A Week of Movie Recommendations: Based on True Events
Ever since shelter in place began in March, on my Facebook page, I have been recommending a film daily. Several people have asked if I could compile those recommendations. So this begins a series of recommendations where each day I recommend a movie based on a theme.
Today begins a week of recommendations for films that are "based on true events". When Kenyon Duncan first recommended this idea, I admit I was hesitant. I don't believe that film is the place to teach history. Since film is a often a narrative or at the very least moving towards a theme, story must take priority over historical accuracy. Hence "based on true events" should not limit the ideas within the film. While I don't believe that you should go to film to learn history from another era, analyzing the films made during a specific time can reveal cultural ideas and other socially prevalent concerns from that age.
I also do not understand why when we say a film is "based on true events" somehow that makes it more meaningful. "Fargo" played with this idea brilliantly by beginning with a claim that it was based on true events. This is of course a lie, but it demonstrated that a film that is not based on true events can be as powerful as a film that is.
So with that being said, how am I going to approach this? I am not going to care about accuracy to the reality of the story upon which the film is based. Each day I am going to try to come up with a category of "based on true events".
Based on “True Events”
Day 1 Movie Recommendation
Today's I am going to be looking at the biography.
There are so many great bio-pics, it's hard to chose one to recommend. I could do easily an entire 7 days just on biographical films and not scratch the surface. When thinking of bios films that immediately jump to mind: Scorsese's "Raging Bull", one of the great films of all time, or even his underappreciated "The Aviator"; Spike Lee's incredible modern epic "Malcolm X" or Milos Forman's take on "Amadeus" or even a smaller underappreciated film like "Chaplin" or "Capote", but for my money, few films have put us inside the mind of a "real person" than Oliver Stone's epic:
"Nixon" ****
"Nixon" begins as a labyrinth of memories. A maze of Nixon's thoughts shown through stream of conscious in editing. It's an incredibly disorienting film at first, but stick with it, because like the best stream of conscious writing, you come to understand not only who a character is, but how they think.
The film begins with an infomercial straight out of the 1950s inter-cut with the Plumbers preparing for the Watergate heist that would bring President Nixon down. The idea of inter-cutting the two plot elements is meant to underscore the difference between propaganda and reality.
The film then shifts to its true opening sequence. During the credits, we arrive at the White House with General Haig who is delivering the famed tape with the 15 minute gap (this is before it has the gap). As he enters the White House, Oliver Stone sets the mood and style of the film. We move through the gates outside of the White House, suggesting in an almost Hitchcockian manner that we are going to be voyeurs into something that should be private. Because we come through the gates, it also looks like the White House is imprisoned. Notice the use of high camera angles to suggest surveillance cameras and the paranoia of the Nixon White House. Notice also the use of canted angles to suggest that the world is off balance. They are used in such a dramatic fashion that whenever Haig is climbing stairs the canted angle makes it look like he is inside walking; suggesting no rise, but rather a descent. The overlay of fire indicates that Nixon, who is in the Lincoln room with the AC on and a roaring fire, is burning documents, but also gives the movie a hell like atmosphere. We then are introduced to President Nixon who drops a bottle of pills (suggesting addiction) and says, "cocksucker!" It's one of the beset introductions ever.
Following this opening, Nixon plays the tape that Haig has brought and the movie goes back into the memory of the meeting that was being recorded. During that meeting, he mentioned JFK and so it burrows back in time to first his debate with JFK where he was ill and loses public opinion. That memory takes us to the night of the election and its loss. During mourning the loss with his wife, Nixon mentions his mother and so we burrow further into Nixon's mind, going back to when he was a child. These types of non-linear jumps are numerous in the first hour of "Nixon" as his mind tries to take him everywhere except the current predicament he's in.
