Olympic Games Past: Rifling Through the Archives

Sarah Clyne Sundberg — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:08:00 GMT

Olympia

Leni Riefenstahl's epic documentary of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Your viewing pleasure may be somewhat tainted by the appearance of Adolf Hitler. He hosted the games and commissioned the film. The insanely long opening sequence shows nude and loin-clothed athletes, Greek ruins and German forests. Next, the camera pans over a map of Europe. Names of countries, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia pop up. It reads like a roadmap for coming invasions. Then on to the stadium full of heiling masses. Jesse Owens' series of wins in the sprint races, an athletic bird-flip to Nazism, are a definite highlight. Gives some perspective on Olympic Games and politics, no?

Tokyo Olympiad

Set at the Tokyo Olympic Games of 1964, Kon Ichikawa's film opens with a wrecking ball on old fire-bombed buildings, then cuts to a brand new jet age Olympic stadium. Think of this as a post war bookends to Olympia. Out with the old in with the new. Children cheer the torch relay by the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. It's the '60s. Peace love and sportsmanship. The team from newly independent Ghana marches in Afros, Kente cloth and sunglasses. Post-revolutionary Cubans wave flags. Ridiculously huge teams from the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. compete for world domination. This is sort of an anti-thesis to Leni Riefenstahl's totalitarian perfection. Ichikawa's camera finds weirdness in the details. A shot-putters round belly; the jaunty swing of race-walking butts; a sprinter from Ceylon lost on the field.

Chariots of Fire

Lanky Cambridge men in stylish white underwear run like the wind to win for Britain at the 8th Olympic Games in Paris in 1924. The country is still suffering the aftershocks of World War I. The Olympic Games are on the cusp of becoming the realm of professional athletes rather than gentleman amateurs. Two young lads, one Jewish, one an evangelical Scotsman, must overcome petty prejudice and personal obstacles on their way to the games. Like any self-respecting Olympic flick this one is based on a true story. Upper-crust period costumes abound. As an added bonus you get to see a foppish British nobleman jump hurdles on which he has balanced brimming glasses of champagne.

Munich

Low on sports, high on 1970s terrorist chic. At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Black September, a terrorist group, broke into the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team, took them hostage, and killed them. Spielbergs movie is based on the events and the vendetta with the Israeli secret service that followed. Flashes from the pivotal bloodbath are replayed throughout. Most notably when Eric Bana's character makes love to his wife; one of the more uncomfortable sex scenes in history. Steven Spielberg doing what he does best. You know he's driving your emotional roller coaster, but who cares when it feels this good?

Personal Best

Set at the try-outs for the 1976 Olympic track trials. No terror drama here. Just a lot of lesbian tension with Mariel Hemingway — of Manhattan — fame and Patrice Donnelly in the lead roles. skimpy mid-70s shorts. 'Nuff said.

America the Beautiful: 15 Movies That Show What's RIGHT With U.S. (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:00:00 GMT

It’s easy to criticize America (and, in fact, we did...just last week, with our list of movies showing what’s wrong with the U.S.). Yet, as we fire up the grills and sparklers for the long Independence Day weekend, it’s worth noting that, for all the flaws of our presidents, our corporations and ourselves, we’ve still managed to accomplish some amazing things: declaring independence, defeating the Nazis, putting a man on the moon, Wall*E, etc.

So, just for a moment, let's all put down those copies of Mother Jones and the Noam Chomsky Reader, switch off Fox News and simply join together in commemorating fifteen films that remind us why the United States is still a nation worth celebrating.

1776 (1972)

