Level 2 Intermediate

The extraordinary story behind Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours Level 2 Intermediate

1 Warmer

Answer the questions below.

1. How long is 127 hours in days? 2. What day and time will it be 127 hours from now?

2 Find the information

Find the following information in the text and as quickly as possible.

1. Who is Aron Ralston? 2. What is the film127 Hours about? 3. What and where are “the fourteeners”? 4. Where did the events in the film take place? 5. What did Aron Ralston have to do to free himself? 6. How did he achieve this? 7. How did he get to hospital?

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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2011 NEWS LESSONS / The extraordinary story behind Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours / Intermediate FROM WEBSITE •PHOTOCOPIABLECAN BE DOWNLOADED The extraordinary story behind Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours Level 2 Intermediate

The extraordinary story behind Danny and carefree to, like, ‘oh [no]’. I fell a few feet, in Boyle’s 127 Hours slow motion, I look up and the boulder is coming and I put my hands up and try to push myself Danny Boyle’s new film, 127 Hours, tells how away and it collides and crushes my right hand.” climber Aron Ralston found himself trapped Ralston was pinned in the canyon, his right hand alone in a canyon and had to perform surgery to and lower arm crushed by the 800lb rock. save his life 5 The next second, the pain struck. For 45 minutes Patrick Barkham he “cursed like a pirate”. Then he reached for his 15 December, 2010 water bottle. As he drank, he had to force himself 1 Aron Ralston had been climbing the narrow to stop. “I realize this water is the only thing canyons of Utah alone when a boulder fell that’s going to keep me alive,” he says. Having onto his right arm, trapping him against a rock. failed to tell anyone where he was going, he He was trapped in the wilderness of Bluejohn knew he would not be found. “I put the lid back Canyon, carrying a small rucksack with just one on the water bottle. It was like, all right, brute litre of water, two burritos and a few chunks of force isn’t going to do it. This is the ‘stop-think- chocolate. He had headphones and a video observe-plan’ phase of rational problem-solving. camera but no mobile phone – and there was no I have to think my way out of here.” As he reception anyway. Most foolishly of all, he had describes how he thought through his options, not told anyone where he was going. He drank he taps his fingers on his prosthetic arm. his water slowly, hopelessly chipping away at 6 He ruled out the most drastic option – suicide the 800lb rock and slowly entering a state of – but he thought of the next most drastic delirium, until he was eventually forced to cut alternative immediately. “There’s this surreal off his trapped arm, with a small knife from his conversation with myself. ‘Aron, you’re gonna cheap multitool kit. have to cut your arm off.’ ‘I don’t want to cut 2 Ralston, who is now 35 and still with the wiry my arm off!’” After two days spent chipping physique of a climber, has just attended the away at the rock with his knife and thinking up London premiere of 127 Hours, Danny Boyle’s unsuccessful ways to move the boulder, he put film about his extraordinary escape from certain his knife to his arm, only to find it was so blunt death. The film – like Ralston himself, full of boyish he couldn’t even cut his body hair. energy – is remarkably true-to-life, says Ralston. 7 By the fifth day, Ralston had found “peace” in 3 It is hardly surprising that audiences have “the knowledge that I am going to die here, responded with feeling: fainting when they this is my grave”. The next morning came the watch the point in the film when Ralston, revelation that Ralston could throw himself brilliantly played by James Franco (he has been against the boulder to break his own bones. nominated for a Golden Globe film award), From then, it was easy. The snap of his bones begins his amputation. “like, pow!” was a horrifying sound “but to me it was euphoric”, he recalls. “The detachment had 4 The year before his accident, Ralston quit already happened in my mind – it’s rubbish, it’s his job as an engineer to climb all Colorado’s going to kill you, get rid of it, Aron”. He recalls “fourteeners” – its peaks over 14,000ft. In being very cool and calm when he picked up May 2003, he began “canyoneering” in Utah, the knife. It took him an hour to hack through his navigating the narrow passages of Bluejohn flesh. “As painful as it all was, the euphoria was Canyon with a mixture of free-climbing, daring driving it,” he says. jumps and climbing with ropes. He was negotiating a 10ft drop in a 3ft-wide canyon 8 In the canyon, Ralston calculated that it would when he dislodged a boulder. “I go from being take him at least ten hours to find medical help out in a beautiful place and just being so happy and that he would bleed to death in that time but, •

