The first attempts to summit Everest are amongst the most well-known stories during the age of empire. In 1922, and then again 1924, a group of British climbers set off to ‘conquer’ the world’s highest peak – Mount Everest. Two of them, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, died in their attempt to reach the summit. The pair were hailed as heroes who embodied all that was believed to be ‘great’ about ‘Great Britain’. It was a story that captured the public’s imagination for decades and cast Mallory and Irvine as two of the Empire’s greatest adventure heroes.
100 years later, this exhibition re-examines the story. It looks at the climbs through the lens of Captain John Noel’s films and photography. As the official cinematographer and a pioneer of expeditionary filmmaking, Noel’s films helped create the hero narrative around the climbs. This exhibition goes behind the scenes of his two earliest films, Climbing Mount Everest (1922) and The Epic of Everest (1924), to unpick the uncomfortable and complex social, racial and geopolitical dynamics that shaped the expeditions – from their beginning to enduring legacy.
Planning and preparation
Empires and nations had been competing to be the first to reach every corner of the globe for centuries. The British Empire had failed in its attempts to be the first to reach both the North and South Pole. The pressure was piling up. Then, in the mid-19th century, Everest was established as the world’s highest peak. All eyes turned to Everest – the so-called ‘Third Pole’.
The Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club formed the Mount Everest Committee and tasked it with organising a British-backed expedition. It was in this heightened political context that the 1922 and 1924 expeditions, preceded by a reconnaissance mission in 1921, were planned and prepared for.
British ‘born and bred’
The Mount Everest Committee represented the pinnacle of the mountaineering establishment. It was made up of elite mountaineers and geographers. They recruited men who, they believed, demonstrated the very best in British mountaineering. This typically meant men who were privately educated and British 'born and bred'. The Australian scientist George Finch was an exception to the rule, and was looked down on by some team members.
Selective recruitment
The mountaineering establishment recruited men through their personal networks. Their own biases played a huge role in determining who could fit the bill to become Britain’s next imperial heroes.
The Mount Everest Committee were sceptical about expeditionary filmmaking at the time. However, Noel was accepted onto the team. Perhaps the Committee did not see Noel as a professional cinematographer per se, more an army man known for his travels around Everest who could also film.
Passage through Tibet
The climbing teams travelled through Tibet on a permit from the Dalai Lama. In Tibet, they purchased hundreds of yaks and recruited dozens of local labourers, including Tibetans, Sherpa and Bhotiya, amongst some other ethnicities. Tibetan interpreters, like Karma Paul and Gyalzen Kazi, were instrumental in recruiting and negotiating with local governors to secure the team's passage through Tibet.
Cultural encounters
The British climbers became fascinated with Tibetan culture and customs. Noel captured Tibetan rituals, traditions and dress on film. This fascination reflected the colonial mindset of the time. Noel’s film represented Tibetan culture in a cliched and stereotypical way. In his 1922 film, Noel included a title describing indigenous people as ‘the strange people of Tibet’ and portrays monks’ ritual masked performances as ‘devil dances’.
Conflicting beliefs
For the British climbers, Everest was a place of ‘conquest’ and ‘siege’. But for the indigenous population, Everest was a highly spiritual place – it was not to be climbed. There is no equivalent to the word 'summit' in the Tibetan language.
These conflicting beliefs are perhaps best illustrated on a mural at Rongbuk Monastery. The British believed this showed a mountain goddess angrily destroying the bodies of white climbers.
Life on the mountain
The British climbers and local labourers hunkered down together at Base Camp to prepare for the ‘big climb’. The camp was a sight to behold – a temporary village full of industrious activity. It was home to a handful of British climbers, a few dozen local porters who carried their kit up the mountain and many more local labourers, including everyone from bootmakers to botanists. The British ran camp life according to the colonial attitudes of the time. There were clear social, racial and class hierarchies in place – those with more ‘skilled’ jobs held higher status.
