“He was an athlete and an artist.” Did he also seek death? In The Dark Wizard, a four-part HBO docuseries directed by Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen, we meet Dean Potter, pioneering free climber, BASE jumper, and master of the highline. This guy’s skill at times seemed superhuman, with free solo climbs full of impossible maneuvers. He was also, friends and other climbers say, “Cursed with a dark side.” The Dark Wizard tries to find the places where Potter’s interior life fortified and threatened his outward talents.
Opening Shot: “When I was a little boy, my first memory was this dream of falling.” Was it a premonition? In the old interview clip, Dean Potter does not know. But he feels a need to go toward the unknown, and to face fear.
The Gist: There are many moments like this in The Dark Wizard, as Potter considers to the camera where his philosophies end and the real work of thrill-seeking begins. He started climbing rocks when he was 17 and never looked back, and by the early 90s had built a crew of likeminded enthusiasts. “Climbing at the time,” Potter’s friend Jim Hurst says, “was a way to put together a new reality.” In 1999, Potter’s mostly free climb of the 2,500-ft. Half Dome in Yosemite was his breakthrough moment in adventure sport. But by then, as archival interviews with Potter and a deep look into his journals reveal, the darker side of his philosophy on life and cheating death was already with him.
Dean Potter died in Yosemite in 2015, during a wingsuit jump. But The Dark Wizard builds to that incident by going backward in time. It rebuilds Potter’s persona from the viewpoints of many friends and fellow climbers, has access to a ton of fantastic footage via filmmaker Eric Perlman’s “Masters of Stone” rock climbing videos – complete with their hair metal soundtracks and graphics – and it showcases how these guys and their talent as free climbers merged with the growing popularity and marketing of outdoor sports.
“Dean started to have a mystique around him.” The docuseries also interviews pro climbers like Cedar Wright and Hans Florine, whose experiences around Potter ranged from inspiring to aggravating, as the talented but extremely driven climber got caught up with competing to see who could be the best. People began to wonder if his talent for galloping up the rock was augmented by some elite level of human performance unreachable by mere mortals.
Or was it all bullshit? That’s also what some people say about Dean Potter and his self-mythologizing. At the heart of The Dark Wizard is the legacy of a talented, mysterious, and polarizing figure.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Alex Honnold, subject of the fascinating, Oscar-winning 2018 documentary Free Solo, also had a major rivalry with Dean Potter, and will appear in The Dark Wizard. The Climb is a 2023 reality show for HBO which featured amateur and professional climbers…and Jason Momoa. HBO also has 100 Foot Wave, where surfers look death in the eye as they carve dreams on waves. And a lot of Potter and his crew’s 90s climbing antics reminded us of Southern California skateboard culture in the 80s. Until the Wheels Fall Off offers a solid documentary profile of Tony Hawk.
Our Take: It’s easy to get lost in the amazingness of the climbing feats in The Dark Wizard and forget that the footage could have been shot 10, 15, or 100 times. But it’s also easy to get lost in the amazingness of these climbing feats and consider how many times Potter or his compatriots could have died on camera. The lifestyle portrayed in this docuseries, from an incredibly deep well of old VHS footage, film stock, and personal collections, conveys well the sense of crazy required to live like they were. It also rewinds and plays that back, so we understand how committed this crew was. We’re living in the moment two decades after, of a life we’ll never live. But their buy-in and thrill-a-second investment is invigorating.
And yet, even in the space of one episode, The Dark Wizard establishes Dean Potter as a generational climbing talent while building a questioning tone. We’re intrigued with what it will find, as the docuseries explores the writing and drawing in his journals (often with striking animations added), considers his myth-making from outside perspectives, and tries to rebuild Potter’s life while it wonders why he chased death.
Performance Worth Watching: At least in the first episode, Steph Davis is not interviewed. But the pro climber’s talent on the rock and her tumultuous relationship and eventual marriage to Dean Potter is a major driver of The Dark Wizard.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: You’re watching Dean Potter stretch a line tight, high up between two rock points, then walk out onto it barefoot, with no safety harness or anything, and you’re thinking, “Maybe this guy really is superhuman.”
Sleeper Star: Filmmaker Eric Perlman has some great perspective on Potter, and a full archive of footage to prove it.
Most Pilot-y Line: “He was troubled,” say Dean Potter’s friends from the old days. “It seemed like climbing was the only thing that kept the demons at bay.”
Our Call: Stream It! The Dark Wizard profiles an interesting, somewhat mysterious character in rock climber and thrill-seeker Dean Potter. Where did his tremendous, death-defying skill end and his zen and the art of climber’s mental maintenance begin?