using pieces of climbing equipment, he strapped has been made into a film. Although he played his himself up and somehow managed to climb a videos to his parents, he decided he would never 65ft cliff to escape the canyon. Exposed to the allow them to be shown in public. Instead, many fierce sun, he was found by three Dutch tourists, of Franco’s monologues exactly replicate what who gave him water and helped him walk, Ralston said in his own personal videos. before he was picked up by a search-and-rescue helicopter sent by his family to look for him. 11 Boyle shot 127 Hours at the exact spot where Ralston had the accident. “The movie is so 9 Ralston is radically different today compared with factually accurate it is as close to a documentary his pre-accident self as portrayed by Franco in as you can get and still be a drama,” Ralston the film. He recognizes that he depends on other says. “I think it’s the best film ever made.” people. The love of others, his relationships with

his family and friends, kept him alive, he says © Guardian News & Media 2010 now. First published in The Guardian, 15/12/10 10 Ralston’s camera connected him to other people’s love. He recorded his “last will and testament” in a series of video diaries while he was trapped, so it is nicely symbolic that his ordeal

3 Key words and expressions

Write the key words and expressions from the article next to their meanings.

1. very large rock or piece of stone ______(para 1) 2. a body shape that looks thin but is strong ______(two words, para 2) 3. the removal of a body part by cutting it off ______(para 3) 4. forced out of its position ______(para 4) 5. when something has been hit or pressed so hard that it is badly damaged ______(para 4) 6. swore, shouted and said ‘bad’ words ______(para 5) 7. great physical strength ______(two words, para 5) 8. used for replacing a missing body part ______(para 5) 9. not pointed or sharp ______(para 6) 10. feeling extremely happy, usually for a short time only ______(para 7) 11. the formal term for the legal document that states what you want to happen to your possessions after you die ______(four words, para 10) 12. copy exactly ______(para 10)

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4 Summarizing

Put these facts in chronological order (1-9) to summarize the article. (AR = Aron Ralston)

AR gets a prosthetic arm. AR amputates his right arm. AR films his final messages for his family. Danny Boyle makes a film bout AR. AR realizes that he should not drink his water all at once. AR quits his job as an engineer. AR smashes the bones in his arm. Film audiences faint. A falling rock traps AR in a canyon.

5 Discussion

Complete the sentences by choosing the words which best reflect your opinion and adding your own thoughts. Then discuss what you have written with a partner. I think Aron Ralston was brave / stupid / clever / mad ______

In the same situation, I would have cut off my arm / waited for help ______

I would / would not like to see the film because ______

6 Webquest

Watch the film trailer for 127 Hours on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5DHU-S7vXE

Find photos and watch interviews with Aron Ralston by typing his name into a search engine (e.g. Google, Bing, etc.).

Find photos and satellite images of Bluejohn Canyon by entering its name into a search engine or online atlas such as Google maps.

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Level 2 Intermediate

KEY

1 Warmer 3 Key words and expressions

1. Five days and seven hours 1. boulder 2. (students’ own answers) 2. wiry physique 3. amputation Teacher’s note: These questions are meant to give the 4. dislodged students a feeling for the amount of time the climber 5. crushed was trapped. 6. cursed 7. brute force 8. prosthetic 2 Find the information 9. blunt 10. euphoric 1. A climber and ex-engineer. 11. last will and testament 2. Ralston’s extraordinary escape from certain death. 12. replicate 127 hours is the length of time Ralston was trapped in a canyon. 3. Mountains in Colorado that all have peaks higher 4 Summarizing than 14,000 feet. 4. In Bluejohn Canyon, Utah, USA. 1. AR quits his job as an engineer. 5. Cut off his right arm. 2. A falling rock traps AR in a canyon. 6. By breaking his bones and then cutting off his arm. 3. AR realizes that he should not drink his water all 7. Three Dutch tourists found him at the top of the at once. canyon and helped him until the search-and-rescue 4. AR films his final messages for his family. helicopter that his family had sent out to look for 5. AR smashes the bones in his arm. him found them. 6. AR amputates his right arm. 7. AR gets a prosthetic arm. 8. Danny Boyle makes a film bout AR. 9. Film audiences faint.

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