This movie cannot be mentioned without it's incredible cast: Joan Allen as Pat Nixon (fantastic), Powers Boothe as the aforementioned General Haig, Ed Harris as Howard Hunt, Bob Hoskins as J. Edgar Hoover, E.G. Marshall as John Mitchell, Daivd Hyde Pierce as John Dean, Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger, Mary Steenburgen as Hannah Nixon, JT Walsh as John Ehrlichman, James Woods as H.R. Haldeman, Madeline Kahn as Martha Mitchell, and more... wow... The lead role is played by Anthony Hopkins. Despite how great an actor Anthony Hopkins is (his Hannibal Lector is perhaps my favorite performance of all time), if you had asked me if Hopkins would be a good fit to play President Nixon, my answer would have been no. He looks nothing like Nixon, and yet, his performance is one for the history books. He understands this character as a Shakespearean tragic hero. One of his great performances in a career of incredible roles.
But what amazes me more is the sympathy that Stone finds for Nixon. There is no doubt how much Oliver Stone hates Nixon. Stone was a soldier in the Vietnam War and views Nixon's Presidency as a crime, but in the end, there is actual sympathy for the character of Nixon. A man of numerous talents torn down by his own demons, his racism towards others, and his willingness to do anything to win. Towards the end of the film, there is a moment that crystallizes this. Nixon has chosen to resign rather than attempt a military coup. He finds himself alone in the West Wing and looks up to see JFK's portrait hanging in the White House. As he looks up at it, with JFK's portrait famously looking down, he says "when they look at you... they see who they want to be... (then Nixon looks down like JFK)... when they look at me... they see who they are."
The movie is long. 3 hours and almost 3 and a halt if you watch the director's cut. Worth it for Sam Waterson's performance as CIA Director Richard Helms (the role was cut in editing in the normal version). In a breath taking sequence, Helms warns Nixon by reciting Yates famous poem "The Second Coming".
This is how films "based on true stories" should treat their subjects.
Day 2 Movie Recommendation
Continuing with our daily movie recommendations, this week focusing on "based on a true story" films, although that is being loosely defined by me. See my first post for an explanation.
Yesterday, I recommended a biography. Today, I am going to a different category of "based on a true story" film. Rather than focusing on capturing a person's life, I wanted to look at movies that try to capture an event in history.
There are many ways to go about this. One method is not to fictionalize much, but to recreate the drama of an event. Great films of this type would include "The Right Stuff" and "Apollo 13" which capture both the exuberance of going into space, but also the danger and sacrifices. Another great example of this type of movie is "Hotel Rwanda" that tries to capture the Rwanda genocide of the 1990s. There are also so many films that try to capture the Holocaust, perhaps the most infamous historical event of the 20th century. These films range from "Schindler's List" to "The Grey Zone" (underappreciated masterpiece) to "Sophie's Choice" to "The Pianist".
Other times you try to capture an event by adding fictional characters into the event. A film in this grouping would be "Titanic" which somehow has gotten a bad reputation. "Titanic"'s painstaking rebuilding of basically the entire Titanic ship and actually flooding it is a cinematic stunt that really captures the moment.
Then, there are movies that rather than trying to capture the event through the characters tries instead to recreate the emotion or feeling surrounding an event. These films might include Fincher's masterful "Zodiac" which captured the paranoia of SF during the Zodiac killing spree. A very similar movie in concept would be Spike Lee's underrated "Summer of Sam" which captures a similar feeling of paranoia, but in the intimacy of a neighborhood. I know I've already recommended an Oliver Stone film, but he makes so many movies based on true stories. His "JFK" again perfectly captures the paranoia surrounding the Warren commission's investigation.
But for today, I am going with a tie between two films that seek to capture one of the most horrific events following the Holocaust: The Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.
