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Tokyo Olympiad [VHS]

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A lemon placed as a totem on a starting block. The torn feet of drained marathoner. The fleshy cheek of a shooter oozing over the butt of his rifle. The turkey-like jowls of older spectators. The squint against blinding lights of an athlete from Chad as he steps off a plane and into the alienation of city life for perhaps the first time. Rain on a sopping wet track. Trains clattering over bridges. The splat of a hammer in wet turf. The almost obsessive-compulsive preparation of a shot-putter has he prepares for his throw. The nonchalant strength and focus of a winning judo expert. A yachtsman, while leaning far out over the water to balance his craft, capricously dipping his hand into the water as it passes inches from his face. The giddy excitement of a little girl spectator clapping and cheering for the sake of it. A member of the American delegation breaking the solemn ranks of the opening ceremonies to chase away a pigeon.

All these things, and countless other human details, are elements that make up director Kon Ichikawa's loving portrait of human aspiration: "Tokyo Olympiad".

At least as important as what it does, is what "Tokyo Olympiad" does not do. Unlike television coverage of the last few Olympic games, it does not plead for our sympathy by drowning us in "human interest" stories of hardship, cancer and family tragedy. Unlike in newspaper and television coverage of the games, the politics and ambition of individual nations' teams is far in the background. Unlike Leni Reifenstahl's "Olympia", it does not hold the athletes up as demigods, asking us to fawn over the glorious perfection of their shining bodies and heroic achievement. And, most importantly, it does it seek present a complete account of the final results of the events. Doing so in a 2 1/2 hour film would be impossible anyway.

More important to Ichikawa is the experience of the event itself- from both the spectators', and participants'- both winners and losers- point of view. Each event that that falls under the directors gaze, is presented in its own idiosyncratic way- with much attention given to the composition and visual texture of events as well as the human elements of each sport.

In one of my favorite segments- the women's 80m hurdles- Ichikawa begins by showing us an almost abstract close-up of the race we are about to see. In this way, the director seems to be saying that it's not the official result, but the intense feeling of being in such a race, which is important. Cutting back to before the race, the camera follows the athletes as they pace the field and go through their often quirky preparations. The Japanese runner, psyching herself up, jerks her head from side to side, does a childlike summersault, jerks a few more times, then does a cartwheel. In the next shot, with no explanation, we see that she places a lemon on the staring block, which Ichikawa allows us to consider for a second. With the runners lined up, the camera goes into extreme slow motion. We witness the sinew, focus and tension at the starting block. The din of the crowd is faded out, and all that remains is the sound of ropes rhythmically clanging against the stadium's flagpoles in the wind. Then even that fades out, the gun fires, and, as the runners powerfully push out of the starting blocks, silence. We are shown a front view of the brief race in extreme slow motion. The mood is pierced once by the bang of a single runner hitting her hurdle. Then, as the final hurdle is cleared, the roar of the crowd swells and the lead hurdlers break the tape.

Compared to this, who ended up winning the race is mere trivia.

Each event is treated in own careful manner- revealing not the sporting drama of scores, distances and times, but the feeling of human aspiration embodied in motto "citius, altius, fortius". The dramatic marathon, the last event to be shown, is a masterwork, into which is impossible to not be drawn in.

Ichikawa views the Olympics idealistically. Through stunning images, and the color-commentary-like narration (in subtitled Japanese) we come to experience the Olympics as an event about human beings (instead of nationalistic athletic juggernauts) coming together to compete in an atmosphere of peace. After seeing athletes and spectators from all over the world cheerlly mingle, cheer, and celebrate, one sees the Olympics as a reminder what world peace can look like. It's just the sort of thing that the planet needs from time to time. It gives us something to work towards.

The DVD is mastered beautifully, and the colors are subtle and rich as a documentary film from 1964 can be. The sound is excellent. The enclosed liner notes by sports-writer legend George Plimpton are vivid and enlightening. (Can you tell I like this DVD?) The commentary by Peter Crowie provides the fascinating back story of the film through stories of the athletes of the Olympics themselves- though I would recommend watching the film without it the first few times. He also makes comparisons between today's Olympics (Sydney) and these games- relatively (though not entirely) untainted by the politics of performance enhancing drugs (though it is quite likely that they were used extensively) and the excessive commercialism of the modern sporting world. The finely sculpted, corporate sponsored, bodyguard protected, superstars of today seem, somehow, less human than these athletes- allowed to walk freely around the field before their heat, who were not ensconced in some distant, private training camp away from the lesser mortals from lesser countries, and who were allowed to experience the Olympics in much the same way that Ichikawa wishes to portray them- as a big celebration of what it feels like to have something in common with new friends from all over the planet.

