The Great Ecstasy Of 'Sunshine Superman'
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Nearly a decade ago, first-time filmmaker Marah Strauch thought she was going to make a documentary about her uncle, a man who filmed himself and others jumping off cliffs and skyscrapers for fun.
Her uncle had jumped out of planes and off buildings for years, but he died in a car accident. Strauch went through his footage, interviewed other BASE jumpers and became interested in another aerial cinematographer. His name was Carl Boenish, and he's considered the father of BASE jumping.
BASE is an acronym that stands for Bridge, Antenna, Span and Earth. Jumpers leap off of these platforms, and release a parachute during the fall. Think of it like skydiving but from a fixed point.
Boenish, a filmmaker first and a BASE jumper second, had thousands of feet of incredible footage of himself, his wife, Jean, and others jumping off of granite cliffs in Yosemite National Park, skyscrapers, and the peaks of European mountains.
"There was like 70,000 feet of film, nobody had really touched it in 30 years," Strauch said in an interview last month. "It was just sitting there. And his studio was exactly the same as it was when he passed away, so everything was intact, and I thought, I've got to do something with this."
And she did.
Her documentary, Sunshine Superman, is a thrilling look at the early days of BASE jumping and a beautiful portrait of Boenish, whose breathless enthusiasm made him far more than a typical adrenaline junky. He was an evangelist of the human spirit, dedicated to knocking down artificial barriers.
"I think he not only had a lot of energy, he also had a philosophy of life, like, you shouldn't just listen to what people are telling you is the thing you can and cannot do," Strauch said. "I think that's really also influenced me in how I see the world."
To jump or not to jump
For Boenish, his reasons for jumping off cliffs and buildings are simple. In self-recorded audio tapes he called "living letters," Boenish explained his thoughts and philosophies. He even interviewed himself.
"He'd be like, Carl, Why would you jump off that building?" Strauch said. "And he's like, because it was there, and because it was a lot of fun."
Boenish would film his jumps with 16-millimeter cameras strapped to helmets. He'd then screen his films for small audiences, believing that once people watched them they'd feel motivated to accomplish their own goals.
"It might be mowing the lawn, or bowling the perfect game," Strauch said. "It didn't have to be BASE jumping."
At one of these screenings, Boenish met his future wife. Though much more quiet than her charismatic husband, Jean Boenish became an accomplished BASE jumper, helping her spouse plan and film his projects.
She was the one who gave Strauch access to all of the incredible archival footage seen in the film.
"She wanted to transfer it," Strauch said. "It was all 16 millimeter, so it was pretty much impossible to see. So I was like, I can get this transferred, I can get this done."
The filmmaker said that Jean ended up being something of a partner and collaborator on the documentary. Still, she never saw the film until it was finished, bought by a studio and in an unalterable state.
"I had a little screening for her and some other friends, and she loved it," Strauch said. "I was sitting there. And, you know, we poke a little fun at her sometimes, and there are little jokes about her wardrobe choices and things like that. She just rolled with it."
The burden of dreams
Sunshine Superman took Strauch about eight years to make. She said that since Boenish's story had never been written down, she had to make sense of it all first and be sure to get it right.
Another hurdle was making the story cinematic. Strauch didn't want her movie to be a bunch of former BASE jumpers talking about the old days. She wanted Boenish's footage to soar, and that meant she had to film to his high, meticulous standards.
"We really wanted to get high-depth copies, keeping the footage as pristine as possible and shooting to the same quality that he shot everything," Strauch said. "It was just really important for us to honor that."
Part of honoring Boenish's work meant traveling to Norway to film at the menacing Troll Wall. That's where Boenish made a record-setting jump in 1984 before the eyes of the international media.
Getting money for this proved difficult. But with the help of documentarian Alex Gibney, Strauch and her team found the money they needed, bit by bit.
She also got life-changing advice from legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog at his Rouge Film School.
"Some of the things we learned were how to pick locks or to forge documents," Strauch said. "It's almost like a metaphor for how to be a filmmaker."
The four-day seminar with the German master cost $1,500, but Strauch said it was the best money she's ever spent.
"[The school] wasn't necessarily about learning angles or shots, or how to get something financed or anything like that," she said. "It's a general attitude of filmmaking: You are a soldier of cinema. And at every point along the way, you will do whatever it takes to get that film made. I think that's what I learned from Herzog, and it was a big thing to learn."
An outsider's view
When asked if she's ever tried BASE jumping, Strauch laughs.
"Everybody always asks that question," she said, "but I think if you were going to make a film about anything else, nobody would ask you...They wouldn't be like, Oh, are you a heroin addict because you made a film about heroin?"
Strauch said she realized early on in the project that she'd be a terrible BASE jumper due to her poor depth perception and lack of outdoorsiness. Yet, that's exactly why she thinks it was good for her to make the film.
"If I were a BASE jumper, I wouldn't have understood other people's reactions," she said. "I would have thought that everyone would understand this, and it would have been another film about BASE Jumping. It would have been typical."
Indeed, Sunshine Superman is not an action sports film. While there's loads of BASE jumping, the action forms a thrilling collage around the story of Boenish's life. The jumps take your breath away, but Boenish's personality captures the imagination. His thirst for life, his drive to go beyond mental and physical barriers is admirable and beautiful. The same can be said of the love story between him and Jean.
Of course, much of what Boenish did is illegal and extremely dangerous.
To BASE jump off a building is considered trespassing, and national parks in the U.S. don't allow it. As to the riskiness of the sport, just this month a renowned rock climber and BASE jumper named Dean Potter died in a wingsuit flight attempt in Yosemite, the very place where Boenish first started experimenting.
"With BASE jumpers, they are not people who necessarily want to follow rules," Strauch said. "And they definitely want to question what people tell them is law, authority, and I think that's a good thing. It's something that I think a lot of Americans need to think about, questioning the status quo."
Today, companies like Red Bull promote BASE jumping and use its icons to associate their energy drinks with extreme sports. While those jumpers might be cashing in, they're still doing what Boenish set out to accomplish in the first place: inspire others.
"I like BASE jumpers, and since I probably won't be making any more films about them, I'll miss hanging out with them," Strauch said. "They are a good lot."
Sunshine Superman is playing at the Lagoon Theater.