"The Killing Fields" & "First They Killed my Father"
"The Killing Fields" came out shortly after the fall of Pol Pot in 1979. The film has issues without a doubt. It puts the suffering of the Cambodians through the eyes of a white journalist played by Sam Waterson and yet even with these faults, "The Killing Fields" captures the reality of the suffering under Pol Pot through Dr. Haing S. Ngor's performance as Dirth Phan. Dr. Ngor was a doctor before the Khmer Rouge took over. The Khmer Rouge wanted to wipe out any western influence and so those with an education and those who were doctors were targeted among so many others. Dr. Ngor was imprisoned and tortured. He had to lie about his degree and his education to survive. His performance is one of the great performances in cinema. A role that he was able to bring a level of realism to that without this film would have failed.
The film wisely understands this. In a conventional Hollywood film after Sam Waterson's journalist is smuggled out of Cambodia, we would follow his perspective to New York and he would triumphantly go back to rescue Dirth Phan. But instead, the second of the film becomes Dirth Phan's story and it is here that the brilliance of the film is found.
The second film I want to recommend was not seen by many unfortunately. It is the story of Cambodian author and human rights activist Luong Ung. Luong Ung wrote the script. At first, Angelina Jolie, a friend, was simply trying to produce it. But then Luong asked her to direct it. This film benefited from being shot in Cambodia and employing an almost all local crew.
Luong Ung was five when the Khmer Rouge took over, relocating her upper middle class family. Eventually, they split the family, killing her father, and sending her to a relocation camp where she would be trained as a child soldier. Her harrowing story is told in subtle hand held shots that neither evoke Hollywoodisms nor cliche moments. Instead, we get glimpses into the mind of a child: fantasies, day dreams, memories all shot in vivid color which are immediately snapped out to. The realism of her situation is never forgotten and the impact on her will be life long.
These two films demonstrate the impossibility of capturing an event of this magnitude, and yet, also succeed in doing so by focusing on one person's journey (in one case a photographer and translater, Dirth Phan, and in the other, a child, Luong Ung).
Trailer: "The Killing Fields"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Um2j1iEj1k
Trailer: "First They Killed My Father"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS3Vp_quGCw
Day 3 Movie Direction
Continuing with a selection of "based on true stories" films, today we turn to an obsession of filmmakers and artists in general; making films about artists making art. These "based on true stories" films attempt to capture the inspiration and creation of artists from all mediums.
There are films about the creation of art that also cross over into biographies. "Pollack" is a great example of this, which explores how Jackson Pollack's demons nearly consumed him, but his wife Lee provides stability so that he can create, even though it means sacrificing herself.
Another of these biographies that also is about finding inspiration and creating art is my favorite Tim Burton film, and the film I came so close to recommending today, "Ed Wood". Ed Wood made what is considered by some (not this film lover) the worst film ever made, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (it's too funny to ever be the worst film ever made). Johnny Depp in a career best performance finds the incredible love of cinema from Ed Wood that propelled him to make movies he loved, proving that the artist must make movies for themselves first.
Then, there are films about the creation of a single piece of art. A great example is "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" or the underappreciated "Cradle Will Rock" which rotates between the creation of the forgotten leftist musical, "Cradle Will Rock", directed by Orson Welles and one of my favorite murals ever, "Man at Crossroads", by Diego Rivera.
But for my recommendation today, I turn to a master of cinema, Mike Leigh. When I reviewed my selections of top ten lists for the last two decades, it did not surprise me that Martin Scorsese had more films on that list than any director. It did surprise me that Mike Leigh was second on that list. This film is not as small and intimate as his other films, but it captures the process of the creation of theater in a way that I've never seen replicated.
"Topsy-Turvy" ****
"Topsy-Turvy" begins at the height of Gilbert and Sullivan's fame when they were riding on their success and basically making the same play over and over with diminishing effect. With that, Sullivan is frustrated, feeling that he is lending his musical talents to a lesser writer, Gilbert. Gilbert feels he is doing the same for Sullivan. The two for the first time are at a impasse. That it hadn't come to this before is amazing considering how opposite the pair are: Gilbert, an anal-retentive, obsessive, controlling, and almost emotionless man, and Sullivan, a free spirit, go with the flow, a man who loves excess.