Base Camp was the foundation for the expedition – a place to plan, prepare oxygen, acclimatise to the altitude, store supplies and return to after preparatory climbs. From Base Camp, local porters carried supplies in plywood cases and set up more camps as the climbers advanced up the mountain. Some local porters, who were more able mountaineers, went to high altitudes with the British climbers. The British nicknamed these high-altitude porters ‘tigers’.
Conservatism and Innovation
Early climbers were split into two camps. Those who advocated the use of oxygen, and those who remained sceptical and viewed it as ‘unmanly’. Mallory belonged to the latter.
The drive to conquer the world’s highest peak forced innovation and, ultimately, oxygen was used on Everest for the first time in 1922. What had been seen as ‘unsporting’ in 1922 was deemed essential by 1924.
Camp life
Base Camp was a hive of activity, full of people preparing to climb, repairing kit and socialising together. There were around 60 Tibetans, Sherpa and Bhotiya, amongst a handful of other ethnic groups, supporting the British climbers. They included Moti, the bootmaker, Romoo, the plant collector, and Karma Paul, the interpreter – as well as countless more whose names have sadly been lost to history.
Social hierarchies
Metaphorically speaking, the expedition teams carried their cultural, social and political baggage up the mountain with them. Interpersonal relationships were shaped by colonial hierarchies of race and class. The British often described the local porters as ‘coolies’ (a derogatory term for low-pay, low-skill labourers) who waited on them and carried most of their kit in heavy backpacks.
A conflicted relationship
The British climbers had conflicted attitudes towards the local expedition team members. On the one hand, they advocated for Nepalese and Indian members of the 1922 expedition to receive Olympic recognition. On the other hand, they would undermine the Sherpa and Bhotiya porters – Mallory once described them as ‘like children in our care’.
Filming and editing
Noel helped to craft a hero narrative around the expeditions ‘live’ from the mountain side. He developed his film in a custom ‘dark tent’ during the expedition and sent his work-in-progress reels back to the UK.
There is no denying who the heroes of Noel’s film were. His footage almost always shows the British climbers front and centre - with Mallory akin to a film star. Meanwhile the local porters, who were essential to the expeditions, were often hidden away in the background. When, in 1922, seven porters lost their lives in an avalanche, Noel cut the scenes from his film. He didn’t want to risk the public backlash by showing the expedition, and the British climbers, in a negative light.
The filming and photography team
The filming team consisted of Noel and eight local porters – known as the photographic porters. They carried his cameras, handled all the chemicals and lugged eyewatering amounts of kit up the mountain, often working through the night burning yak dung for heat.
All we know of them is their names and ethnicities, but the expedition and the films would not have been possible without them.
Cutting-edge technology
Noel’s camera was amazingly advanced for its time. It was made with lightweight materials that could withstand high altitudes and low temperatures. It also featured a specially designed zoom lens for filming long distance shots of the climbers. In 1924, it was fitted with an electric motor that allowed Noel to take time-lapse images.
Reaching the limit
Noel was determined to get as close as possible to the summit. But, in 1922 at 23,000ft, he had to stop climbing. The snow was too soft and the camera equipment too heavy. This decision may have saved lives, including his own.
Noel’s team made camp and filmed the climbers’ ascent through a telescopic lens. It was the highest film ever made at the time.
The 1922 disaster
The 1922 attempt to summit ended in disaster. Seven high-altitude porters died in an avalanche. They were six Sherpa – Thankay, Sangay, Temba, Lhakpa, Pasang Namgya, Pema – and one Bhotiya - Norbu. Some blamed Mallory for climbing in particularly treacherous conditions.
The loss of life was handled bureaucratically and procedurally. Their families in Nepal, Tibet and Darjeeling were ‘compensated’ – as they would have been if killed serving in the army. Noel edited the tragedy out of his film, effectively erasing it from the film record.
The 1924 disaster
The 1924 attempt to summit also ended in disaster. Mallory and Irvine both died.
In stark contrast to the porters’ deaths in 1922, Mallory and Irvine’s deaths made headline news. It sparked a period of mourning around the Western world. Noel’s film help paint the men as heroes martyred to a noble cause.
