On a 15h45min flight yesterday (a flight from the Middle East that took the long route) one of the movies I saw was "Against the Current" a drama about someone who swam down the Hudson River from Troy NY to the Verrazano bridge. I thought it would be about swimming, and it really wasn't.
I know it's fiction but here's the thing: he just decides to do it, no training, first day he swims 3 miles then a few days later he's up to 10, swims every day, swims with his head and shoulders above the water, no permits (although this is mentioned in the film)...
Guess distance open water swimming isn't that hard after all.
Anyone else see this one or other films that show how easy it is?
This is a decent movie that does a better job than most of hinting at the kind of training needed to do open water, On a Clear Day (movies.yahoo.com/.../details), but still minimizes the work required. A good movie, though.
Former Member
I haven't seen (or heard of) that one. The open-water swimming movie I watched recently was The Guardian, which is about the training school for Coast Guard rescue swimmers. It definitely didn't make the swimming look too easy. On the contrary, lots of the drama came from people having a very tough time with swims, whether in the pool or in cold, rough seas off the coast of Alaska. I have no gripes with the depiction of the swimming, but it was only a mediocre movie.
Our very own GAJA swimmer, Megan Melgaard, helped train Costner and Kutcher for that movie as well! :applaud:
meganmelgaard.com/actress_megan_melgaard.php
I haven't seen (or heard of) that one. The open-water swimming movie I watched recently was The Guardian, which is about the training school for Coast Guard rescue swimmers. It definitely didn't make the swimming look too easy. On the contrary, lots of the drama came from people having a very tough time with swims, whether in the pool or in cold, rough seas off the coast of Alaska. I have no gripes with the depiction of the swimming, but it was only a mediocre movie.
I heard on the radio that they were looking for extras swimmers for that movie, email casting or whoever, but never heard back. I know that they would have turned me down based on my appearance(non Ashton Kuchter waif body). I am sure that the production didn't want to put any CGI stuff to make an extra look like a swimmer with a typical swimmers body. It would have been fascinating to see the look of their faces when I walked in the door to audition to be an extra/stunt swimmers.
Swimming on tv and movies
The best is when the actor does their bad stroke and all of a sudden, the stunt Olympic caliber swimmer starts swimming. That is what happened in the movie "Pride". Attiba Wade actually admitted in a interview when you see the good swimming, it was him.
Former Member
I haven't seen (or heard of) that one. The open-water swimming movie I watched recently was The Guardian, which is about the training school for Coast Guard rescue swimmers. It definitely didn't make the swimming look too easy. On the contrary, lots of the drama came from people having a very tough time with swims, whether in the pool or in cold, rough seas off the coast of Alaska. I have no gripes with the depiction of the swimming, but it was only a mediocre movie.
Swimming Upstream was a pretty good movie and the swimming was reasonably believable:
www.imdb.com/.../
Its also apparently a true story, for what that's worth.
In the special features the actors talk about the difficulty of the swimming scenes as they were doing backstroke and couldn't use stunt doubles (or whatever you would call a replacement swimmer).
I'll also vote for "On A Clear Day" its a pretty good movie.
i hated on a clear day............. a documentary on any one of the 1000 or so channel swimmers would have been much more interesting.
That is a great idea!
Former Member
i hated on a clear day............. a documentary on any one of the 1000 or so channel swimmers would have been much more interesting.
Former Member
How about Pride,it is the true story of PDR swim Coach Ellis.
i hated on a clear day............. a documentary on any one of the 1000 or so channel swimmers would have been much more interesting.
More people have climbed Mt Everest than have swum the Channel.
