Chariots Of Fire Review

30th Jul 2012

The Olympic Games are now upon us following the long anticipated wait and transport infrastructure hysteria. Marking this is the obvious choice, that obvious classic of British heritage cinema: the multi-award winning Chariots of Fire. The film follows the true story of British athletes preparing for the 1924 Paris Olympics, focusing on two Athletes in particular: one a Jewish Cambridge student, Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), the other a deeply religious Scottish Methodist missionary running for God above country, Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson). It follows their trials in becoming members of the Olympic team and their own personal struggles. Both men went on to achieve greatness against the odds.

Chariots of Fire was a huge success on its release and although today it does look a rather slow moving drama it was in many senses the original heritage film that spawned many other such films through the 1980s and 1990s that also stretched to British TV with the success at a similar time of ‘Brideshead Revisited’. It is led by some very familiar British actors but starring two actors who fell off the radar somewhat (Charleson’s career was cut short when he died of Aids in 1990) as well as being supported by regulars of the British costume drama: Nigel Havers, Ian Holm and support lent by Nigel Davenport, Patrick Magee and Richard Griffiths as well as two very quietly impressive performances by Sir John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson as the two House Deans who are a part of the old controlling order. The script was effectively written by Colin Welland and the overall project run by producer David Puttnam who won many personal plaudits for the film and for many it was his film and not that of director Hugh Hudson. Chariots of Fire pretty much saved the British film industry and put it back on course.

What is noticeable and palpable about the way the 1924 Paris Olympics is staged is how relatively little pomp there is compared to the big showy one-upmanship that is now associated with the games. The question on everyone’s lips after the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not could Britain put on an Olympics, but how do you top that? Whether it did or not of course is open to much debate, but a filmmaker (Danny Boyle if you didn’t already know) presenting the games as a visual feast makes for an interesting cross-over whatever one thought of it. The film carries the statement in Chariots of Fire that Paris 1924 began the modern Olympics, but I would argue that it was Berlin 1936 which begun the modern games. Anyone who has seen Leni Riefenstahl’s amazing documentary of the staging of those games, Olympia can attest to that. Controversially it was fascist pomp and ceremony that re-wrote the rules on presenting the Olympic Games: these were the first games to orchestrate the route of a torch from the Ancient Greek site of Olympia through to the host nation’s site of the new games, something much covered on our news over the past few months.

Previous releases of the film on DVD were criticized for being grainy and even on Blu-ray there is still a certain element of this. But the images do stand out including the famous opening shot played to Vangelis’ famous and iconic score. Also, as with previous editions the sound quality is not the greatest but is never the less an improvement on previous prints. However, accompanying the DVD, besides the commentary by Hugh Hudson, as well as a making of documentary, another about the shooting of the opening scene, a reunion of cast and crew reminiscing about the film (this brings up some interesting facts especially from Nigel Havers who observed that a lot seemed to go wrong with the shooting only to lead to a better re-take) and casting there is also a superb documentary about the 1924 Olympic Games themselves and the controversies surrounding the games with details and real life stories about the real Liddell and Abrahams. Interesting note to film buffs is that Johnny Weismuller became one of the first real sporting heroes who later became a worldwide name as Tarzan and gold medals for swimming at the 1924 games. In some senses I found this documentary more interesting than the main feature itself. As accomplished and a classic it is the first half of the film is rather dull and it is not until the second half that it really raises itself and becomes a more interesting and engaging film. Maybe we are just too used to period costume dramas these days. But it has to be said it has not really dated and its attentions to detail are superb and both Cross and Charleson’s inner struggles are as repressed and gentlemanly as the age in which the film is set.