Thurday Minute
No. 232 | April 7, 2011

Run for Your Life

Our theme this week
Films about runners and running

Featured this week
Tuesday         —   Chariots of Fire

Without Limits

In Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams and Eric Littell are runners who race for God and country.  In Without Limits, Steve Prefontaine runs for no one but himself.  Though we’re not supposed to admit it in polite society, Pre, as he’s known, runs for a more noble cause.  As I see it, running has nothing to do with politics or religion, and filmmakers are wiser to keep them apart.  Prefontaine makes a better subject for a movie, and though I wouldn’t claim Without Limits is Best Picture material, in countless ways it’s superior to the British Oscar winner. 

The film came out in 1998 and did nothing at the box office, just as Prefontaine, another film about the Oregon track star, starring Jared Leto, did the year before.  The story, and the films, deserved better.

Without Limits, the better version, in my opinion, was brought to the screen by Robert Towne, one of Hollywood’s great screenwriters (Chinatown) and occasional director.  (His first directing job was another track story, Personal Best, with Mariel Hemingway.) 

Billy Crudup plays the lead, doing first-rate work to capture the spirit, charisma, and headstrong personality that made Steve Prefontaine a key figure in the running world during the 1970s.  Prefontaine is a front-runner, taking the lead early and often winning without a contest.  When his considerable talent doesn’t blow away the field, he has another edge—guts.  He’s cocky and uncoachable, but his faith in himself is admirable.  He knows better than anyone else what he needs to do to win.

Pre’s coach is Bill Bowerman, a legendary figure at the University of Oregon and later co-founder of Nike, portrayed by Donald Sutherland in an award-worthy performance, one of the finest of his career.  Playing Mary Marckx, Pre’s girlfriend, is Monica Potter (inspiration for the Counting Crows song “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”). 

Well-written, well-directed, and well-acted, Without Limits is small gem, one of those movies you want to seek out, especially if you missed it the first time around.  Though never an Olympic champion, Steve Prefontaine, in his short life, was one of the shining stars of American track, and a figure well worth spending some time with onscreen.

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Without Limits (1998)
Robert Towne, director
Robert Towne, Kenny Moore, writers
Billy Crudup, Donald Sutherland, Monica Potter

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Quote of note
“Running, one might say, is basically an absurd pastime upon which to be exhausting ourselves.  But if you can find meaning in the kind of running you have to do to stay on this team, chances are you will be able to find meaning in another absurd pastime—life.”
—Bill Bowerman (Donald Sutherland), Without Limits (1998)

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Tuesday Minute
No. 231 | April 5, 2011

Run for Your Life

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In my choice of themes each week I look to find something that strikes my interest, and this week (another light week, by necessity), I’ll take a look at a couple of films about a subject very much on my mind these days.

I started running in the 1970s.  Going for a run has always been my workout of choice.  I would rather go for a run around the neighborhood, or wherever I might be, than go to a gym.  I enjoy the freedom and the solitude of a good long run, and staying healthy, I’ve found, is much better than the alternative.  In my younger years I ran races regularly, mostly 5Ks and 10Ks, and a couple of marathons, not so much for the competition as just a way to keep in shape.

I don’t have what’s called a runner’s body.  I never did, but the older I get, the truer it is.  My pet theory on aging is that people don’t put on years, they put on pounds, and despite my best efforts, it’s happened to me.   This year I decided to reverse the trend.  I would sleep better*, eat better, work out more, and for the first time in two decades, run a marathon.

My date with destiny comes this weekend.  Should I survive, I’ll be back with another look at movies of one type or another.  Meanwhile, a quick look at two films about—what else—running.

* Another of my pet theories:  the key to health is not diet or exercise, but sleep.

Our theme this week
Films about runners and running

Chariots of Fire

I’d love to say this film is a great inspiration.  But it’s not.  Not for runners, and certainly not for movie fans.  I watched it again recently, for the third or fourth time altogether, and what I still can’t understand is how the movie was a hit with critics and movie fans in 1981, and even more puzzling, how it won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  There are a handful of Best Picture winners I have not yet seen, but off the top of my head it’s hard to think of a less-deserving Best Picture winner in history.

Hagiography is not a popular shelf at the video store and the lives of saints do not make for good cinema.  Not when the filmmakers’ only interest is to thrust the saints atop a pedestal.  What we get in Chariots of Fire is not a story about human beings but about icons with all the life drained out.

The main story is set in 1920s England, at Cambridge University, where runners Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), among others, race and train for the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris.  Abrahams is a Jew, an outsider who must overcome the anti-Semitic attitudes of the administration and staff, though in the film he never suffers any real discrimination, let alone, persecution, so we’re left to wonder what all the fuss was about.  Liddell is a devout Christian, the son of missionaries, who runs for the glory of God.

If you enjoy movies about the pious and snobbish, this is the film for you.  But my beef, at least what I’ll get into here, is the film’s failure as a drama.  The essence of any good story is conflict, but at every turn the movie softens its rough edges instead to wallow in pretty pictures:  the period costumes, the historic scenery, and the slo-mo glory of amateur athletes back in the day.  Worse, it’s all accompanied by the score of Vangelis, an odd choice that was lauded at the time but seems like a serious misstep to my ears.

Later in the film, on his way to the Olympics, Liddell discovers that he’s scheduled to race on a Sunday.  His religious conviction won’t allow him to compete on the Sabbath, putting in doubt his chance for a medal.  The filmmakers took some liberties with the actual record, but it amounts to a crisis, as close as the story gets to having one.  Not to diminish Liddell’s faith, but it’s a rather thin reed to hang a movie on.

