Title: Pumping Iron

Year: 1977

Director: George Butler and Robert Fiore

Reviewed By: Garrett Chaffin-Quiray

As a gym rat, fitness enthusiast and documentary filmmaker George Butler tapped into the burgeoning �70s cultural phenomenon of bodybuilding by turning his camera on the new sport and its competitors in 1975. His film was inspired by Charles Gaines�s book of the same name although his documentary finds direction in watching various men prepare for the year�s major event, the Mr. Olympia contest.

Divided into a short and tall division, the film�s world of bodybuilders is filled with truly hulking individuals of distinct drive and ambition. From the short division leader Franco Columbo through the tall division wunderkind Lou Ferrigno, all of the bodybuilders zero in on the Olympia title knowing they must knock off the sport�s reigning superstar, Arnold Schwarzenneger. This struggle to eclipse the 5-time champ organizes the film into three vignettes focused on Mike Katz, Lou Ferrigno and Arnold himself balancing interview sequences with fly- on-the-wall observations of the world built on dumbbells and barbells.

Ultimately, Arnold triumphs and wins a then-unprecedented sixth Mr. Olympia crown but not before Pumping Iron frames his exercise regimen in loving sequences of heavy weight lifting and posing practice. In this almost banal exposition of the sport, and despite all its mythic overtones about super-human people with muscles bursting through the skin, bodybuilding is made an activity of practice, rehearsal and slow gains just like any other sport.

Katz, Ferrigno and Arnold each work out, talk about their weakness and strengths, pop vitamin supplements, bathe and prepare for competition. Each is armed with unique talents to help them succeed in the sport and each is steadily preparing along a detailed timetable. When the Mr. Olympia contest is finally unraveled, the transformation of each man through his individual training and diet reveals a group of physical specimens that were unlike any other ever shown on the big screen.

While there were strongmen in silent movies like Eugene Sandow whose personage is now cast as the trophy top for the Olympia contest winner, and while the type continued on through the work of such notables as Steve Reeves in the 1950s, never before had the bodybuilder been so lovingly rendered as in Pumping Iron. As such, the film�s focus would likely have proven awkward in a fiction feature due to the sport�s unknown quality in the mid-�70s. Yet its depiction through documentary practice is a wonderful and quirky achievement for directors George Butler and Robert Fiore.

In the year famous for seeing the release of Star Wars and Saturday Night Fever, Pumping Iron was understood as a minor sensation. Quickly evolving into a cult favorite and the inspiration for a sequel focused on female bodybuilders as well as thousands of hours of TV programming focused on fitness athletes, bodybuilders and weightlifters, it is generally remembered as Arnold�s big screen debut. While true its value is in becoming a keystone of the fitness revolution.

With the rise of aerobics exercise, the expansion of gym memberships, the sexual equalization of youth sports, the popularization of professional athletics and the proliferation of healthier lifestyles in the �70s, there was a developing gap between Baby Boomers and their progeny. It was a period characterized by turning away from traditional notions of medicine, health, diet and physical existence and the movement found its inspiration in developing alternative training methods for increased success in popular sports like football, basketball and baseball.

Once the connection between strength athletes, better nutrition and improved performance were proved the sport of bodybuilding became respectable in its own right. Such an "outing" of the nearly subterranean culture of America�s gyms was a godsend. It was also the first time serious bodybuilders could look forward to building careers based solely on their prize money and endorsement contracts.

Pumping Iron barely predates this mainstreaming of exercise into American life and initiates bodybuilding�s insertion into daily currency. Its world of exercise enthusiasts are therefore people who have made a choice to sculpt their bodies using weights, dieting techniques and personal discipline that set them firmly outside traditional notions of beauty and sports efficiency. The eccentric quality of that lifestyle is respected and the film avoids making its athletes cartoon characters by considering their fierce competitive drive running in parallels to corporate board room as easily as to posing on stage in a Speedo swimsuit with flaring muscles under hot lights.

One result of the film�s now legendary status is its absence in on library or video store shelves. As the frequent casualty of thieves, fans and devotees of bodybuilding history Pumping Iron is now part of our cultural currency like rock and roll that also catapulted non-mainstream people into popular culture.

Of course it doesn�t hurt that the film�s lead, Schwarzenegger, went on to become one of the biggest stars of his generation. Still, the enjoyable quality of Pumping Iron is based in the charm of being exposing to a group of people whose pursuits may seem weird or outright silly but also ring somehow true of our universal human need to find success and acceptance.

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