“I wanted to make a liaison of sports and cinema…I treated the whole thing as a vision.”

Even though Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia is a documentary, it is considered to be the first great sports film, having paved the way for sports films and the broadcast of sports on television. Future documentaries, most notably Kon Ichikawa’s 1965 documentary about the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, Japan, Tokyo Olympiad, would be compared to Riefenstahl’s Olympia. It is appropriate that a documentary should be considered the first great sports film, as sports films, even those that are not documentaries, still depict real-life events. 2004’s Miracle, for example, is another film about the Olympics, but is a feature film that is not a documentary. It is different from Riefenstahl’s Olympia in that it is more focused on a specific event of the Olympics – specifically the victory of the United States hockey team over the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Yet it is no less a document of real life events and ideas than Riefenstahl’s Olympia. The same argument can be made for the 1980 film Chariots of Fire, about two runners at the 1924 Summer Games in Paris, France. Even though Chariots of Fire is not a documentary, the story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, while some liberties were taken, is no less real than a story told in a documentary. Each of these films came about through the visions of their directors, together with the influence of history and, in the cases of Riefenstahl and Ichikawa, the influence of government.

All four of these films have the most important idea in common: they capture the spirit of the Olympics, where athletes compete in honor of something bigger than themselves – their country, and in the case of Eric Liddell, their faith. With the capture of this spirit, the viewer gets to live it, even in the case of the feature films. There are differences in how the spirit of the Olympics is portrayed, however. Riefenstahl and Ichikawa focused on the Olympics as a whole, without dwelling on single storylines. For Riefenstahl, this would prove problematic, although it would be resolved in the editing room. It would, however, take longer than planned, as Riefenstahl refused any aid in the editing process. “If I were to add another director in order to speed up the work, then a unified work could never be produced” (Graham 134). The film was essentially made in the editing room, as Riefenstahl could not decide beforehand what to film and what not to. Therefore, she filmed everything, and left a good deal of what she had filmed on the cutting room floor. In Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936, David Clay Large describes Riefenstahl’s experience in deciding how her film would be constructed. “Because she could hardly include the entire Olympic festival of 1936 in her film, she elected from the outset to shape her work around key or representative moments, scenes, and performances,” he wrote (298). However, Large goes on to write that she had to film everything, because she had no way of knowing what would turn out to be “key or representative;” hence the time spent in the editing room during post-production.

A common thread between Riefenstahl’s Olympia and Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad is the composition. Both were split into two parts, for example. Riefenstahl is quoted in Cooper C. Graham’s Leni Riefenstahl and Olympia as saying, “Many said to me that you cannot do that; you can either make a film in which everything is mixed up, a fantasy where everything is cut on movement, but has no value from the point of view of sport” (154). Riefenstahl wanted to cover everything, a feat that could not be accomplished in one part. Ichikawa realized the same thing in making Tokyo Olympiad a couple of decades later. Both realized that their films had to be organized in a certain way. Events could not be split up. It is interesting to note, however, that in Tokyo Olympiad, the track and field events are fairly early in the film, with considerable time spent on them, while the road race is toward the end.

Another common thread is the political influence in both films. Both Riefenstahl and Ichikawa endured criticism from their governments – Ichikawa for focusing on athletes from other nations, and Riefenstahl for much of the same. Goebbels actually wanted to replace Riefenstahl with another director in the editing room, because she had paid particular attention to the American athletes, and the African-American athletes in particular, like track star Jesse Owens (Graham 143). Riefenstahl also endured criticism in the form of censorship from other nations. In the English edition of Olympia, the presence of the Nazis was diminished and in fact, the United States declined to distribute Olympia, due to Germany’s political situation at the time (Large 308-314).

