With ‘Endurance,’ an Oscar-winning duo meet their toughest subject to date

By Thomas Page, CNN

(CNN) — Jimmy Chin has done many memorable things in his time, but the adventure athlete and Oscar-winning filmmaker is still more used to documenting big stories than becoming the story itself.

One half of the creative duo behind “Free Solo,” “The Rescue” and “Nyad,” alongside partner Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Chin is a star of the mountaineering scene, shooting stills and video of incredible people doing hair-raising things. But when climbing on Mount Everest earlier this year, he stumbled across evidence that could solve a century-long mystery.

Below Everest’s North Face, on the Central Rongbuk Glacier, he spotted an old boot with human remains inside. Days earlier the expedition had discovered an oxygen canister from 1933, and offhand, Chin wondered if any sign of the earlier, ill-fated 1924 expedition by George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, might lie nearby.

Both British explorers went missing on June 8, 1924, and debate still rages as to whether they reached the summit first, 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first confirmed summit in 1953. Mallory’s remains were found in 1999, but not Irvine’s – who had carried a camera with him, which could hold proof.

Now Chin was looking at a boot. Inside was a sock, sodden with melted glacial water. “I flipped the sock over and in very clear stitched letters it said, ‘A.C. Irvine,’” he told CNN. “That’s when we all lost it.”

“It was like finding a needle in a thousand haystacks,” Chin added. The news made headlines in October, and the remains were taken for DNA testing to confirm they belong to Irvine (the results are pending). As for the missing camera, Chin said he was “quite sure that there are more artifacts that are still frozen into the ice in that very specific area.”

The Irvine discovery is remarkably the second century-old mystery Chin has been involved with this year. The other is the reason Chin and Vasarhelyi are sitting down for an interview. They, along with Natalie Hewit, directed “Endurance,” a thrilling retelling of the discovery of the lost ship Endurance.

The ship, captained by Ernest Shackleton, became trapped in ice off Antarctica in 1915, before sinking, leaving the crew stranded and prompting “one of the greatest stories of survival ever told,” according to Chin.

The crew weathered unimaginable conditions on the ice for months – some, for nearly a year – but all 28 members lived to tell the tale. The ship’s final resting place was unknown, however, before the Endurance22 mission found it, eerily well preserved, at the bottom of the Weddell Sea in 2022.

Chin and Vasarhelyi tell that story, as well as revisit the footage taken by crew photographer Frank Hurley, which has been newly-restored to stunning effect.

In an interview with CNN, the duo discussed putting the past in dialogue with the present, harnessing AI, and what connects the characters in their films. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CNN: Why do you think Shackleton remains such an enduring figure of fascination and inspiration?

Chin: I think there’s some consensus that this is one of the greatest stories of survival ever told. It represents an idea of the human potential and the power of the human spirit and great leadership.

Vasarhelyi: We both grew up with the Shackleton story, and the Lansing book is one of my favorites. And it’s been told many times, and every time you learn something new.

CNN: One thing the film doesn’t shy away from is the failures that have come before – the previous attempts to find the Endurance. When the mission was setting sail, were you confident it would be found?

Vasarhelyi: I think we were hopeful. And then we became increasingly less confident as the time went by. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? It’s high risk, high reward. This ship had remained hidden for 100 years. The film is about time. That’s the point of weaving the two stories together, because it really gets to this idea of the audacity of exploration, and the ingenuity and courage and grit.

CNN: Could you take me back to the moment when you learned the ship was discovered?

Vasarhelyi: We were on location in the Dominican Republic shooting “Nyad,” so we heard second hand. It was pretty instantaneous: this has to be a feature length film.

There’s nothing like seeing the images yourself. All these stories, mythology, that’s been built up around Shackleton. When you actually see the tangible stuff, 110 years later, perfectly preserved, it’s a different type of archive. It really makes you think about how these men lived and how they survived.

CNN: Let’s talk about the photos and footage of the Shackleton voyage, shot by Frank Hurley. Given your background, just how remarkable is it that this material survived?

Chin: I started shooting with slide film. I remember what a burden it was to shoot each roll then package it up and carry it back home. To imagine the circumstances they were under, shooting these glass plates on the edge of existence and survival for over a year… It’s hard to overstate the amount of effort and time that they put in to saving it. It’s absolutely mind-blowing. There’s not a single time I look at those photographs and that footage and don’t think about what it must have taken for them to be able to keep it.

CNN: People may be familiar with the footage in previous films made from it, but we’re seeing it in a whole new way here, restored and in color. How did this come about?

Vasarhelyi: The BFI (British Film Institute) has lovingly preserved the Hurley footage and they’ve been quite strict about never allowing a color treatment. It was a really meaningful collaboration with them where they entertained it and eventually agreed that we could color treat – not colorize – the footage.

He (Hurley) is such a good shooter. When you finally see the film finished, you hear the audio design, you see the color treated footage, you hear the AI voices that we’ve used – it’s an AI iteration of their own voices, of their own writings. I had goosebumps.

CNN: You mentioned AI. I think a lot of people think of your filmmaking as very tactile; when we’re watching “Free Solo,” we know there’s someone – you, Jimmy – hanging off that cliff to capture everything. This film sees you leaning into technologies and creating these AI voices, albeit grounded in some real recordings. Could you share a little about that?

Vasarhelyi: The way to tell the Endurance story is through the diaries of the crew members, because they’re first-person accounts, different perspectives, humor, character. We made a rule for ourselves: if we could find original recordings (of crew members), we can bring the actual words to life in their own voices. We weren’t clear on what the effect would be, and I have to say, I was shocked how effective it was. It’s like an exciting new type of like history to be made.

In terms of AI more generally, there are lots of pitfalls. Everyone is right to be concerned. I’m trying to be as educated as possible and pressure legislation and ethical approaches – especially in our genre.

CNN: Like Shackleton and his crew, many of the subjects of your films are pushing the envelope on what’s possible physically and mentally. Have you noticed any common traits shared by these people?

Vasarhelyi: We will have very different answers, so I’ll let Jimmy go first.

Chin: I think there’s a certain level of optimism that all these people share. Because you have to believe that there is an outcome, regardless of how impossible it might seem. Whether it’s Doug and Kris Tompkins believing that they can preserve millions and millions of acres in Chile (in “Wild Life” [2023]), or that Alex Honnold can climb El Cap without a rope and survive (in “Free Solo” [2018]). Shackleton and his men had to have this belief, that even though they were in the absolute worst possible scenario, that there was this chance that they might be able to pull something off.

Vasarhelyi: I’ve been thinking a lot about belonging and connecting. Shackleton was an outsider, Irish, a merchant marine. There was some motivation to belong or connect and to make his mark. I think about Alex Honnold, who couldn’t really connect. Through this audacious endeavor, it’s the journey that becomes unexpected, and they arrive a different place. Alex ended up falling in love, which was much harder and scarier for him in many ways. If you look at him now, it’s amazing. He’s got two children. He’s a different person. Even Kris Tompkins, who was the CEO of Patagonia, finds love in her 40s but then really finds her voice, trying to make real her late husband’s dreams. And I think that just compels me, because I have always felt like an outsider.

There’s just something about connection. I think that has to do also with why a lot of our films you can watch with your kids and your parents, and experience them in a big cinema. It’s still about your connection to the world you live in. Also this idea: you are loved by that world, and you will find your place.

“Endurance” is available on Disney+ from November 2.

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