Then, Gilbert's wife forces him to go to a visiting Japanese village that was not an accurate recreation of life in Japan, but rather, a commercial venture by English businessmen to make money off the interest in the "exotic" east. Gilbert is taken. He buys a sword and hangs it, meticulously, in his study. Then one night, the sword falls and Gilbert picks it up. He becomes a kid again and begins to fight with the sword like he imagines a samurai would. And for a second, he receives inspiration. This is such a true moment. Jim Broadbent playing Gilbert plays this scene expertly so that we understand the inspiration did not come from the Japanese village, but rather from getting in touch with his own child-like imagination. The "Japan" he creates is not any attempt at a "real" Japan and hence I have hated the "Mikado" for most of my life for it's racist, stereotypical portrayal of Japanese life, but this film made me think differently about it. I too had fantasies of far off lands (Europe in the medieval ages for example) which were not accurate or real in any way but fueled my imagination as a young boy. That is what the "Mikado" is to Gilbert.
The film then turns to the meticulous rehearsal process. This is truly an ensemble piece with each actor in the company's troupe, receiving scenes of their own that show how they grow into their new roles. Watch the detail with which they rehearse, even getting into a little spat about the correct pronunciation of a word. A retiring actor, played by Timothy Spall, has a harrowing task of performing a number that Gilbert will admit is not good. The number is almost cut, until the cast, comes to the actor's rescue, trying to give him a graceful way to end his aging career.
This film is the so successful because of the process with which Mike Leigh works. He gathers actors together with an idea and in the tradition of theater, improvise scenes together and then a script is written inspired or based on those improvisations.
In the end though, Gilbert, much like Hitchcock, is not happy with success. He never will be. For one thing, despite his best efforts, the play is not what he envisioned. This is what drives artists. We can never capture what is in our minds. We try our best, but in the end, that is a goal that will never be reached. And as a result, Gilbert remains a frustrated artist.
Day 4 Movie Recommendation
In our continuing series of recommending films based on true stories, we started with the biography ("Nixon") and then proceeded to movies that attempt to capture a historical event ("The Killing Fields" & "First They Killed My Father"). Yesterday, we looked at movies "based on true stories" about the creation of art and I recommended Mike Leigh's "Topsy-Turvy". Today we turn to the most unusual of "based on true story" films, the autobiographical film.
It takes a very interesting distance between one's self and one's art to write an autobiographical film. Many do so, but only in the loosest of senses, basing their film on their own personal story. Some though, do it more directly. One of my absolute favorites in this category is Louis Malle's masterpiece "Au Revoir Les Enfants": the tragic story of a Jewish friend who is outed in a school that is protecting him from the Nazis during WWII. Obviously, I had already mentioned "The Pianist" during my capturing a historical event write up, which is also a autobiography of sorts for Roman Polanski.
Then, there are films that are much more loosely adapted. There is "The 400 Blows" whose lead character Antoine Daniel is very much based on writer-director Francois Truffuat's life. There is also an incredible film by the son of Melvin Van Peebles, Mario Van Peebles, who as a child co-starred in his father's film "Sweet Sweetback Baadasssss Song" which started the blaxplotation film revolution. Later in life Mario would make his own film "Baadassss!" about the making of his father's film with him playing his dad and his own son playing him. It's a great double feature and "Baadassss!" is one of the great films about independent filmmaking.
I have written about numerous times my love for Ingmar Bergman's most personal film, the epic "Scenes from a Marraige" (glorious in the 9 1/2 hour version of the film) based on his own marriage breaking up. It is one of the most engrossing heart-breaking films of all time. In this same vein, I could recommend John Cassavettes masterpiece "Woman under the Influence," which very much is based on his own relationship with his wife Gena Rowlands who plays the "wife" in this film.
