Customer Reviews

Downhill Racer [VHS]

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
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As a former ski racer myself, I can assure you that "Downhill Racer" captures the essence of the sport perfectly. From the dated ski equipment and race sequences to the European ski resorts, from the edgy camaraderie of the skiers to their common goal of winning in this most individualistic of sports, "Downhill Racer" is right on target. A good skier himself, Redford did many of his own action scenes and seems to have an intuitive understanding of the ski racer psyche.

The stark scenes in Redford's hometown of Idaho Springs, Colorado contrast with the glitz of the glamorous European ski resorts where he races. His old cling-on racer-chaser girlfriend at home is the diametric opposite of the manipulative viper he meets in Europe. Redford is a misfit loner trying to succeed in an alien world, and he knows it. Gene Hackman plays the U.S. Ski Team coach perfectly, balancing his business role in raising money and reassuring nervous sponsors with his job of babysitting the prima donna Redford. After Redford wipes out in an important race and starts to make excuse to his coach, Hackman cuts him down with a classic speech ("the bumps took you out...").

I think there are several basic genres of sports films. First, you have the overblown epics like "Rocky" and the romantic comedies like "Bull Durham" and "Tin Cup." These are essentially Hollywood efforts that just use sports for big Box Office. Then, you have parables like "Chariots of Fire," "Field of Dreams" and "The Natural," and those that are more overwrought, such as "Pride of the Yankees," "Knute Rockne" and "Fear Strikes Out." Finally, there are your nitty gritty slices of sports realism... "Raging Bull," "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" and "Downhill Racer." As a low budget, unpretentious film from thirty years ago, "Downhill Racer" remains a classic of its genre.

Dave Chapplet is a young man from nowhere who has a chance opportunity to become famous based on his only talent -- skiing. This is an exciting and incisive story about the hype and manipulation of competitive sports, so that sport is no longer entertainment or achievement but a money-making industry in itself. It is also the story of a young man trapped in his own arrogance, searching for something but never quite achieving it, no matter how famous he became, no matter what woman he found. Robert Redford gives one of his finest performances as a man both driven and empty, lost and aloof. The film itself was innovative even in its day, with some fantastic skiing footage and artistic cinematography. The characterizations by Redford and Gene Hackman are sturdy, compelling, and deep. There is a controlled magnificence to Hackman's performance as a man dedicated to the ethic and mythos of sport, just as there is a desperate tension and dismay in Redford's character's attempts to find something satisfying for himself, something beyond a cold, negligent childhood (portrayed in a number of unsettling scenes with his father). There is romance also, which is always a nice touch in a Redford film, but the romance is appropriately awkward because Redford's character isn't capable of anything but a shallow intimacy, and Redford portrays this shallowness surprisingly well for an actor often praised for his deeply romantic performances. What is interesting as well is that Redford's character, Dave, ends up falling for a woman who is very much like himself, lovely to look at, selfish, self-centered, and cool. Quite similar to Redford's The Candidate in some respects, since both films expose the truth behind the myths, Downhill Racer is exciting to the last, not just in the competitions but in the observation of Dave's/Redford's development into a winning sportsman.

I kick off every Ski Season by popping in my old vhs copy of Downhill Racer. It is one of the few, if not the only, ski films out there that is able to capture the american ski scene and culture in the late 60's as vividly and honestly as this film does. The Redford character is rather complex actually, a loner, a selfish and self indulgent athlete with great talent ... a talent never recognized or appreciated by his father. So perhaps it was a troubled and sad family life that fostered the cocky and arrogant attitude he brought with him to ski racing. And the very aspects of his personality that the coach and team members find disgraceful are the very same traits that make him a top racer, a winner. And as long as he keeps winning races this behavior will be embraced by the fans, the media and ultimately his coach.

His relationship with Carmilla Sparv is totally engaging, perfectly played and it's the only way the Redford character will get a taste of his bad self! And I've seen many a man's goggles fog up at the sight of a gorgeous gal who not only skis well but drives a porsche ... she was perfect for Redford ...hello, certainly she belonged in this movie!!


