He refused to cut those dances, to prove he had done them. Fred and Ginger, Fred and Rita, Fred and Cyd, or even Fred alone, dancing By Myself in The Band Wagon (1953), in just one set-up. So much of the motion was a man alone doing some crucial thing, though I think the purest examples of male prowess in American film will always be Fred. It was heroes being brave, like Jimmy Stewart in an Anthony Mann western clambering over rock and guilt and fear to be vindicated. Or Cary Grant willing Ingrid Bergman down the staircase at the end of Notorious (1946) – and doing that backflip in Holiday (1938). It was Elsa Lanchester hissing and seething in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). (1928), trusting that he would fit in the window space. It was Buster Keaton mooning around when the house fell on him in Steamboat Bill, Jr. Or it was Bogart walking across a room in The Big Sleep (1946) – the dream and the dread dogging his every step. It was the elan that let Douglas Fairbanks and Burt Lancaster vault from here to there – doing their own stunts! Or the energy that drove Flynn and Rathbone in their delirious sword-fight from The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). It was what delighted Parisians in 1895 when Lumière figments first walked in open space and looked at that newcomer, the camera. No kid ever asked more from cinema than that miracle of action.
Free Solo is on UK cinema release and is reviewed in the January/February 2019 issue of Sight & Sound.