But, the film I have chosen I show to my class each and every year to teach about the concept of meta-fiction. I have seen this film every year for 13 years and still never tire of it.
"Adaptation" ****
I seriously thought about recommending this film yesterday as one of the best "based on a true story" films for making a piece of art, but ultimately decided to recommend the film as an autobiography of sorts.
Charlie Kaufman is the best screenwriter currently working. In a world without originality, Kaufman writes original screenplays. His first major film "Being John Malkovich" earned him an Oscar nomination and brought him to the attention of Meredith Finn at Newline who hired him to adapt Susan Orlean's non-fiction work "The Orchid Thief" which is both a book on the life of real-life orchid thief, John Laroche, as well as her own personal essay on the nature of passion and finding meaning in life. Instead of adapting the book, Charlie turned in a screenplay about a fictional screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman who was asked to adapt a book by Susan Orlean about a man, John Laroche, and cannot.
The genius of this script is that Kaufman's failure to write the script is a reflection of both Susan Orlean's symbolic and metaphorical journey to find meaning and John's more physical journey for the same thing.
Charlie imbues his own character with neurotic tendencies that are truly based on his, but heightened for effect. He then creates a fictional twin brother to represent a part of his psyche that wants to be a famous Hollywood screenwriter who writes such works as "The Three" (Donald's fictional screenplay about a literature professor who has multiple personality disorder and is the cop, the serial killer, and the victim in this story). His frustration with finding someone to love him for who he is (also a symbol of finding someone to understanding his writing) takes him to the edge where he finally asks Donald for helping writing it. It is then that Donald's style merges with Charlie's the film takes a wonderfully whimsical and hysterical turn as Charlie's life descends into the very screenwriting he deplores.
All of this is mixed with both fact (Susan and John's relationship as journalist and subject) and fiction (Susan and John's romantic interest which is suggested numerous times by people in Hollywood). The result, one of the great movies of this century. A film that captures the true battle and frustrating of writing a script and also the person of Charlie Kaufman. Watching how Charlie presents himself in this movie makes his other films make more sense.
Trailer (also a phenomenal trailer. Trailer cutting is an art form in itself and this one gets it right): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMwOEkTmTyQ&t=1s
Day 5 Movie Recommendation
Today we go to the rarest of films based on real events. The film that attempts to capture changes through an era. Sometimes these are indeed biographies like "The Last Emperor" which follows the Last Emperor of China from his near infancy through his adulthood, showing the fall of one of the oldest Dynasties on earth. Another great example of this in biography is Tarkovsky's incredible "Andrei Rublev" which charts the life of the famed painter and Saint, but whose true purpose is to chart the 15th century.
But more often than not, these films involve fictional characters who traverse real events in history showing us the ever changing cultural landscape or at times lack thereof.
I am not going to recommend the most famous of these films which won the Oscar in 1994, but rather, look at a few worthy candidates. Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" more than any other film captures the era of its story in the techniques of filmmaking, elevating a film to something more akin to portraits of the time its story is set.
Two other more recent films attempt to accomplish this ambitious task: Hungry's "Sunshine" which chronicles three generations of a Jewish family and Italy's "Best of Youth" which tells the "epic" story of two bothers over thirty years of their life. Both films are long and must be for the breath of what they are attempting to do.
Of all the "based on true events" stories these are the hardest to make. How does one make a film that takes place over such a long time, keep it cohesive and driven by conflict, and still stay true to the currents of the times.
My favorite of these films is one of Zhang Yimou's masterpieces:
"To Live" ****
Xu Fugui was lucky. Born into a wealthy family in early 1900s China, he was destined to have a better life than the many peasants, farmers, and other oppressed poor citizens. He has a large traditional Chinese home and is married to a beautiful woman, Xu Jiazhen (a radiant Gong Li) who is pregnant with their first child. Then, Fugui goes and throws it all away. Through his gambling addiction, he loses everything. His home, his family. To save face, his family exiles him and he now wanders the cities, trying to earn enough to eat and if he's lucky a roof over his head by performing traditional Chinese puppet theater.
