Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Visions of Eight (1973)

2021; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 48; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5406/21558450.48.2.09

2155-8450

Ryan Murtha,

Cinema and Media Studies

The early 1970s were a time of radical change in the movie business. Until then, the producer had been the single most important person on any film set, the alpha and omega of all decision-making. But in this new decade, power shifted to the director, who became freer to implement his or her own artistic vision. It is in this context that 1973’s Visions of Eight was created, as Hollywood producer and documentarian David Wolper assembled an international cast of top directors to create short films about the 1972 Munich Olympics. Combined to make one feature film, Visions of Eight was given middling reviews on its original release but has now been given new life thanks to a rerelease by the Criterion Collection.More an impressionistic art film about sport than a true documentary, Visions of Eight consists of eight vignettes, each helmed by a different director who focused on an aspect of the games that interested them. This method makes Visions of Eight unique in the larger catalog of Olympic films. Before 1972, the traditional Olympic film was newsier, informing viewers of what happened. But the age of live television forced the games to change tack, as anyone interested would now know the outcome of the competition long before a film could be edited and shipped. Thus, when the IOC approached Wolper about producing the latest entry in the Olympic film series, he found the committee receptive to his idea of assembling a team of directors, as opposed to choosing just one.Wanting his project to reflect the tenets of Olympism, Wolper gathered an international coterie of directors. The first he approached was the great Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, who, after three days of negotiations, told Wolper he could not participate due to a busy schedule. But, a fan of the project, he did give the producer permission to lie to other directors and tell them he was on board, only publicly withdrawing his name at the last minute. Thanks to this subterfuge, Wolper managed to attract names like Arthur Penn from the United States, who helped spark the New Hollywood movement with Bonnie and Clyde, along with Oscar winners like Milos Forman from Czechoslovakia, John Schlesinger of Great Britain, and Frenchman Claude Lelouch. Juri Ozerov stood for the USSR, Mai Zetterling represented the Swedes, Kon Ichikawa spoke for Japan, and the German Michael Pfleghar rounded out the crew. (Originally, Italian and Senegalese directors were involved as well before dropping out for various reasons.)The film opens with Ozerov's “The Beginning,” where he examines the athlete in the moments before competition starts. It is a tense few minutes, as his camera lingers on the stony faces of the competitors as they prowl behind the starting line. The tension builds as he cuts from sport to sport, showing weightlifters, runners, swimmers, and others. Finally, catharsis, as the gun goes off and the athletes launch into their respective disciplines. Ozerov's work is reflective of what is to come over the ensuing two hours, as there is little in the way of spoken word to guide the viewer. Our only guideposts are short introductions from each director and the beginning of the segment. Other than that, we are left with just images.In the two-hole is Zetterling's portrait of weightlifters, “The Strongest.” She tells us at the start that she has no interest in sport, but she is very interested in obsession. Behind the stage with the athletes as they warm up for competition, she frames her shots to show how isolated they are in pursuit of greatness. Following Zetterling is Penn's piece on pole vaulting, “The Highest.” Perhaps the most impressionistic of the bunch, much of the scene is silent, and the shots are blurry. At first, all we can see are colors moving on the screen before they slowly sharpen and the shapes become recognizable as athletes in motion. This, to Penn, represents the experience of watching a new sport with which one is unfamiliar, slowly coming to understand what is happening.Pfleghar next highlights the women Olympians in all the events in which they competed in 1972. He describes his piece as a celebration, given that Munich hosted more women athletes than any previous games. Ichikawa, a veteran of Olympic films after having directed one for the 1964 Tokyo games, focuses his lens—or rather lenses—on the men's 100m dash. Ichikawa commandeered thirty-four cameras, surrounding the track from every angle as he dragged the games’ shortest race out for six excruciating minutes. Forman similarly analyzed the decathlon, though he at least had two days of material to use as opposed to ten seconds. In the penultimate slot, Lelouch delivers one of the strongest segments, “The Losers.” He gathers images of failure across many sports. Though sometimes brutal to watch, Lelouch notes the released version of “The Losers” was actually watered down from his original cut. Finally, Schlesinger closes with a portrait of British marathoner Ron Hill, emphasizing the solitude of training for such a race. Schlesinger's work is the only part of the film to mention the terrorist attack that marred the games, something which the film was criticized for on release. The British director had wanted to make the attack the sole focus of his chapter, but Wolper pushed back, so Schlesinger worked it into his story by showing Hill's focus on the race in spite of the events going on around him.Visions of Eight may be more interesting to cinephiles than it is to sport historians, as the former group may appreciate some of the bonus features. These include interviews with the directors as well as extra footage from Munich, such as a wonderful shot of Penn and Ozerov playing ping-pong together. For the latter group, the artistic bent of the film could be a turnoff. The film is more a study of body language and facial expressions than it is a history of the 1972 games. That said, for a field that is often justifiably focused on the negative parts of sport, Visions of Eight could be a reminder that there is still something beautiful underneath.