Riding Giants is why I surf

“We didn’t have flotation devices. We didn’t have leashes. We didn’t have helicopters waiting to scoop you out. So if you fucked up, you were on your own.”

Welcome to the world of giants surfing giants. This quote is by Greg Noll, speaking from Riding Giants.

️ How I fell for surfing

I don’t think I would’ve ever started surfing if it wasn’t for Riding Giants by Stacy Peralta (and Sam George). Some people fall in love with surfing on vacay in the tropics — I fell in love with surfing on a couch in my North London apartment.

To this day, I’m surprised more surfers — especially newer ones — aren’t familiar with it or can’t recite key lines from memory. You could say I have a very romantic notion of Riding Giants. Even though it’s far from being a perfect documentary. And it fails to fully and deeply investigate surfing culture or answer the most fundamental question: what is wrong with you that you want to paddle into that?

Because Riding Giants is a documentary about big wave surfing.

It premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2004, and it was the first-ever documentary to open the festival. Perhaps the organizers wanted to celebrate Riding Giants director Stacy Peralta, who won the audience and director awards at the 2001 Sundance for his documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys.

‍♂️ A quick surf history primer

If you know nothing about the history of surfing and its evolution throughout the years, Riding Giants offers a great primer. It sails through the origins of stand-up surfing in Hawai’i, how it got almost killed by religion, how Duke brought it back to life, and how it exploded in the ’50s. It also introduces you to the very pioneers of surfing who traveled from the mainland to Oahu and discovered the magic of the North Shore.

The documentary, unlike Step Into Liquid by Dana Brown (Dana is the son of Bruce Brown, who directed Endless Summer — we’ll cover Endless Summer next), which came out a year later, focuses solely on big wave surfing and the biggest personalities in this branch of surfing: Stripy Shorts Greg Noll, Mad Hatter for surfing Mavericks solo Jeff Clark, and Laird Hamilton, the ultimate (perhaps) big wave surfer, tow-in surfing inventor, and superfood coffee creamer creator.

Flaws and all

Yes, Riding Giants can be a bit shallow. Yes, it sometimes looks like one giant commercial for big wave surfing. Yes, it’s perhaps a wee bit too long.

One of the top critics on Rotten Tomatoes (currently holding a 94 score) noted:

“From the film’s opening seconds, in which a lone surfer emerges from a wave’s whitewater to the strains of first organ, then choir music, we can see that the filmmaker has come to sanctify his subject rather than explore it.”

Sure. But also — it is so fun and cute. It mixes archival footage, stills, newspaper clippings, home movies, Stacy’s narration, and talking head interviews. The editing — for which it won an award — is all fast cuts and loud surf sounds.

Stacy had never made a surf film before Riding Giants, and has been accused of not deploying more advanced methods of filming the surf in comparison to Dana Brown. I don’t care. I don’t need to see inside the giant tube every five seconds. Riding Giants’ soundtrack trumps Step Into Liquid’s one for me

Missing stories

Any historical inaccuracies? For sure, says Matt Warshaw, but he follows up that they’re not even worth mentioning. According to him, Stacy didn’t include 97% of other big wave riders in the movie — but this is also why the movie works.

I must admit, I was disappointed to see only one female big wave surfer featured as a talking head: Sarah Gerhardt, the first woman to surf Mavericks. I guess I remained a tad upset for years about it, because just this year I DMed Stacy Peralta on Instagram to ask him: “Whaaat, there weren’t any other female big-wave surfers, like at all?” I’m still waiting to hear back.

But despite my minor gripes with Riding Giants, it did change my life — and I absolutely cannot stand by The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt’s comment:

“Seems intent on selling the sport rather than examining why people are willing to risk their necks to challenge nature at its most volatile. Unlikely to play to many nonsurfers.”

I don’t know, Kirk. I got into surfing because of it.

Author: The Wipeout Weekly team