The epic of Everest
Britain had failed to reach the ‘Third Pole’. Nonetheless, the expeditions were portrayed as glorious adventures and were swept up in patriotic fervour. The teams had proved the power of supplementary oxygen and climbed higher than anyone ever before. Mallory and Irvine had died on the mountain – but their deaths were seen as noble sacrifices to the imperial cause.
Noel helped fuel their rise to fame. His films were packed full of all the hallmarks of imperial adventure stories. He framed the men as more glorious in death than life. At the same time, the films portrayed the local population, including the very porters who had made the film possible, as unwashed, ‘strange’ and ‘weird’.
The publicity surrounding his films sparked a diplomatic crisis between Tibet and the Western world that lasted for 10 years. The mountaineering establishment, who were implicated in the scandal by virtue of their support for Noel, distanced themselves from the crisis.
Editing the films
Noel originally planned his documentary in the belief that the climbers would reach the top of Everest. When they didn’t, he had to re-edit his film while still maintaining a heroic narrative.
Noel stayed in Darjeeling working on his film for months after the expeditions ended. He even retraced his tracks to film additional scenes to help make his narrative work.
The sound of Tibet
The British climbers were taken with Tibetan music – especially Howard Somervell. He was one of the earliest people to transcribe Tibetan folk song into Western musical notation. To help boost ticket sales, Noel hired a band to perform the music alongside his silent film.
Promoting and publicising
Noel was nothing if not a canny entrepreneur and impresario. He funded much of the 1924 expedition himself, on the promise that he kept the rights to his footage. He went to great efforts to make his money back. He produced and distributed promotional postcards from the foot of Everest, went on a whirlwind lecture tour, premiered his film in London and made seven coast-to-coast tours of North America.
Affair of the ‘Dancing Lamas’
Noel sensationalised Tibetan culture to maximise his return on investment. His films talked of ‘fantastic devil dances’, clothing made from human skin and people being ‘hacked to pieces’ in death rituals.
He promoted the Epic of Everest (1924) film with a publicity stunt featuring performances by a troupe of seven Tibetan dancers. He advertised them as lamas (Buddhist teachers) when the majority were, in fact, novice monks.
Diplomatic crisis
Noel’s film and publicity stunt deeply offended the Dalai Lama and Tibetan government. They banned Westerners from entering Tibet to climb Everest for 10 years.
The mountaineering establishment knew, privately, that Noel’s ‘dancing lamas’ were the cause of the ban. However, to distance themselves from the scandal, they publicly blamed John Hazard who had conducted an unauthorised survey in Tibet. Hazard remained the scapegoat, in the public’s eyes, for decades
An effective publicity campaign
Communication with the outside world was carefully stage managed. The climbers cut deals with newspapers and cinemas, promising them regular updates. The British members of the team typed up reports on a portable typewriter and packaged work-in-progress reels. Then, local porters ran them down to Darjeeling where they were sent on to England.
Selling the story
The expedition teams and the Mount Everest Committee marketed every aspect of the climbs. They cut sponsorship deals, agreed product placements and sold scientific finds to the highest bidders. Newspapers and advertisements bolstered the hero narrative and spoke of the ‘hardy explorers’’ heroic efforts to conquer the ‘top of the world’.
It was a commercial opportunity as much as an imperial venture.
Should we climb?
Everest, through the lens of Noel’s film and photography, is undeniably breath-taking. His films bear witness to a remarkable moment in time – the first attempts to climb the world’s highest mountain. They are still hugely important to contemporary research.
But, by going behind the scenes of his films, we can begin to unpick the power dynamics at play. 100 years on, Everest still has the power to capture imaginations. Many of the questions around the 1920s expeditions are still being asked today: who has the right to climb Everest and should we climb it at all? Are attempts to summit too expensive and commercialised? What are the dynamics between Western ‘tourists’ and local Sherpa experts?
Acknowledgements:
The Society is grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund and Rolex for their support for the Society’s Collections.
- All images (c) RGS-IBG unless stated otherwise.
- Exhibition created in partnership with Event.
- Thank you to all members of the exhibition's Advisory Group, and in particular Professor Felix Driver and Dr Jan Faull.
- Online exhibition by Francesca Nugent.