Daily Archives: May 18, 2024

Chariots of Fire
Directed by Hugh Hudson
Written by Colin Weiland
1981/UK
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Di

Harold M. Abrahams: If I can’t win, I won’t run!
Sybil Gordon: If you don’t run, you can’t win.

This film is more than its iconic Vangelis score.

The film is set in the period leading up to the 1924 Paris Olympic Games.  Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) is the son of a wealth Jewish financier and can run like the wind.  He is part of a strong track team at Cambridge University.  He is acutely aware of his outsider status and runs to prove something to his comrades and himself.  He also fits in by being a star in Gilbert and Sullivan productions at his school.  He eventually meets and falls in love with actress Sybil Gordon (Alice Krige).

Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) could not be more different from Abrahams.  He is a devout Christian who aims to become a missionary to China.  But he also runs like the wind and believes he was given his talent for the glory of his God.

Both men are training for the Olympics.  Abrahams is so intent on becoming a champion that he hires professional trainer Sam Mussabini.  Both men head off to the games where drama awaits.

I clearly remember first seeing this on a plane.  The experience was memorable because the plane landed before it was finished!  I did eventually see the film and enjoyed it.  The rewatch did not disappoint.  This is a handsomely produced look at sportsmanship back at a time when gentlemen pursued glory on the field.  Very entertaining.

Chariots of Fire won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Score.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Holm) and Best Film Editing.

Diva
Directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix
Written by Jean-Jacques Beineix and Jean Van Hamme from a novel by “Delacorta” (Daniel Odier)
1981/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

A triumph of style over substance.

The setting is a very hip and artsy contemporary Paris.  A young postman/messenger idolizes opera soprano Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelnmenia Wiggins Fernandez).  Hawkins has long refused to record her performances. So the postman records a performance surreptitiously.  Afterwards, he goes back stage, meets her, and steals her dress.  He returns to his stupendously cool Paris loft.

A little later he meets a super-cool Vietnamese teenager and strikes up a relationship with her even though she shares the even more stupendous loft of a philosopher? writer? brooding hipster?.  A prostitute tosses another tape into the postman’s moped saddlebag.  This tape is relentlessly pursued by French hit men and their employer.  The tape of the singer is relentlessly pursued by West Indian? Taiwanese? pirates.

Obviously, I found the plot hard to follow.  But this is an example of the “cinema du look” movement and the production is the thing here.  The film certainly delivers in terms of its beautiful art direction, cinematography and score.  So it is an enjoyable watch though not one that I would seek out again particularly.