In one of these villages, he is forcefully conscripted into the Nationalists Army to defend the country against the rebelling People's Army of China, led by Mao. In one incredible scene, Fugui and a fellow soldier are starving and freezing in trenches. They take the boots off one of their dead companions who has died from exposure. Boots mean warding off frost bite. The two huddle together for warmth and accidentally fall asleep. When they awake, they are the only soldiers remaining in the trench as the People's Army bears down on them. The two of them running in the snow away from a pursuing army is an incredible visual. Lucky for him, rather than killing them, they are conscripted into the People's Army.
Years pass and he is reunited with his wife and their daughter. This is where most films would end, but Yimou, risking his own livelihood, continued the film into the Cultural revolution. We watch as the family who has finally made it succumbs to the horrors of the revolution. Whether it is corrupt Communist Party Officials or the execution or forced relocation of western trained doctors, the family continues to suffer the winds of bad fortune; but, they endure. They continue through the loss and the crushing of dreams of a new future.
This is an epic so perfectly constructed that we feel the flow of history and yet so perfectly contained that trying to expand it into a series, as it would have been made today, would have ruined it.
Day 6 Movie Recommendation
Today we turn to the category of the War film, based on real events.
I wanted to recommend "Lawrence of Arabia" in biography, but it slipped my mind. But, it is also a war film so it can be mentioned here. One of the great epics ever made.
There are somewhat autobiographical war films like "Platoon" which is inspired by Oliver Stone's own Vietnam War experiences. The second film in his Vietnam trilogy is also brilliant, "Born on the Fourth of July" with one of Tom Cruise's best performances, as a Vietnam vet who comes home to face both an angry public and PTSD. This film shows the true horrors of the war as they are faced after it is over.
Clint Eastwood made a great two film collection with "Flags of our Fathers" (a mediocre film on its own) but when paired with "Letters from Iwo Jima" (a masterful film on its own) the genius of the juxtaposition of the American and Japanese views on the battle are astonishing.
Stanley Kubrick's best war film (sorry "Full Metal Jacket"), "Paths of Glory", is very loosely based on a true event and is my favorite anti-war film. The ending scene is one of the great last scenes in all of cinema. So unexpected, yet so powerful.
A film that has continued to grow on me is Terrence Malick's "Thin Red Line" which is based on the event of the battle of Guadalcanal. Rather than presenting a normal narrative, he instead presents both the grim reality of war and the film also acts on a meditation of fear and sacrifice.
The greatest war film of recent time is Nolan's underrated "Dunkirk" which plays with time, not in a gimmicky way, but in a method to experience how war feels never ending.
But the film I want to recommend is a film that is not often talked about these days. "Battleship Potemkin" is of course the masterpiece that everyone knows Sergei Eisenstein from. But, his career is full of incredible triumphs. The way he filmed the battle in "Alexander Nevsky" makes it my recommendation:
"Alexander Nevsky" ****
Yes, it is Stalinist propaganda made at the start of WWII in 1938, but it also is a great film.
The story is simple enough. Teutonic Knights, along with the Tartars are invading Russia. These villains are depicted in horrific manners begetting both propaganda and good storytelling. The villains literally through babies into bonfires. Their only hope if the gallant Prince Alexander Nevsky. The movie moves towards an epic battle, that for its staging and how it is shot, might be the greatest battle ever recorded.
Eisenstein casts thousands of actors in this battle, long before special effects would make it possible to try an replicate his achievement. The battle takes place on a frozen lake. Since they were filming in summer, the cinematographer and set designer had their work cut out for them. They painted the true blue and sprinkled them with chalk so that they would look correct in the black and white film stock. The created these sheets of "ice" for the battle to occur on.
