SKI BUM: THE WARREN MILLER STORY

SKI BUM is a surprisingly exciting autobiographical documentary on Amazon Prime about the renowned Warren Miller, whose ski documentaries fascinated people all over America. Warren’s life was full of hardship, which he always overcame, but there is no overt cautionary content in SKI BUM, which is an exceptional documentary with a strong moral worldview and a strong entrepreneurial perspective.

The movie opens announcing that Warren Miller died on Jan. 24, 2018 at the age of 93. Months earlier, the filmmaking team, which included some of the extreme skiers who were his friends, interviewed him at his home on Orcas Island in the bay near Seattle. Warren says he grew up in a dysfunctional family. His father was an alcoholic who paid more attention to his two sisters and practically no attention to Warren. There were very few ski areas of that time, but as a young boy, Warren discovers the rickety ski area called Mount Waterman. He loved skiing for the freedom it gave him but also became an avid surfer.

At 18, Warren joined the Navy, where he said he had no freedom whatsoever. So, when he got out, he and a friend would head up to the ski slopes in an old jalopy and live in the parking lot doing odd jobs in order to pay for the ski lifts, including being paid 25 cents for being an instructor. They would shoot rabbits to cook for their food. Warren claims to have invented the term SKI BUM, because that’s what he was.

Somehow, he got hold of an 8mm camera and fell in love with making ski movies. When he saw a John Jay ski movie, he tried to work for Jay so he could learn everything about it. He would drive from ski area to ski area living in his car with rickety ski equipment and start filming movies, which he learned to narrate himself and edit himself. He took his movies to ski areas and showed them at the local theaters, giving the narration as the movie played. People loved it!

He found a beautiful wife named Jean, who gave him a child but died of cancer soon thereafter. Then, he found another attractive wife who was a good athlete, and he started to make movies about extreme skiing.

One day, he called his wife, and she said that our bank account is overdrawn by $10. Warren said that can’t because we have $150,000 in the bank, but he found out his mother and sister had stolen the money. He didn’t press charges but stopped talking to them.

Soon, ski resorts recognized his talent and asked him to promote them, such as Snowbird and Vail when they were being built. He tried his hand at a feature film, but it failed, losing him at a lot of money. Then, he tried his hand at working on a TV series with Jean-Claude Killy, the famous Olympic French skier in the late 1960s. Again, he lost a lot of money.

Warren found out he had spent so much time on the road that he was disconnected from his family and that his wife had had a brief affair. His wife left him.

Meanwhile, his ski films became more and more popular, and he sold his company to his son and his son’s friend so he could just focus on making films. Sadly, they phased him out, which he did not expect.

Most of the crew that worked with him in his later films and the extreme skiers became very good friends and admired him. He found a third wife, who loved him and stayed with him.

Interviews with his daughter and his son indicate he wasn’t much of a father either, but they loved him and appreciated him.

SKI BUM, like any Warren Miller movie, has some great skiing, including tricks and extreme skiing, which keep you on the edge of your seat. It also has some of the great humor from some of the Warren Miller films. Also, Warren is such a nice guy that you’re always rooting for him as he faces trial after trial. All of this adds up to a fascinating, exciting movie. Even if you don’t love to ski, you should love SKI BUM. It teaches a lot about hard work, overcoming obstacles, and grace and kindness in the midst of adversity. It also has one very strong, positive reference that “God made me this way” in one interview. There’s a caution for little children because of the extreme skiing, which is very dangerous, and the references to the dysfunctional family problems. Otherwise, MOVIEGUIDE® commends SKI BUM.