127 hours

Hello everybody,
This week the newspaper article talks about an extremely compelling feat by a man in the United States and shown in a film by the British filmaker Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, The Beach, Trainspotting...). And it comes with the answers to the questions



THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY BEHIND DANNY BOYLE'S 127
Level 1 Elementary
Warmer
1How long is 127 hours in days?
2.What day and time will it be 127 hours from now?

Find the following information in the text and as quickly as possible.
1.Who is Aron Ralston?
2.What is the film 2. 127 Hours about?
3.What and where are “the fourteeners”?
4.Where was Aron Ralston when he got trapped?
5.What did Aron Ralston have to do to free himself?
6.How did he get to hospital?


The extraordinary story behind Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours
Danny Boyle’s new film, 127 Hours, tells how climber Aron Ralston found himself trapped alone in a canyon and had to perform surgery to save his life
Patrick Barkham
15 December, 2010
Aron Ralston had been climbing in the canyons of Utah alone when a boulder fell onto his right arm and trapped him against a rock. He was alone in the wilderness of Bluejohn Canyon, carrying a small rucksack with just one litre of water, two burritos and a few chunks of chocolate. He had headphones and a video camera but no mobile phone. He had not told anyone where he was going. In the end, he had to cut off his trapped arm, with a small knife from his cheap multitool kit.
Ralston, who is now 35, has just attended the London premiere of 127 Hours, Danny Boyle’s film about his extraordinary escape from certain death. The film – like Ralston himself, full of boyish energy – is remarkably true-to-life,
says Ralston.
It is hardly surprising that people have fainted in cinemas when they watch the point when Ralston, brilliantly played by James Franco in the film, begins his amputation.
The year before his accident, Ralston left his job as an engineer to climb all Colorado’s “fourteeners” – mountains with peaks over 14,000ft. In May 2003, he began “canyoneering” in Utah, going through Bluejohn Canyon with a mixture of free-climbing, daring jumps and climbing with ropes. He was making a 10ft drop in a 3ft-wide canyon when he dislodged a boulder. “I go from being out in a beautiful place and just being so happy and carefree to, ‘oh [no]’. I fell a few feet, in slow motion, I look up and the boulder is coming and I put my hands up and try to push myself away and it crushes my right hand.” Ralston was trapped in the canyon, his right hand and lower arm crushed by the 800lb rock.
The next second, he felt the pain. For 45 minutes he “cursed like a pirate”. Then he reached for his water bottle. He had to make himself stop drinking it all. “I realized the water was the only thing that was going to keep me alive,” he says. Because he hadn’t told anyone where he was going, he knew he would not be found. “I put the lid back on the water bottle. I knew I had to think my way out of there.”
He decided against the most drastic option – suicide – but he thought of the next most drastic alternative immediately. “I said to myself, ‘Aron, you’re gonna have to cut your arm off.’” After two days spent chipping at the rock with his knife and thinking up unsuccessful ways to move the boulder, he put his knife to his arm. But the knife was so blunt he couldn’t even cut his body hair.
By the fifth day, Ralston had found “peace” in the knowledge that he was going to die there. The next morning he realized that he could throw himself against the boulder to break his own bones. Then it was easy. The snap of his bones “like, pow!” was a horrifying sound “but to me it was joyous”, he remembers. “I said to myself, it’s rubbish, it’s going to kill you, get rid of it, Aron.” He remembers being very cool and calm when he picked up the knife. It took him an hour to cutIn the canyon, Ralston calculated it would take him at least ten hours to find medical help and that he would bleed to death in that time but, using pieces of climbing equipment, he strapped himself up and somehow managed to climb a 65ft cliff to escape the canyon. In the fierce sun, he was found by three Dutch tourists, who gave him water and helped him. Finally, he was picked up by a search-and-rescue helicopter sent by his family to look for him.
Ralston is different today compared with how he was before the accident. He recognizes that he depends on other people. The love of others, his relationships with his family and friends, kept him alive, he says now.
Ralston’s camera connected him to other people’s love. He recorded a series of video diaries while he was trapped. Although he played his videos to his parents, he decided he would never allow them to be shown to anyone else.
Instead, much of what Franco says in the film exactly replicates what Ralston said in his videos. Boyle filmed 127 Hours at the exact spot
where Ralston had the accident. “The movie is so factually accurate that it is as close to a documentary as you can get and still be a drama,” Ralston says. “I think it’s the best film ever made.”
© Guardian News & Media 2010
11 First published in The Guardian, 15/12/10

Fill the gaps using these key words from the text. The paragraph numbers are given to help you.
1. a very large rock or piece of stone _____________________ (para 1)
2. the first time a film is shown _____________________ (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. something that has a very strong effect on something else _____________________ (para 6)
8. not pointed or sharp _____________________ (para 6)
9. to exactly copy something _____________________ (para 10)
10. a film or television programme that shows real people and events _____________________ (para 11)

Put these facts in chronological order (1-8) to summarize the article. (AR = Aron Ralston)
AR cuts off his right arm.
AR films his video diary.
Danny Boyle makes a film bout AR.
AR realizes that he should not drink his water all at once.
AR leaves his job as an engineer.
AR smashes the bones in his arm.
Film audiences faint.
A falling rock traps AR in a canyon.