Politics had a direct impact on the final composition of the documentaries of Riefenstahl and Ichikawa. Politics also had a direct impact on the feature films Miracle and Chariots of Fire, in that they would not exist if not for the political situations that led to the occurrences that they depict. Miracle is of particular interest to me, growing up in the Lake Placid area. This film and Chariots of Fire portray specific events, rather than the Olympics themselves, allowing particular attention to be paid to detail. Miracle focuses on the United States hockey team of the 1980 Winter Olympics, following them from the formation of the team through to the victory over the Soviets, what would become known as the “Miracle on Ice,” thanks to the infamous call of Al Michaels in the final five seconds. The Miracle on Ice almost did not happen when the Americans threatened to boycott the Olympic Games that would take place in Moscow the following summer. John Hoberman describes the controversy behind the idea of an Olympic boycott in his book The Olympic Crisis: Sports, Politics, and the Moral Order. “In a harshly politicized world, sport is a virtually weightless force, outranked by the more tangible goals of political, economic, and military interests,” he writes (5). In short order, the United States was threatening to boycott the Summer Olympics in 1980, due to the fact that they were taking place in the Soviet Union, a communist nation that invaded the nation of Afghanistan a short time before the Winter Olympics. Because of this, the Soviets threatened to boycott the Winter Games in Lake Placid that same year. This was only the second time in the history of the modern Olympics that boycott was a possibility – the first being the Summer Games of 1936 in Berlin, the subject of Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia. But Herb Brooks, coach of the United States hockey team, would get his wish. The Americans would go to Moscow, and the Soviets would come to Lake Placid. Brooks would finally get to face them as a coach, after missing his chance as a player; as mentioned in the film, he had been cut from the team in 1960, just days before the games were to begin. So in reality, Miracle tells the story of the hopes of a nation riding on the shoulders of a group of twenty young men, the story of a coach gaining another opportunity to be a hero in the eyes of his country.

Miracle, while being the story of one event, bears similarities to Olympia and Tokyo Olympiad in terms of camerawork and audio. While making Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl had the commentators for the Berlin games, most notably Paul Laven, re-enact their commentary after the games were over and filming was completed (Graham 165). Due to the nature of Tokyo Olympiad, in that the commentary was extensive, more so than Olympia, the commentary is the original commentary. In Miracle, Al Michaels and hockey legend Ken Dryden were brought in to recreate their commentary from the 1980 games. They redid the commentary entirely, with one notable exception – “Five seconds left…do you believe in miracles?? YES!!” as the United States seized an unlikely 4-3 victory over the vaunted Soviet Union. The original recording was used, because director Gavin O’Connor thought that it could never be recreated with the same emotion and have the intended effect on the viewer.

Of particular interest are the voice-overs in Tokyo Olympiad. They distinguish themselves from Riefenstahl’s Olympia in that athletes are identified by name and country. Some athletes also have their lives described by the commentator. One runner, for example, is identified as a mechanic in his native Poland. Leni Riefenstahl had none of this in Olympia. In Olympia, one could hardly distinguish the athletes from one another in terms of what countries they represented. I have to wonder if this was intended, or it was simply the nature of the recording. Either way, the athletes played in relative anonymity before Riefenstahl’s cameras. This anonymity was not to be found in Tokyo Olympiad or the feature films Miracle and Chariots of Fire. I saw this as a strength for the feature films, and Tokyo Olympiad as well. In Tokyo Olympiad, it showed Ichikawa’s attention to detail as he maintained the authenticity of the Games, showing them as one would see them on television. Riefenstahl had attention to detail in Olympia, but it was another sort of attention that was more focused on camerawork than the history of the athletes themselves.

