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Poster for La vie au bout des doigts
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Released
1982 · FILM

La vie au bout des doigts

Runtime
27 min
Language
FR
Documentary

Synopsis

*Life by the Fingertips* is a documentary film directed by Jean-Paul Janssen, released in 1982. It follows Patrick Edlinger as he pursues his passion for climbing, practicing it in a solo style ("with bare hands"), meaning without the use of a rope or any form of protection. The film opens with a session of solo sea cliff traverses at the Piade site near Toulon. In the second part, Edlinger trains in Buoux before establishing a solo route in this now well-known climbing area. Considered a mythical film in several respects, it is often regarded as the first climbing film in which climbing is portrayed as an activity in its own right rather than as preparation for mountaineering. The film's media success elevated Patrick Edlinger to international stardom and introduced climbing to a broader public. It was also nominated for a César Award for Best Documentary Short Film.

Credits

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 5

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Marie CoulaisShot by Gilbert Loreaux

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