- W.H. Auden
"Liberty's too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: 'I'm free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn't, I can, and my children will.' Boys ought to grow up remembering that." - Jefferson Smith (Mr. Smith Goes To Washington) I hosted a movie night at my place last night; we watched Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. My goodness, it's a great film, and it'd been 'way too long since I watched it. Jimmy Stewart is wonderful in the title role, and I love Jean Arthur as Clarissa Saunders, too. I'm generally not a sentimental person, but the above scene at the Lincoln Memorial gets me every time.
Full disclosure: I don't like sports movies for the most part. I can count on one hand the number of sports-themed films that I actually enjoy. The reason for this is that most of them are almost exactly the same, or follow the same pattern... a group of misfits or losers forms a team, originally don't get along and do poorly, then learn to work together and become a winning team- woohoo. Chariots Of Fire, however, is different. The film is about striving to win at the Olympic Games, but it has other, deeper themes. Chariots is based on the true stories of British runners Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams though, of course, some changes have been made, and timelines moved about to increase the drama. For instance, Eric didn't actually just learn that his heat was on Sunday on his way over to Paris on the ship. He actually found out a couple of months before, which gave him a bit of time- though not much- to train for the 400m. Also, the note he was given right before his race was in reality written by some members of the British team, not by Jackson Scholz, but whatever... little changes like this don't bother me. Although there is one change which was made in the historical account which burns my grits, mostly because of the reason it was made. As the film is an historical one, all the names of the characters involved are factual- except for one: Lord Andrew Lindsay. His character is a replacement for the real-life Lord David Bughley, who refused to let his name be used in the film. The reason for this was the change that was made to the Great Court Run which occurs early in the movie. In actual fact, it was Bughley who became the first student to beat the clock, but the film has Harold Abrahams win. This change was not made for dramatic reasons: apparently, the producer David Puttnam was an ardent socialist and didn't want to show a British Lord winning the race. I could make a snarky comment here about socialists' interpretation of history being on par with their grasp of economics, but I won't... As I said, I understand that historical events frequently get tweaked in film, but to deliberately commit inaccuracy like this for no other reason than you can't get over your political bias is a jerk move. Not to mention hypocritical... in the nineties, David Puttnam accepted a peerage and became Lord Puttnam of Queensgate. I guess it was O.K. for him, because his heart was pure. Okay... dialing back the sarcasm now, because I really do like this film, and there's a lot that it gets right. Chariots Of Fire takes place in the years immediately following the Great War. This plays a role in the way events unfold. The War is referenced in the first part of the film in a couple of ways. At the train station, one of the baggage handlers has terrible facial injuries, which are obviously the result of war wounds. Then, in the hall at Cambridge, one wall is inscribed with the names of the former students who died in the war. The list takes up most of the wall, and it is a grim reminder that an entire generation of youth and promise has been decimated. The Dean exhorts the new class to endeavor to excel in all things, striving to be worthy successors of those who have gone before. When the British Olympic committee attempts to bully a recalcitrant Liddell into running on Sunday, Lord Cadogan harrumphs that, "In my day it was King first and God after." The Duke of Sutherland, whose sympathies lie with Eric, snaps back, "Yes, and the War To End Wars bitterly proved your point." Later he suggests that the reason they so badly want Eric to win is to salve "a guilty national pride." These comments hint at the deep scars which the War has left on the British national psyche. The old guard is desperate to build up the shaken confidence and pride of the British people, which is the real reason why the committee is hoping for a strong showing at the Games. This is also why the deans at Cambridge seem so out of touch: they are attempting to keep everything at the school unchanged, as it has been for time immemorial. But the War has driven a huge wedge between what was and what is now, and Harold isn't wrong when he accuses them of being hidebound and living in the past. Chariots Of Fire makes good use of foreshadowing; early in the film Eric and Jenny are walking home from church when a couple of boys playing ball barrel into them. Eric gently scolds the lads for playing sports on Sunday, and this presages the dilemma which Liddell is going to face later in the narrative. Having preached the necessity of keeping the Lord's day sacred, what will he choose himself when his Olympic dream is the price of doing so? Another example of this foreshadowing is when Sam and Harold are studying Eric's running style. Sam tells Harold that, with training, he can beat Liddell. He says that though Eric is fast, in his opinion he isn't a natural sprinter and would be more suited for running longer distances. His words come to mind when Eric ends up in the 400m race in Paris. O.K., it's getting late and I think I've rambled on enough for one post. In Part II, I'll discuss Eric's and Harold's characters in more depth and also what, in my opinion, are the themes contained in the film.
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