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Tokyo Olympiad (1965) [The Criterion Collection #155] (Repost)

Posted By: angus77
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) [The Criterion Collection #155] (Repost)

Tokyo Olympiad (1965) [The Criterion Collection #155] (Repost)
A Film by Kon Ichikawa
DVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 16:9 720x480 VBR | 02:49:37 | 7.85 GB
Audio: Japanese (Dolby AC-3, 1 ch) + English Commentary | Subtitles: English
Extras: Menu, Special Features | Genre: Documentary, Sport | 4 Wins | Country: Japan

A spectacle of magnificent proportions, Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad ranks among the greatest documents of sport ever committed to film. Utilizing glorious widescreen cinematography, Ichikawa examines the beauty and rich drama on display at the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, creating a catalogue of extraordinary observations that range from the expansive to the intimate. The glory, despair, passion, and suffering of Olympic competition are rendered with lyricism and technical mastery, culminating in an inspiring testament to the beauty of the human body and the strength of the human spirit.
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) [The Criterion Collection #155] (Repost)

iMDB

Criterion


Special Features:
- New high-definition digital transfer, enhanced for 16×9 televisions
- 1992 video interview with Kon Ichikawa (00:32:09)
- Audio commentary by film historian Peter Cowie
- Liner notes by legendary sports writer George Plimpton
- Complete list of winners in all events
- Symposium on Tokyo Olympiad, excerpted from the Cinematheque Ontario book Kon Ichikawa
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) [The Criterion Collection #155] (Repost)

Kon Ichikawa's record of the 1964 Summer Games isn't as self-consciously poetic as the gold medalist of Olympic documentaries, Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia, nor as historically significant as One Day in September, the harrowing account of the off-the-field tragedy at the 1972 Games in Munich. But this dogged record of dozens of events contains plenty of lovely imagery and makes wonderful use of the medium, especially in its attention to sound, as in the volleyball contests, punctuated by grunts, groans, and thuds as bodies crash onto the floor. What's historically important about Tokyo Olympiad as a film is that it's the last of its breed. No documentary since has tried to cover so much territory, and wall-to-wall TV coverage of the Games and instant video compilations have rendered this genre of theatrical film a dinosaur. At its original length and in its widescreen format, Tokyo Olympiad is an impressive achievement that can be compared favorably to any sports documentary, save Riefenstahl's masterpiece.
Tom Wiener, Rovi
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) [The Criterion Collection #155] (Repost)

Kon Ichikawa's "Tokyo Olympiad," a record of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, is not only arguably one of the best sports documentaries ever made, it is also among the best documentaries ever made, period. It is everything one would expect from a man who is known as one of the premiere stylists of the cinema and more. It is poetry, it is art, and it is almost ruthlessly compelling.
Whereas most sports documentaries are relatively cut and dry in that they focus mainly on the winners, Ichikawa has almost no regard for winning or losing at all. For him, it is about the event, the preparation and the movement embodied in Olympic competition - and the film follows both the winners and the losers. The film is incredibly textural. Sight, sound, and movement - even the most imperceptible - all weave together to form a remarkable tapestry that is as much about the director's own concerns as it is about the Games themselves. It is for this reason that the film initially had a rather stormy reception from those that had commissioned Ichikawa to make the film (and given him an army of cameramen to do so), though if my recollection is correct it went on to break box-office records in Japan.
"Tokyo Olympiad" is not a film about the victory of winning, it is about the victory of attending - of being amongst the awesome crowds, the athletes, the bodies in motion. Being there is it's own victory, which is why Ichikawa focuses so much on the athletes from the newly formed African nation of Chad who, although they do not come close to winning any medals, are the first representatives of their country to appear in the Olympic Games. For Ichikawa their story is just as triumphant as that of the Ethiopian long-distance runner who unflinchingly leaves all his opponents in the dust and goes on to win his event by a mile. "Tokyo Olympiad" is not just about the realm of athletic or Olympic experience, it is about the human experience and about creating cinema out of it. At nearly 3 hours in length it is neither a minute too short or too long, and I personally feel privileged to have seen it.
IMDB Reviewer
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) [The Criterion Collection #155] (Repost)

The film is a visual marvel of cinematic techniques, many of which were groundbreaking at the time in terms of what was acceptable for a sports documentary. Never satisfied with simply capturing the event on film, Ichikawa sought to convey more thoroughly the experience of the Olympics. Hence, he employs slow motion during the sprints so that we may see every flex of the athletes' muscles, the tension on their faces, the desire in their eyes. To transition into gymnastics, he gives us an abstract image of a single gymnast against a black background, using slow motion and multiple exposures to further underscore the beauty of the physical movements. Sometimes he goes against conventional wisdom, for instance, shooting wrestling matches in such extreme close-up that, rather than feeling like you are watching the match, you feel like you are literally caught between the two competitors.
At other points, he uses freeze frames, black and white, and various dissolves, and the soundtrack is replete with an almost avant-garde mixture of musical motifs, from eerie mood music, to lively Western jazz, to angelic choruses. To some, this may seem like too much, as if Ichikawa is trying to steal away the focus from the athletes and put it on himself as auteur. Granted, some of his techniques seem like cliche, but that is only because so many filmmakers have copied them in the years since. As a whole, Tokyo Olympiad, despite its often fragmentary nature, works, and Ichikawa's techniques, although self-consciously artistic in many respects, are successful in exploring the basic nature of the Olympics, both its exhilaration and its heartbreak. Always a quirky filmmaker with a dark sense of humor, one can often feel Ichikawa reaching for the offbeat and the amusing, such as when his camera focuses in on the odd rituals athletes go through before competing or his bemused look at the visually silly nature of the walking event.
In a sense, the Japanese Olympic committee was absolutely right in deploring Tokyo Olympiad because it did not live up to their expectations. While they wanted a rigorous, objective document of what transpired during those 17 days in Tokyo, Ichikawa delivered a personal visual poem about human nature. For instance, while he skipped over entire Olympic events, he lavished large amounts of screen time to a single runner from the emerging African nation of Chad who didn't even place in his event. Yet, it is such moments, much more than a simple record of who won what race, that gives us the true sense of what athletic competition is all about. In the long run, it is for the best that the Olympic Committee didn't get what they wanted, because they got something much more.
Excerpt from James Kendrick's Review on Q Network Film Desk
Tokyo Olympiad (1965) [The Criterion Collection #155] (Repost)

Thanks to @Someonelse for Original Post