The opening scene of “The Dark Wizard” is a sketch of a raven with the baritone voice of Dean Potter: “When I was a boy, my first memory was this dream of falling.”
Was it a premonition of death or a calling? Or both?
“The Dark Wizard” — a documentary series on legendary Dean Potter by Boulder filmmakers Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen that premiered Tuesday on HBO Max — traces the impacts of the larger-than-life Potter.
The still-resonating impressions left by Potter include climbing feats, strolling strips of webbing hundreds of feet above the ground, scaling sheer cliffs without ropes, using a parachute when he slipped off those cliffs, BASE jumping with his beloved hound strapped to his back and piloting a webbed wingsuit mere feet from steep walls of stone.
From the time he was a kid, he connected with ravens. And the wingsuit carried him into their world.
The records and exploits of one of the world’s greatest outdoor athletes are only part of the lasting legacy left by Potter, who died in May 2015 in a wingsuit jump that left no room for error.
He left behind relationships that, while frayed, were likely the highlights of many lives. He inspired his fans and friends to re-examine their relationship with risk through his creative feats that pushed beyond what is considered possible.
And the near mythological athlete did it all with a mask of bravado that concealed inner demons.
“Some people are blessed and some people are cursed — and Dean was both,” says Timmy O’Neill, a legendary climber in his own right who helped Potter set speed records on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in the early 2000s. “He was cursed by a dark side that sometimes overcame him.”
Dean Potter in 2006 made the first free solo ascent of Heaven, a 5.12d, at Glacier Point in Yosemite Valley. (Courtesy, Dean Fidelman / HBO)Mortimer began exploring the idea of a Potter film several years ago, while spending time with Potter’s sister, Elizabeth. After nearly five years of talking, Elizabeth handed over a trove of Potter’s journals and voice memos. They revealed a mind filled with self-doubt, in stark contrast to his confident swagger and near reckless athleticism.
Hence, the name “Dark Wizard.”
Mortimer and Rosen are veterans of the climbing world. Their Sender Films includes thoughtful examinations of climbing characters and cultures in the feature documentaries “The Alpinist,” “The Dawn Wall” and “Valley Uprising.” They spent countless hours with Potter, capturing his climbing and BASE jumping for various projects spanning a decade.
“We knew how complex he was,” says Mortimer, who describes his relationship with Potter as “complicated.”
“I didn’t realize how vulnerable he was. In person, he projected as the alpha, this silverback. So tall, with an incredible physique and a deep voice. Even when he was in turmoil, he projected this symbol of strength,” Mortimer says. “But underneath, he was deeply questioning himself, asking himself, ‘What’s going on in my mind?’”
That vulnerability stirs compassion for Potter, who, as “The Dark Wizard” series details over four themed episodes, was as much a tortured artist as a thrill-seeking athlete.
And that is a principle revelation in the series. Potter’s pursuit of the liminal space separating life and death — dangling by fingertips 1,500 feet off the ground or balancing one-legged, arms wide and waving like a raven, on a 2-inch strip of webbing stretched over a gorge — was his art. And it was his therapy.
“Somehow when my life is on the line, it brings my senses to a heightened state of calmness and clarity. It’s the most powerful feeling I have ever experienced,” he wrote.
Potter’s dangerous obsession with increasingly out-there adventures on stone and in the air fueled a relentless push into the unknown. He was, as the series shows, “a paradigm-shifting talent” who found inexplicable respite in the outer limits of possibility, pushing his body into untenable situations.
“The death consequence, as extreme as it is, it’s such a teacher. It simplifies how good life is,” he said. “We have more in us than most of us realize and I still feel like I’m just tapping into that a little bit.”
His rabidly competitive drive often pushed him beyond his limits. His competition with free-soloing icon Alex Honnold is cringeworthy and leaves viewers gasping. Where Potter absorbed fear and channeled it into some kind of superhuman energy, Honnold, the greatest soloist in the history of climbing, apparently does not recognize fear. Trying to keep up with that nearly killed Potter.
Dean Potter walks a highline, without a leash tethering him to the line, off Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite Valley in 2003. (Courtesy Dean Fidelman / HBO)As he reached his 40s, Potter was still pushing, but not as hard. He had a partner and was in love. He seemed ready to step back and stop adding trophies to his legacy. But then came another brash kid who reignited his dangerous competitive fire.
“He did manage to let stuff go and he did see himself in this light of an aging athlete,” Mortimer says. “He let go of the big ego but the lowercase ego in the day-to-day, he just couldn’t let it go. That did drive him to do some of his many incredible things. It also drove him to his fateful decision.”
On May 16, 2015, with his girlfriend, Jen Rapp, taking photographs, he leaped off a Yosemite ledge with 29-year-old Graham Hunt. They were aiming for The Notch, a VV-shaped rock formation in the park that only a handful of wingsuited pilots had navigated. It required perfect flying form with no room to bail if a hurtling flyer was too low.
The series ends with footage from Potter’s phone, which was recording the jump facing backwards. He makes it through The Notch but he’s too low. Moments before impact, a raven crosses the screen.
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