Then there is the music. The great classical composer Sergei Prokofiev composed the score. He wrote the original theme and played it for Eisenstein which inspired part of his filming. Then, Prokofiev viewed the film and composed to the editing and cut. The result, one of the greatest uses of music in all of cinema.
Alexander Nevsky is Eisenstein's second sound film and like Lang's "M" he demonstrates his mastery over a new form of cinema through his inherent talent.
Alas no trailer since the movie was made in 1938. I believe it is available on the Criterion Channel.
Day 7 Movie Recommendation
For the last entry in recommending "based on true event" films, I am going to turn to something generally a little more fun, although one of the films I considered is powerful, poignant, and difficult, but in general these films are fun. I am talking about the based on a true story sports film.
Sports films tend to be uplifting as they are movies about triumph, often an underdog or a come backstory that motivates
One of the most brilliant based on true events sport films of the last few years though defies this and that is "I, Tonya" based on the real life events involving the attack on Nancy Kerrigan. Margot Robbie gives an amazing performance as Tanya, demonstrating how she was never going to be accepted into the world of figure skating. Unlike the athletes who goes into this sport, Tonya came from a poor single parent household, raised by a con-artist of a mother portrayed brilliantly by Alison Janney. The film is an amazing biography, a film that captures a specific historical event, and is also, like "Raging Bull", one of the more unusual "sports films".
For the more traditional sports films though, we have Disney's sports movies; three of which I considered recommending: "Cool Runnings" (a guilty pleasure of mine), "Miracle" (surprisingly good), and "MacFarland, USA" (another surprisingly good film). All involve underdog stories and conflict between coaches and their athletes until the young men (yes, all men...) discover who they are and push themselves to win. Even though they are stereotypical, there's a reason these films work.
Then, there are films like these that elevate them to the next level. I am talking about "Hoosiers" and "Rudy" both based on true events and yet feel more life like than formulaic.
There is the great "League of Their Own" a film that almost made my list of recommending great female directors. Penny Marshall's story of the creation of the first All Female Baseball League is both a comic and heartfelt triumph.
But, my recommendation today is a classic. One that some people think is not a great film even though it won the Oscar. Granted, there were better films that year, but it is still a great movie.
"Chariots of Fire" ****
What "Chariots of Fire" gets so right is the sacrifice involved for competing in your sport. It does so in a brilliantly subtle way combining the stories of several runners in the 1920's Olympics as they move towards representing their country and trying to regain some level of normalcy following WWI.
One of the runners is Harold Abrahams. He has achieved what seems impossible in his shoes. Raised in a lower class Jewish household, he has gotten into Oxford. He knows immediately that his path in Oxford will be different from his peers, especially his best friend Lindsey who is the son of a Lord. Always feeling he has to prove himself, Abrahams runs a challenge around the clock square at Oxford which has never been beaten. He does it.
Against him, we meet Eric Liddlell, a devout evangelical Christian who has returned from China where he is doing missionary work. In Scotland, he is convinced to run in a race and we see a great difference between the way Liddell runs and Abrahams. Abrahams runs with an urgency. He has to win. Liddell runs with joy, looking up to the sky at God as he races.
Eventually the two meet in a race and Liddell wins. The way the loss for Abrahams is shot is so revealing. He knows he cannot beat him. For the first time in his life, his personal drive is not enough to overcome this challenge. That challenge is symbolically reproduced in the anti-Semitism he fights. He will never beat that. No matter what he does, he will not be accepted.
To win, Abrahams turns to a coach, who is also an outsider. His coach, wonderfully played by Ian Holm, is not only an Italian, a Catholic, a cheater, he's also half Arab. This is not taken well and Abrahams is threatened with penalties in college under the guise that the only real way to compete is that of the amateur.
The end where Liddell and Abrahams come together in a way to represent their country is beautiful.
The other thing that the film gets right, and I have no personal experience of this, but have a lot of friends who run cross country, is the meditative state of running. The soundtrack by Vangelis captures that state.
