It’s 1924. Aspiring sprinter, Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) pursues his ambitions to win Olympic Gold whilst at Cambridge. He is held back a little, however, by his Jewish heritage and his employment of a coach, Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm), not something usually done at the time. Another aspiring Olympian, Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), also works as a Christian missionary in China, and believes that his running is a demonstration of his faith in God. The two runners, and the rest of their team, head to the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris…
My feelings about Chariots of Fire are similar to those towards Annie Hall. Whilst Annie Hall was not a bad film in the slightest, I found myself pining to be watching its rival for Best Picture in 1977, Star Wars. Chariots, meanwhile, is not terrible, but it defeated an equally bombastic blockbuster, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and if the Academy had voted a different way, we could have been watching Indiana Jones instead.
Chariots is somewhat reduced from a historical and inspirational film about sports to a piece of extremely famous music and much slow motion running on the beach. There is, of course, more to it than that, but Chariots received only one acting nomination - Supporting Actor for Ian Holm. The leading two actors will appear obscure to most viewers, unless you’re a real film buff. And I challenge anyone in our generation to name one other famous scene than the opening race on the beach. In other words, it’s generally a bit forgettable despite its stylistic aspirations.
I kept comparing Chariots to our other most recent sport-themed movie, Rocky. The boxing classic has serious drive. You really feel that this fight is Rocky’s one last chance at proving that he is worth something in this world- he may be a handsome, golden-hearted, droll giant, but he’s impoverished, under-educated and doesn’t seem to have much else to fall back on. My fundamental problem with Chariots is that it doesn’t have this drive. These heroes are extremely privileged individuals- privately educated, wealthy backgrounds, plenty of other talents to back them up if their dreams of athletic stardom are squashed. Why should I be backing people with such first world problems?
It doesn’t help that only one of them has any real issue holding him back- Harold receives some minor jibes and comments on account that he is Jewish. But none of these seem to stop him. His talents are still recognised, he has plenty of support, and he can evidently afford a Cambridge education and a personal coach anyway. The most extreme form of racism he comes across is when his Cambridge master, played by John Gielgud, bemoans his coach’s Arab heritage (Mussabini was of Syrian, Turkish, Italian and French ancestry), but Harold recovers pretty easily with a well-rehearsed speech and then heads off to the Olympics anyway. I didn’t take much to Ben Cross who played this role either- I found him stiff, and lacking spontaneity.
Big saving graces, however, are enthusiastic performances from a very young Nigel Havers as a fellow athlete, Lord Lindsay, and Ian Holm as Mussabini. Both are evidently having much more fun. There’s an amusing moment when Lindsay practises for the hurdles by placing glasses of expensive champagne on each one and challenges himself not to spill a drop. And Holm felt very real as Harold’s stern, grouchy and warm-hearted coach.
The slow motion running also provided lovely touches. The runners in these sequences end up being depicted as ethereal, superhuman beings, and it emphasises sports’ display of seemingly impossible feats of physicality.
But all in all, I found Chariots of Fire to be a bit of an uninvolving piece. It’s a mildly interesting bit of history, and it probably won due to the 80s audience’s love of glamour, glorious costumes and speeches and set pieces that steer dangerously close to trite. Nonetheless, there are sports men and women who have overcome far greater adversities than these blokes. Jesse Owens, for starters.
Highlight
There is an early scene in which Harold and Lord Lindsay first prove their sprinting prowess by attempting to do the Great Court Run. Competitors have to complete a circuit of the court at Trinity College, Cambridge in less time than it takes the clock to strike 12 (approximately 43.6 seconds according to Wikipedia). Whilst Abrahams never actually ran the contest, it’s a stirring and very well-shot little scene.
Lowlight
There’s a great deal of time spent on Liddell’s dilemma when his race is put on a Sunday, and he forbids himself to run it due to his devour Christianity. For most of this plot line, I was thinking “so what? It’s his choice”. And the solution that comes is so simple and anticlimactic that I wonder what warranted the writers to put it in at all.
Mark
4/10
I find myself struggling to write more than a handful of words about this film - it’s well-made and far from atrocious as a piece of work. But on the other hand it’s not massively engaging and as Paul points out, the fact that they’re all privileged Cambridge students, some with titles, means you don’t particularly find any of them to be struggling in the way that cinema like this demands.
Much like visits to the circus, I found it to be fading from the mind almost immediately after finishing and I attribute this really to a lack of interest in any of the characters. The plot is thin (they want to go to the Olympics - they go to the Olympics - film ends) and I found the heavy emphasis on religion to be a bit of a turn off.
The heavily Christian Liddell is annoyingly pious and his decision not to run on a Sunday actually feels a bit thick. The Prince of Wales (played by the ever charming David Yelland) makes the pretty solid point that in religion, difficult choices are often put in front of you with no right answer, but Eric Liddell sticks his chin out and refuses to budge. He’s the sort of dullard you’d actively circulate away from at house parties.
And while they try to make a point out of Harold Abraham’s Judaism and the reaction it garners (Sir John Gielgud saying some pretty horrendous things), I found the actor Ben Cross to have very little going on. It’s a mercy he’s pretty because he’s not giving us much else. Gentlemen’s Agreement back in 1947 played with anti-semitism far more effectively.
And that’s really all I have to say on the film. So instead I’m going to talk about Ian Charleson who played Eric Liddell, and who I’ve read up on. He was a renowned stage actor, and in 1989 Daniel Day-Lewis walked out of playing Hamlet at the National Theatre and Charleson stepped in. His subsequent performance is still renowned and appears on several ‘Best Hamlets Ever’ lists across theatre criticism.
He died eight weeks after closing Hamlet at the age of 40 from AIDS. He requested that his illness be publicised after his death so as to raise awareness of the disease. He was the first celebrity in the UK to publicly die from AIDS and there is a Day Centre at the Royal Free Hospital in his name.
In 1991 Liddell’s friends founded the Ian Charleson Awards, rewarding the best classical stage performances in Britain by actors aged under 30. The awards are now in their 27th year and the judges include renowned actors, critics, and people of significance across every area of the theatre business.
All in all, a pretty cool guy.
Highlight
The opening sequence with that music and the iconic running shots are easily the best thing in the whole film.
Lowlight
I personally found it far from engaging and quite undeveloped, despite it being well made and clearly scripted.
Mark
6/10
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