~Lola

This film caught my attention immediately because of the writer, James Salter, so I was surprised at how little dialogue or actual talking goes on. Its one of the most physical films I've ever seen which is certainly appropriate given the subject matter, downhill ski racing. Redford came to this fresh off of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but he looks much younger without the moustache. The topic of ski competition is exciting and fun as most of the film takes place on the mountain with great ski footage or in ski lodges in Europe which are romantic to say the least. Also attractive is Redfords European girlfriend. She gives the film another dimension completely as the embodiment of the experienced and scrupulous European versus the innocent and clumsy(and socially naive)American. Gene Hackman as the coach is absolutely great as he tries to instill more than just athletic virtues into his team members. There are also scenes of Redford, the rising star of the team, visiting home in the American midwest somewhere which I suppose tells us both why winning is so important to him and why he is so clumsy socially. Its not a perfect film( the midwest scenes seem a little too simplistic for such an otherwise smart and uncliched film) but one that tells a great sort of story rare in 69 in that it puts forth a value system instead of knocking one down. Redford has called the film an examination of American ideals about success. It is that. The ski scenes capture the excitement of the sport, and the hotel scenes capture the rewards given to success. But success in sport as in all fields is fleeting and you best enjoy the prize while at the top because if you finish second you are nobody again and all the rewards vanish as quickly as they were given. Effective cutting technique throughout the film emphasizes the ruthless pace and nature of a life forged in the heat of competition. Redford is caught surprise by the transient nature of this life. But the film has a great sort of ethic being put forth, that being that in a world where everything can be gained or lost in a split second one must not focus so keenly on the prize immediately at stake that one loses sight of those things which sustain us through both ups and downs, ie friends, coach, Dad, old girlfriend, dog.

Dated as it might be, it remains as one of the few "must see" films for ski enthusiasts and students of the sport's history. It also contains one of the most haunting images of any film of its era. That is, the very last scene, when Redford locks eyes with the unidentified, teenage German (if I recall correctly) racer who has fallen on the last steep section of the downhill course. The difference between first and last, in ski racing as in many other pursuits, is sometimes razor thin. The glances exchanged among the German kid, Redford, and Hackman are a magnificent example of actors imparting with subtle expressions volumes more than dialog could have.

Redford was never better than in this movie. He plays a self involved prima donna who never asks the audience to like him or forgive him. Very good acting by all: Gene Hackman, Dabney Coleman, Walter Stroud is relentless as the the father who gives his son nothing, and everyone else from the leads to the minor characters are perfect. Great film making. I hear it will finally be on sale, so it will go into my permanent collection very soon!

The opening sequence of "Downhill Racer" gets the adrenalin flowing - plenty of softly photographed downhill action accompanied the crisp jazz notes of composer Kenyon Hopkins' first-rate score. Then the film settles down to a pace befitting its core: a quiet study of a loner, exhibiting strained relations with most everyone around him, as he develops the zone he intends to maintain for victory.

In this somewhat contrarian role on the heels of his charming "Sundance Kid" performance, a still-emerging Robert Redford plays effectively off Gene Hackman in a thoughtful and interesting exploration of what makes a winning athlete tick and whether "teamwork" is always relevant to winning. Redford's visit to his hometown is a bit unsettling; one can feel the tenseness between father and son and the uncomfortableness of a young man who is not really "home" at all. The same low-lying tension permeates the other quiet scenes in and around team headquarters, which makes the actual competition - punctuated by Hopkins' buoyant score - all the more breathtaking.

Director Ritchie, who also worked with Redford in "The Candidate", knew how to get the most out of shooting his star's facial expressions, which deepen the feel of unease throughout much of "Downhill Racer", and that artful camerawork is put to excellent use in the film's finale.

This is a film worth a second look.

Please put this reknowned Robert Redford skiing movie on DVD!!It would make a great contribution!!

"Downhill Racer" is either a skier's movie with a better plot than the average ski flick (Warren Miller notwithstanding), or it's a drama of sorts with skiing and romance mixed in. It's in the same league as "Bobby Deerfield," with Al Pacino as a race car driver looking for success both on and off the track.