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 typing its name into a search engine or online atlas such as Google maps.


ANSWERS

1.Five days and seven hours.
2.students’ own answers)

Find the information

1. A climber and ex-engineer.
2. Ralston’s incredible escape from certain death. 127 hours is the length of time Ralston was trapped in the canyon.
3. Mountains in Colorado that are all higher than 14,000 feet.
4. In Bluejohn Canyon, Utah, USA.
5. Cut off his right arm.
6. Three Dutch tourists found him at the top of the canyon and helped him until the search-and-rescue helicopter that his family had sent out to look for him found them.

Key words

1.boulder
2.premiere
3.amputation
4.dislodged
5.crushed
6.cursed
7.drastic
8.blunt
9.replicate
10.documentary

Summarizing

1. AR leaves his job as an engineer.
2. A falling rock traps AR in a canyon.
3. AR realises that he should not drink his water all
at once.
4. AR films his video diary.
5. AR smashes the bones in his arm.
6. AR cuts off his right arm.
7. Danny Boyle makes a film bout AR.
8. Film audiences faint.

a nightmare in yellow

Nightmare in Yellow


He awoke when the alarm clock rang, but lay in bed for a while going over the plans he'd made. Every little detail had been worked out, but this was the final check. Tonight at forty-six minutes after eight he'd be free, in every way. He'd picked that moment because this was his fortieth birthday and that was the exact time of the evening when he had been born. It had struck his sense of humour to have his new life begin at forty, to the minute.
As a lawyer who specialised in handling wills*, a lot of money passed through his hands - and some of it had passed into them. He had carefully sold a lot of property, and by this afternoon he'd have well over a hundred thousand dollars, enough to last him the rest of his life. And they’d never catch him. He'd planned every detail of his trip, his destination, his new identity, and it was foolproof. He's planned it for months. His decision to kill his wife had been an afterthought. The motive was simple: he hated her.
He'd hardly been able to keep from laughing at the birthday present she'd given him; it had been a new suitcase. She'd also talked him into celebrating his birthday by having dinner at seven. Little did she guess how the celebration would go after that. He planned to get her home by eight forty-six and make himself a widower at that exact moment. There was a practical advantage, too, in leaving her dead. If he left her alive but asleep, she'd guess what had happened and call the police when she found him gone in the morning. If he left her dead, her body would not be found for two or three days, and he'd have a much better start.
Things went smoothly at the office; by the time he went to meet his wife everything was ready. But she dawdled** over drinks and dinner and he began to worry whether he could get her home by eight forty-six. It was ridiculous, he knew, but it had become important that his moment of freedom should come then and not a minute earlier or a minute later. He watched his watch.
He would have missed it by half a minute if he'd waited till they were inside the house. The dark of the porch of their house was perfectly safe, as safe as inside. He swung the cosh viciously once, as she stood at the front door, waiting for him to open it. He caught her before she fell and managed to hold her upright with one arm while he got the door open and then got it closed from the inside.
Then he flicked the switch and yellow light filled the room. Before they could see that his wife was dead and that he was holding her up, all the assembled birthday party guests shouted “SURPRISE!”


*Will = a document in which you declare what you want to happen to your money and property when you die.
** Dawdled = did something very slowly taking more time than is necessary.

A. These sentences summarise some of the events in the story. Put them into the order in which they happened. Be careful, this may be different to the order in which they appear in the story. (4 points. 0'5 each)

a) He sold other people's property and kept some of the money.
b) He went out for a birthday celebration dinner with his wife.
c) He planned to kill his wife.
d) He planned to run away with the money he made on selling property.
e) He awoke on the morning of his birthday and went over the plans in his mind.
f) He switched on the light, holding up his wife.
g) He and his wife returned home at approximately quarter to nine.
h) He hit his wife on the head with a cosh.

1._____ 2._____ 3._____ 4._____ 5._____ 6._____ 7._____ 8._____



B. Define the following words. (3 points/1 each)


guess: ___________________________________________________________

widower: _________________________________________________________

asleep: ___________________________________________________________



C. Find the words or phrases in the story that mean the same as the following. Think first what part of speech (noun, verb, adjective or adverb) you are looking for. (3 points / 0'5 each)

___________ : chosen.

___________ : dealing with, managing.

___________ : so simple and easy to understand that it is unable to go wrong.

___________ : something you do but without careful planning.

___________ : easily.

___________ : gathered together in a group.