In the included 1992 interview in Tokyo Stadium- where the track events had taken place 28 years earlier, Kon Ichikawa was asked how he would film today's Olympic games, if commissioned to do so. "Pretty much the same way", was his reply. I would love for this to happen.

I am ordering this post-haste.

I had the extreme thrill of seeing this film several times on the huge movie screen of a theatre Toho operated in Los Angeles when the film was released. About five years ago, I saw it in a smaller theater and it holds up wonderfully.

This is one of the most majestic films I've ever seen, but it is also dramatically compelling with sequences that will always be memorable. Perhaps most memorable is the real sense of caring and comradre among ALL the athletes AND spectators. Since these Olympics, the games have degenerated into political doo-dah of the worst sort. These games and this film have a dignity, humaneness and spirit that has all but been lost.

This is worth owning just for the Ethiopian's winning of his second Olympic marathon in a row. I seldom care about sporting contests, but the marathon literally had me grasping the theatre seat and verbally pulling for this incredible man--who along with Ali--is the greatest athlete I've ever witnessed.

The American version praised by another reviewer here, was IMO one of the worst desecrations of a masterpiece I can imagine. It was cut from the almost three-hour original version to about 90-minutes and accompanied by the most inane sports announcing ever. If you saw this atrocity, you haven't seen "Tokyo Olympiad."

If you are an Olympic fan or love breathtaking, intelligent and humane filmmaking, Ichikawa gives you the royal treatment in this film.

Thank you, Criterion, for re-issuing this. My only regret is that it isn't being re-released in big-screen theatres, where it can be properly appreciated.

See this. I think most of you will be cheering this monumental achievement.

This is an incredible movie in its entire 3 hour glory. I watched it 3 times the first week I had it, including the audio commentary.

It is NOT a simple documentary. It leaves out a lot of events, and does not tell you who won what in many cases, but it gives you more emotional insight into the Olympic Games and sports competition than any all-inclusive documetary can possibly do. This isn't just about the Olympics, but about all sports and all athletes.

This review is for the Criterion Colleciton DVD edition of the film.

Tokyo Olympiad, known as Tokyo Orimpikku in the Japanese language, is the first Sports documentary released by the Criterion Collection. This film has gotten me interested in olympics and will pay more attention to it in the future.

The film covers some of the highlights of the 1964 summer olympic games in Tokyo Japan. It covers the construction of the stadium, opening and closing ceremonies, a scene of the cafeteria as well as the following sports. Men's 100 meter, men's high jump, men's and women's shot put, pole vaulting, hammer throw, men's 10,000 meter, women's 800 meter, men's 100 meter relay, men's long jump, women's 80 meter with hurdles, gymnastics, men's 100 meter freestyle swimming, women's 100 meter backstroke, men's freestyle relay. women's 100 meter freestyle, weightlifting,. wrestling, boxing, fencing, judo, shooting, cycling race, women's volleyball, boading, men's 50 kilometer walk, pentathalon and the marathon.

Several other sports were played, but not included in the film for the sake of brevity. Still the film runs at 2 hours and 50 minutes which was cut down from 70 hours of material.

This DVD release is one of the best released by the Criterion Collection which I have seen. This certainly is Kon Ichikawa's crowning achievement.

Right from the lighting of the cauldron by a man born in Hiroshima the exact day of the infamous bombing to the closing ceremonies opening the way for the games in Mexico City four years later.

The DVD has some fine special features also. There is a 1992 interview with director Kon Ichikawa and commentary by film scholar and olympic fan Peter Cowie.

In addition there's dozens of pages of supplement material in the liner notes including a list of all the medalists in each event, and many other things.

This is a definite must buy for olympic fans, sports fans, documentary fans and just about anyone!

Probably the best sports movie ever made. Beautiful cinematography and direction. Ideal gift for any athlete or fan.

This film was on a list for my Japanese Cinema course at Cornell second semester of my sophomore year. I had not seen it yet when the class began talking about it, but I immediately began to understand and identify with what was being said about the film. The clips that were viewed in class hit me, and I knew I had to buy the DVD.

I am a sports photographer, some day I hope to work for one of the big sports magazines; SI, ESPN the Magazine, The Sporting News, etc. I could identifiy with Ichikawa and his use of techniques for this film. He did an incredible job, with his use of over 200 (specific number?) cameras and thousands of hours of footage. The editing of the film and the dynamics of the outcome are unbeatable.

For me, I was on the edge of my seat almost the entire film. I kept having images of how I could use a similar technique to enhance my own photography. I shared this film with a friend who had no interest in either sports or really in film, and she found it to be an amazing film as well.

This film is not for the sports addict who just wants to see action and the outcome (who wins, who loses etc.) It is very detail oriented and shows a different side to competition. Ichikawa's views of the Olympics are simply AWESOME!