A strength that I see in the feature films is the focus on one particular story. The focus on one particular story in Miracle and Chariots of Fire captured the spirit of the Olympic Games in a way that Riefenstahl and Ichikawa did not and could not, due to the nature of their films. Miracle and Chariots of Fire show that country is what they play for in the Olympic Games. As previously mentioned, Ichikawa shows this as well, but in a different way. One of the most powerful moments in Miracle, besides the game itself is a scene after a pre-Olympics hockey game, in which Brooks wants his team to acknowledge who they play for. He has them run sprints on the ice after losing badly. He has them run again and again, before Eruzione, the one who would have a pivotal role in beating the Soviets in the eventual Miracle on Ice, yells out his name, where he is from, and that he plays for the United States of America. He was the first to acknowledge this, as before, they had all said who they were, where they were from, and that they played for their respective colleges and universities. In Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says that he is “an Englishman first and last.” In the Olympic Games, athletes play for something bigger than themselves: their country, and in the case of Eric Liddell, their faith. Chariots of Fire tells the story of how Eric Liddell refused to run his race on the day of the Sabbath. “Moral claims occasionally outweigh the claims of sport,” John Hoberman writes in Olympic Crisis (5). Granted, he was writing about the games in 1980, but it also applied to the 1924 games in Paris in the case of Eric Liddell, as Liddell considered his faith first and his country second – even though he did say that he was an “Englishman first and last.” Liddell would be accommodated when he was allowed to run a different race than the one he was originally supposed to run.

Stories like these were not to be found in Riefenstahl’s Olympia or Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad, simply because of the scope of the films. The scope is a weakness, because film, whether a documentary or a feature film, is a place for stories to be told. What stories were told in the documentaries of Riefenstahl and Ichikawa? Watching their documentaries is akin to watching a sporting event on television. No stories are told there, games are simply played and won or lost.

On the other hand, the story can be seen as a weakness in the feature film. Liberties were taken in Chariots of Fire, as the timing of the events is announced way in advance of the Olympic Games. Yet Liddell finds out that his race is being run on a Sunday only a short time before the Games begin. In Miracle, there are scenes where cameras and reporters could not go, like the home of Herb Brooks, his film room, or the locker room at the Olympics. And even the pivotal scene in which the players acknowledge that they play for the United States cannot be verified except from the players themselves. Who can say that these events happened as they were depicted on film? Some people remember events differently from others. Oftentimes, the truth can only really be discerned from recordings, both audio and visual.

Even so, the story is considered a strength, based on the emotion it provokes. Riefenstahl and Ichikawa could not provoke the emotion that O’Connor and Hughes (the director of Chariots of Fire) provoked with the stories that they told. Maybe it is because of where I am from, but when I watch Miracle, and hear the end of the game against the Soviets, I get chills. And I know I am not alone. This was O’Connor’s intention, to provoke a reaction such as this. It allows the spectator to relive the event, maybe not as it actually happened, but an approximation. The inclusion of the original call that gave the Miracle on Ice its name as it was originally recorded certainly helps. As for Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire, one could identify with him, as he strove to be a part of something bigger than he was.

A strength for both the documentaries and the features is the way that they were filmed. Both featured close-ups of the events themselves, while the documentaries also featured wide aerial shots, most often of the track and field events. Riefenstahl set up a system of tracks in order to follow runners as they competed. This is the way that sports are filmed, in order to capture the sheer scope of them. They also have close-ups that allow the viewer to almost be a part of the action. Riefenstahl was actually the first filmmaker to film a swimming event from underwater, as she did with the diving events. In Miracle, camera angles captured the shots into the goal and sticks as they clashed while trying to get control of the puck. Chariots of Fire captured close-ups of the runners, much like Ichikawa and Riefenstahl did in their documentaries. The camera angles are considered a strength, much like the stories in the feature films, because they allow the viewer to become a part of the action.

Herb Brooks, coach of the American hockey team in 1980, and also of the American hockey team in Salt Lake City in 2002, was killed in a car accident in 2003 during principal photography of Miracle. The film was dedicated to him, with the line, “He never saw it. He lived it.” Because of the stories that are told, and the way they are told in sports films, the viewer is allowed to live it as well. While both features and documentaries have their weaknesses and their strengths, they accomplish their goal. They allow the viewer to witness history, and if done well enough, to live it all over again.