Let’s start at the very beginning, shall we? Sure, Stephen Dillane, Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti were good as Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and the eponymous revolutionary in HBO’s recent miniseries, John Adams... but in my book, Ken “The White Shadow” Howard, Howard Da Silva and William “K.I.T.T.” Daniels’ definitive Adams have always been the Founding Fathers to beat. This cinematic adaptation of the Tony-award winning musical by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone pumps blood (and catchy showtunes!) into the hoary old high school history class tale of the founding of America while actually managing to generate suspense about whether the Declaration of Independence will actually get signed by vividly detailing the players and dueling agendas (North vs. South, entitled conservatives vs. scrappy progressives, same as it ever was) involved in Philadelphia’s pressure cooker Second Continental Congress of 1776. With all the story’s passion and pathos (Adams’ tender affection for his truly better half, Abigail, Jefferson’s overpowering lust for his new bride, Martha, the bloody cost of independence paid by the young soldiers in the fields of Lexington and Concord), the songs (“Yours, Yours, Yours”, “He Plays the Violin,” the heartbreaking “Momma Look Sharp,” etc.) are never intrusive and fit quite nicely into the plot...including “Cool, Considerate Men” (sung by the movie’s conservative characters) which then-President Nixon wanted producer Jack Warner to remove from the movie for its clear-eyed assessment of the once and future G.O.P. and its mysterious appeal to voters whose interests it barely pretends to represent: “...don’t forget that most men without property would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor...and that is why they will follow us to the right, ever to the right, never to the left, forever to the right!” And, while the film clearly sides with the progressives, it’s fairly even-handed in its presentation of the struggle for true independence in America. When Massachusetts homeboy Adams insists on anti-slavery language in the Declaration of Independence, John Cullum’s conservative South Carolina delegate Edward Rutledge slaps back at his smug liberal hypocrisy by pointing out New England’s intimate financial stake in the shipping industry that made the slave trade possible. Ultimately, of course, the warring factions manage to put aside their differences just long enough to form a more perfect union, birthing the nation and establishing a pattern of governance and congressional behavior that continues to this day: deadlock, division, short-sighted compromise and, every now and then, an inspiring historical moment. Happy Birthday, America!

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)

Okay, so it's pretty hokey. And yeah, it lacks the subtlety and nuance of many of the other films on this list. And sure, we'll even go as far as to say that Yankee Doodle Dandy – the 1942 biopic of George M. Cohan, starring an irrepressible James Cagney – is a bit jingoistic. But its rambunctious pro-American sentiment, at least, isn't at anyone else's expense: it's the story of a guy who thinks America is just swell, gosh darn it, and he'll be hanged if he isn't gonna let everybody know how swell it is. Indeed, it's even aware of its flag-waving nature, and revels in it: during his own lifetime, after all, Cohan was accused of being overly rah-rah, and responded by writing a serious, issues-driven play – which completely bombed. Audiences didn't want Cohan to be socially relevant. They wanted him to be a singing, dancing dynamo who celebrated the best things about their culture, so that's what he delivered; and Yankee Doodle Dandy does the same. Never a great hoofer (especially in a role originally intended for Fred Astaire) or the world's best singer, Cagney compensates for what he lacks in technical prowess with indefatigable energy, enthusiasm, and charisma. Working with the notoriously strict Casablanca director Michael Curtiz, Cagney managed to add a number of improvised bits that are, today, remembered fondly as some of the movie's best moments. Yankee Doodle Dandy is a big, dumb, fun movie that does nothing but put a gifted performer with a goofy smile in front of our faces to wave the flag for an hour, but sometimes, that's just what you need.

SONGWRITER (1984)

On any worthwhile list of the most beloved living Americans, you'd find Willie Nelson's name somewhere near the top. Beware false prophets claiming to be uniters, not dividers; it was Willie who brought together the hippies, the rednecks, the bikers and the good ol' boys when he moved to Austin in the '70s and helped launch the cosmic cowboy movement. He's the only longhaired stoner your grandmother loves, and the one guy we'd forgive for singing "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" without a second thought. There can be no more quintessentially American story than Willie's, and that makes Songwriter, a freewheeling take on the red-headed stranger's legend penned by Nelson biographer Bud Shrake, a quintessentially American – not to mention criminally under-appreciated – movie. One-time Altman protégé Alan Rudolph actually bests his mentor for once; with all due respect to Nashville, found elsewhere on this list, Songwriter is a warmer, wittier and wiser take on the country music scene and its denizens. Willie plays Doc Jenkins, a country superstar with no financial acumen but a genius for exploiting loopholes (such as playing multiple instruments on a record by a supposed 11-piece supergroup and collecting all the extra paychecks). His nemesis is Rodeo Rocky, a Chicago wiseguy in Nashville drag who has swindled Doc out of his copyrights. A showdown looms, but as Doc's erstwhile partner Blackie Buck (Kris Kristofferson) says, "I'm puttin' my money on a con man gypsy badass true blue legendary bandit hero. And when it's all over they can say he did it for the love, but he was not above the money." Con movies too often become mechanical exercises, but Songwriter is as relaxed and buoyant of spirit as a Willie Nelson concert on the Fourth of July.

THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (1944)

The late Veronica Geng once wrote of the writer-director Preston Sturges that he "had a supreme gift for making people laugh without representing the world as better or worse than it is." Sturges saw America as a place where politics was crooked and rigged, business was crazy, and the few people who had any brains were liable to misplace them in the throes of passion. Yet his tone towards it all remained affectionate: he was a realist with a romantic streak who appreciated lunacy, corruption and chaos for their entertainment value and could forgive any thug his trespasses if he had a gaudy line of slang and a colorful croak with which to deliver it. (William Demarest never had a better patron.) Sturges knew that the little guy didn't always come out on top in America, but he felt that he should, and he used his movies to set about improving on reality. In this, his slapstick tribute to the virtues of the heartland as he saw them, Betty Hutton is Trudy Kockenlocker, a good small town girl whose response to the nation's call that our brave boys in uniform be shown the affection they deserve before heading overseas leaves her pregnant by some fellow whose face she can't remember, though she thinks his name might have been something like "Private Ratskywatsky." This development brings shame and disgrace on Trudy, her family, and her boyfriend Norval (Eddie Bracken), until Trudy gives birth to sextuplets, a feat that so impresses the newspapers and the clods who read them that she and Norval and proclaimed national heroes. Private Ratskywatsky could not be reached for comment.

WHY WE FIGHT (1942-1945)

Frank Capra, so the story goes, was terrified. The legendary director had seen a screening of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, and witnessed the power of cinema to sway the loyalties of an entire nation. Despite the attack on Pearl Harbor, America in the early days of World War II wasn't entirely certain, after the disaster of the First World War, that it wanted to be involved in another European conflict; Capra needed a way to counter the Nazi use of film as a propaganda medium, and convince a largely isolationist nation that this was a war worth fighting. His solution, produced in conjunction with the United States government, was Why We Fight. A series of seven documentaries (most about an hour long and initially targeted at American military men before their runaway popularity demanded they be shown to a receptive civilian audience as well), Why We Fight examined great battles, war crimes, and political differences between the democratic Allies and the fascist Axis. It was composed largely of stock footage, brilliantly edited together by Academy Award winner William Hornbeck, and enhanced by animations provided by Walt Disney Studios. The Why We Fight series is undoubtedly propaganda – it makes no pretense towards fairness or balance, contains more than a few factual distortions, and is meant to stir up the feelings of an entire nation in favor of a devastating war – but it is propaganda of the best kind, which helped the country understand that there were real humanitarian reasons for opposing Germany and Japan. One of the most celebrated works of filmmaking in American history, Why We Fight still has the power to stir the spirit today. Ironically, in a time when America has largely abandoned the moral leadership it carried in the Second World War, the documentary lent its name to another (2005) film which profoundly questioned our militaristic bent, but nothing can distract from the power and purpose of the original, which shows the American fighting spirit at its very best.

Click here for Part Two and Part Three

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Scott Von Doviak, Phil Nugent

Afternoon Deal Report: Strike is Over! (If You Want It)

Peter Smith — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:15:00 GMT

The Writers' Guild strike is over at last, and we all breathe a sigh of relief.

Steven Spielberg has pulled out of his role as artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics, in an attempt to pressure the Chinese government into pressuring the Sudanese government (which profits enormously in oil sales to China) into ending the genocide. Undoubtedly, he's also responding to pressure from his own humanitarian critics, including Mia Farrow, who apparently warned him he could be compared to Leni Reifenstahl if he went ahead. Pressure all around, but if it pushes China to act, it's all for the good.

I love that Ashton Kutcher produces stuff. Nothing signifies quality and refinement like the Kutcher imprimatur, right? In any case, he's currently producing and starring (with Jennifer Jason Leigh) in the sex comedy Spread.

The line between History Channel programming and action film grows ever thinner, as Fox announces a deal to adapt the History Channel series Ice Road Truckers into a summer crash-bang-boom picture.

The Screengrab : leni reifenstahl

Olympic Games Past: Rifling Through the Archives

America the Beautiful: 15 Movies That Show What's RIGHT With U.S. (Part One)

Afternoon Deal Report: Strike is Over! (If You Want It)