I am so glad that this film was introduced to me during my class, and I will watch some of the scenes of the DVD over and over again.

there is something about sport that seems to lend it to abstraction. Once you have removed the familiar 'narrative' elements (start/finish, victory/defeat, struggle/result etc.), what is left - movement, bodies - becomes formalised, ritualised. The 1964 Olympics were the first mass live TV Games, so when Kon Ichikawa came to assemble his film, he knew millions had watched the 'real time' experience of the events, and so could be freer in his own interpretation.

And so he magics the most extraordinary visual architecture, constructed from a blueprint of pure lines - the gestures of the human body; its movement (or that of sporting implements) through space; the markings on tracks, pitches, courts, pools etc.; the structure of arenas and halls; the urban grid of Tokyo itself, its buildings and roads - all captured in exquisitely formal widescreen photography, in which the most banal element, be it the colour of a pair of shorts, or an official carrying a towel, becomes a vital part of its design.

Ichikawa's most obvious predecessor for this aesthetic is Leni Riefenstahl's 'Olympia', a film under whose shadow he clearly operates: like Riefenstahl, he breaks up the narrative by disjoining the soundtracks and image, by freeze-frames or sudden jump-cuts; the amazing gymnastics sequence, a sport which can be most readily appropriated for abstraction, is a case in point, colour, form and movement turning athletics into a kind of live action painting.

Of course, 'Olympia' was created to glorify the Third Reich; the Tokyo Olympics were specifically a celebration of Japanese pacificism and post-war economic recovery, as the opening shots of a blinding dawn sun and the ruined buildings of Hiroshima suggests. These Olympics were fraught with political significance - East and West Germany competing as one team, for example, or the debut of many newly independent African states - but Ichikawa films everything with relative, unportentous calm and detachment, especially compared to the over-determined, bludgeoning fascist aesthetic of Riefenstahl. Ichikawa had to negotiate similarly formidable logistics (over 100 cameramen etc.), but the resultant film seems effortless, whereas 'Olympia' flaunts its technical impossibility.

for the non-sports afficanado, the marathon is always the most fascinating event - its gruelling length seems to expose and reveal human nature more starkly, the struggles, the waiting, the glimpses of agonising failure after superhuman effort. Ichikawa creates a supreme mini-epic out of the marathon here, with the refreshment stalls acting as a strange opportunity, like a hidden Candid Camera, to see how individual, unwitting athletes behave. The montage of bodily decay and exhaustion is somewhat at odds with the ennobling, 'official' sentiments of peace and brotherly harmony. By the end of the film, though, you're as exhausted as the athletes.

I was not really sure what to expect, but I have to say that now having watched this DVD, I think Tokyo Olympiad has muscled its way up into my list of all time favorite documentaries. The artful approach to recording the events of the 1964 Toyko Olympics is masterful.

My own favorite moment: the slow-mo 800 meter women's. Ichikawa had two cameras on the scene, and it is the mesmerizing second view of the legs of the runners that gripped me. The fluidity of motion, the definition of their muscles, clearly evident. The front-runner, legs pistoning in a seemingly perfect rythym, seems in control. And then, from the left side of the screen, (keep in mind, in this shot we're seeing mostly just waist down shots of the legs of the runners) Ann Packer's legs come into the shot, moving faster than all the others on the screen. She blows by them all, to win the race. It's a masterful moment for Packer, and a gorgeous scene in the movie.

Second best: Ichikawa takes full advantage of the 2.35:1 widescreen format and there is a huge pull-back showing the entirety of Mt. Fuji. One of the torch runners passes in the foreground. As Crowie mentions in the commentary the runner is reduced to bug-size by this. It is a breath-takingly beautiful sight.

This documentary has a special value to my family. Most of us live in Brazil (I'm a second generation Japanese). During the 1964 Games, my grandfather went to Japan to visit the country where he was born and raised. He was at the opening ceremony and appeared on the film right after the then Emperor Hiroito and Prince Akihito. He's the gentleman who appears standing to attention during the Japanese anthem, right at the beginning of the film (12'34"). He's wearing a brownish tie.

I'm so glad I could see him after so many years! He died when I was five. Haven't watched the documentary yet (just that bit), but it appears to be really nice.

On a technical side, I had serious problems playing it on my stand-alone DVD (Panasonic SA HT70), but no problems watching on the computer.

This film is indeed artistic, done differently from current sports films. The one most like it in tone and approach that I have seen is Riefenstahl's Olympia, but this film stays closer to the sport than the old German film. The main reason I HAD to buy this was to see Bob Hayes' anchor leg of the 4x100 meter relay, the fastest any person has ever been recorded as running. Because he was in the outside lane, and not so many cameras were employed, seeing the course of his sprint was not optimal, but a freeze frame graphic showing the margin of victory, and the understated narration, is a classic in itself.