Jean-Michel Asselin talks about Patrick Edlinger – Part 1

French writer/journalist Jean-Michel Asselin, who’s currently working on Patrick Edlinger’s biography (due out next year), talked to French TV channel France3 about the legend’s demise. It’s so moving, I had to translate it for you. Here’s part 1:

“There’s a moment that moved me a lot in the book. He talks about Patrick Berhault, his longtime climbing buddy. And as you know, Patrick Berhault died in a mountain accident. Patrick Edlinger says this: “I think about him every day and I talk to him frequently. Patrick couldn’t solve his emotional problems, so he did as we all did: he chose the easiest path and the easiest for him was the mountains. Up there, he didn’t get too worked up about things. He died stupidly while sliding”, and then Patrick Edlinger adds, “and maybe we’ll all die stupidly.” There’s a lot in that sentence. First there’s the great despair of losing someone who was like a brother to him… Patrick had some irreparable loses. One of them, a very important one, was Jean-Paul Janssen, the filmmaker that propelled him to stardom with the movie “La Vie au bout des doigts.” Patrick never fully recovered from that loss. He says that in the book’s acknowledgments. There’s a full page of them, which is a bit peculiar and something akin to a testament.”

Then they talk about Patrick Edlinger’s  1995 accident, which forced him to put an end to his professional career.

“People imagine it was a big thing but in fact it was the most bizarre stuff. He fell twelve meters, he wasn’t properly tied – a little mistake. He also made another little mistake: he hadn’t clipped some of the points well. He fell to the ground, and then he bounced back up a meter. In fact, when he fell, thinking he wasn’t tied well and had badly clipped, he crouched to protect his legs. So his spine took it all when he fell. He bounced back up, fell flat on the ground and rolled off the road. Luckily, one of the guys who were tied to him had done some medical studies. He gave him a cardiac massage, bringing him back to life. For him it was an incredible experience, because he found himself paralyzed and thought, “how I’m going to get out of this? Because for him, living in a wheelchair was out of question. And then that evening, the doctors told him, after multiple x-rays, “Mr Edlinger, you have nothing – it’s only muscular.” His muscles were so strong, they protected his bones and spine. So they discharged him that same night. He was walking, everything was almost fine, apart from some very intense muscular lesions.

And then he kept an ordinary life, as you do when you grow old. He kept climbing, fishing… all that out of the public eye. He’d settled in the Verdon area  since that alpine trip with Patrick Berhault and lived his life as a retired climber. A few years ago, he started having this strong desire to write something, to leave a written account while he was still alive, which was important for him. He wanted to write his autobiography. So we met and started working together last year.

There are things that we wont hide. Patrick probably suffered from loneliness, things like that; to what extend, I don’t know. And today, the news of his death, it’s terrible because… it wasn’t… it came out of the blue. What was planned was for him to be there next Thursday for the Rencontres du Cinema de Montagne in Grenoble. We were going to celebrate the thirty years of “La Vie au bout des Doigts” and “Opera Vertical”. He was going to come with his two movies. He wanted to meet the public. He was a bit scared too, “what are they going to ask me? They don’t know me anymore…” I told him, “don’t worry, they all admire you,” which is normal. Yes, he’s a bit like all the climbers’ father.”

Read Part 2 here.

You can see the full interview in French here.