More interesting than the film itself is the story behind its success.  It screened at Cannes and was panned by French critics, who may not have appreciated references to “Frogs” in a boring picture about the glory of all things British.  An American, however, came to the rescue.  A young and influential critic named Roger Ebert engineered an “American Critics Prize,” the first and only time one has been awarded, and by a 6-5 margin Chariots of Fire came out of Cannes a winner.  Otherwise, its prospects may have been doomed.  The rest, even more than the story onscreen, is history.

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Chariots of Fire (1981)
Hugh Hudson, director
Colin Welland, writer
Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nicholas Farrell, Nigel Havers, Lindsay Anderson, John Gielgud, Ian Holm

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Quote of note
“Let us praise famous men and our fathers that begat us.  All these men were honored in their generations and were a glory in their days.  We are here today to give thanks for the life of Harold Abrahams.  To honor the legend.  Now there are just two of us—young Aubrey Montague and myself—who can close our eyes and remember those few young men with hope in our hearts and wings on our heels.”
—Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers), Chariots of Fire (1981)

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Thursday Minute
Entr’acte | March 31, 2011

Elizabeth Taylor, R.I.P.

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“I have never felt more alive than when I watched my children delight in something, never more alive than when I have watched a great artist perform and never richer than when I have scored a big check to fight AIDS.  Follow your passion, follow your heart, and the things you need will come.”
—Elizabeth Taylor, her final interview, Harper’s Bazaar, February 2011

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Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor
Turner Classic Movies
Paul Newman, narrator

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Tuesday Minute
Entr’acte | March 29, 2011

Elizabeth Taylor, R.I.P.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Miss Taylor… is terrific as a panting, impatient wife, wanting the love of her husband as sincerely as she wants an inheritance.”
—Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1958

Not everything as Tennessee Williams intended it to be, but the film still packs a powerful punch.  During production, Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane crash.  It was the only one of her marriages not to end in divorce.

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Richard Brooks, director
Tennessee Williams (play); Richard Brooks, James Poe (screenplay); writers
Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman

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Friday Minute
No. 230 | March 25, 2011

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2011

Our theme this week
Performers inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011

Featured this week
(See Monday post for theme introduction and program note)
Monday         —   Alice Cooper
Tuesday         —   Dr. John
Wednesday    —   Darlene Love
Thursday        —   Neil Diamond

Tom Waits

Waits is an American original.  Though never a huge commercial success, he’ll be remembered long after many of his more popular contemporaries are forgotten.  He’s a musician first, but he’s worth noting for his work in film as well.  He first had a hit with “Ol’ 55,” when the Eagles recorded it in 1974; his original is a song I can listen to a dozen times in a row and still want to hear again.  ”The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)” was nothing less than an anthem during my college years.  You had to love a guy who had the courage to mumble through his songs.  But most of all, there was a sense of feeling in his music that you couldn’t find anywhere else.  Francis Ford Coppola had him score One from the Heart, and the result is a work of beauty.  Waits continued working in film, often onscreen, and his performances in Down by Law and Short Cuts are, to my mind, especially memorable.  I can’t do justice to Waits in a short sketch like this, and I won’t try.  Suffice to say, he’s one of the greats.

Waits on film
One from the Heart (1982)*
Rumble Fish (1983)
The Cotton Club (1984)
Down by Law (1986)
Dracula (1992)
Short Cuts (1993)
Night on Earth (1992)*
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
The Book of Eli (2010)

* Original score.
Contributed songs to soundtracks of many films (too many to mention, but Waits did much of the music for the 1992 Jeff Bridges film American Heart).

Final note on the Class of 2011
In addition to the five performers featured this week, three others were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:  Leon Russell (as a “sideman” and not a “performer,” which seems like an arbitrary distinction to me), and non-performers Jac Holzman (record exec) and Art Rupe (pioneer of indie labels).  Congrats to all!

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Down by Law (1986)
Jim Jarmusch, director
Tom Waits, John Lurie

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One from the Heart (1982)
“This One’s from the Heart”
Tom Waits, Crystal Gayle, with Teddy Edwards on tenor sax / Soundtrack

 

Waits was nominated for an Academy Award for best original score.  The story behind Waits and the film here.

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Final Friday Five, the monthly mini-quiz

1.  Name the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers starring in each of these concert and documentary films.

Dont Look Back (1967)
I’m Going to Tell You a Secret (2005)
Live at Red Rocks (1984)
Shine a Light (2008)
Stop Making Sense (1984)
This Is It (2009)

2.  Name four of the seven Rock and Roll Hall of Famers to date who have won an Oscar for original song or original score. 

3.  Well more than 100 movies have opened since the beginning of 2011.  Before this weekend, how many of those films have grossed more than $100 million at the domestic box office?

4.  The baseball season usually brings with it another baseball movie or two.  This year’s most anticipated film about the sport is Moneyball, the adaptation of the book by Michael Lewis (The Blind Side), due to open in September.  The central character is Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A’s, who used computer analysis and sabermetrics to field a competitive team.  Who plays Billy Beane onscreen?

5.  Match each of the following Elizabeth Taylor movies with the role that she played.

Father of the Bride (1950)
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Giant (1956)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
BUtterfield 8 (1960)

Kay Banks
Leslie Benedict
Catherine Holly
Maggie Pollitt
Angela Vickers
Gloria Wandrous

Answers here.

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Quote of note
“The beauty of quitting is, now that I’ve quit, I can have one, ’cause I’ve quit.”
—Tom (Tom Waits), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)

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