Redford plays a convincingly arrogant, self-absorbed loner from Idaho whose only shot at glory is on the struggling U.S. ski team. Gene Hackman delivers spare yet superb scenes as the team coach. He recognizes Redford's talent on the snow but wrestles with his maverick attitude. I think the film sums up the important themes in small, quiet touches. When another skier carps about Redford's aloofness, his teammate (Dabney Coleman) reminds him that "it's not exactly a team sport, is it?" And when a European journalist asks Redford what his plans are after the Olympics, his nervous and stoic answer is "this is it." He knows there's not much outside of skiing.

Even romance offers no success for Redford's character. His sometime girlfriend back in Idaho is chatty and distracting: she represents all that is holding him back at home. In Austria, he encounters a fast-moving, highly sophisticated woman who leads him on and is more than a match for his self-centeredness. All he can rely on are his skis and his hunger to go faster. What the movie shows in the end (though it's easy to miss) is that the archetypal brash athlete can only win the gold if his heart and mind are there as well as the raw skill (what Hackman's coach calls the "regard for the sport... the desire to learn"). Think of Tom Cruise in "Days of Thunder."

"Downhill Racer" hasn't grown in stature as a drama of sport, but it is worth a viewing. The characters are more contemplative than talkative, and the fashions are dated, but the focus is on the challenge of the hill and what's in one's heart - just like skiing itself.

Given that this film has been taught and studied in film schools for almost three decades, it's arrival on Criterion seems egregiously late. Be that as it may.

Why is it an important piece of film history? This film represents creative successes and marketing failures.

Actors: Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Camilla Sparv, and Dabney Coleman all give restrained performances that are more intense for their economy. Well directed, these actors underplayed their roles and allowed personal and emotional tensions to build. It's a style of acting that is no longer in vogue, but this presents a classic example of it. There is a timelessness in the acting, too: despite the economy of portrayal, the complexity of every persona is clear. The audience knows each moment. The cafe scene between Hackman and Redford and the car scene between Redford and Sparv are some of the best in the film.

Director: Michael Ritchie has a strong creative vision, to be sure. He may be one of those artists who captured the aesthetic and ethos of a time at the expense of the rest of his career. In this movie and "The Candidate" Ritchie hit his peak. Like so many creative directors, he had to sacrifice his creative vision in order to continue his career on the strength of his technical skills. "Downhill Racer" and "The Candidate" are the early films in his career that still inspire young cinéastes studying the history of the medium, but they were influential in their own time, too. "Fletch Lives" and "The Golden Child," both Ritchie films, were made for box office marketability, as was pretty much everything he made after 1980. Perhaps Ritchie took that turn after the seed planted from the sting of "Downhill Racer." His own influences are clearly seen in "Downhill Racer" as his is place in the New Hollywood movement.

Writing: James Salter wrote the screenplay. Enough said. But, to say more: the common Salter themes are present, but also visible is his reading of Pindar. The victory odes of Pindar remain enduring examples of the psychology of victory, that apogee of mortality tangent to divinity on earth--a celebration of arêtê and the physical and mental discipline at any cost, in the ancient Greek mind, that is. The final scene and its seemingly early cut are as Pindaric as Olympian 1.

Marketing: The studio had no idea what to do with this film. The production staff, director, and actors all saw themselves as making an art house film. In an era long before Miramax, this was no easy task. The studio execs marketed it as an action film. Audiences, expecting one thing, saw another. "Downhill Racer" was a box office flop. Redford took this personally. This was the experience, actually the first of a string of studio "misunderstandings," that compelled him to found the Sundance Institute.

History: "Downhill Racer" is definitely a product of its time. As the New Hollywood movement was trying to make more "art house" movies, more inspired by French New Wave and less by "classical" Hollywood, these directors were trying to make creative and aesthetically edgy films on a shoestring budget, and they did. "Downhill Racer" and "Easy Rider" are some of the best examples of this moment in film history. (Cinema won't see that effort again until the Dogma movement.)

And if you happen to be a skier, especially a former racer, you'll see the soul of the sport. Sure, the equipment and technique is dated, but the attitudes and lifestyle are timeless.

Thank you, Criterion, for releasing this just in time for ski season!