince … must be indifferent to the charge of cruelty if he is to keep his subjects loyal and united. Having set an example once or twice, he may thereafter act far more mercifully than the princes who, through excessive kindness, allow disorders to arise from which murder and plunder ensue.” And why does he say that? Maybe it’s because that’s what he figured rulers wanted to hear. Consider that Machiavelli himself was fired right before writing The Prince. When the Medici family came into power in Florence, it seems they felt that Machiavelli, who was a public servant at the time, would best serve the family by not working for them. Since Machiavelli desperately wanted back into politics, he figured the best way to please the powerful was to tell them, unapologetically, how best to stay in power. So, maybe Machiavelli was a ruthless political philosopher who condoned evil dictatorship. Or maybe he was just a bureaucrat who wanted a new job. — J.D. Reid