VISIONS OF EIGHT
Directed by MILOŠ FORMAN, KON ICHIKAWA, CLAUDE LELOUCH, JURI OZEROV, ARTHUR PENN, MICHAEL PFLEGHAR, JOHN SCHLESINGER, MAI ZETTERLING
A more accurate title might have been "Cheap Shots of Eight." These impressions of the 1972 Olympic Games have almost nothing of value to say either about the Munich spectacle or about athletics in general. What the film does do is bring together in one handy package most of the reigning clichés of contemporary film making. As such, it should be must viewing at every film school in the world; elsewhere it may be enjoyably and profitably avoided.
The most abused device is ironic crosscutting. Mai Zetterling has her somber Swedish fun jumping from overmuscled weight lifters to shots of mass-food preparation in the Olympic Village. But since these athletes are not overweight, considering their specialty, her juxtaposition of images is superficial and the idea behind it banal.
Equally pointless is Miloš Forman's cutting between decathlon competitors and various musical activities that he found in and around the Games, from Bavarian bell ringing to a performance of Beethoven's Ninth. The decathlon is something more than the hot pursuit of exhaustion, and so, perhaps, is bell ringing, if that is where one's heart lies. As for John Schlesinger's back-and-forthing between a losing British marathon competitor and the murder of the eleven Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists, it is a tasteless last-minute paste-in.
The slow-motion freaks do not fare any better. Japan's Kon Ichikawa, who all by himself made a better Olympics film about the 1964 Tokyo Games, uses slow motion to record the 100-meter dash. Although it is fascinating to see some of the world's fastest humans running in place for a few minutes, it is finally frustrating not to see the essence of their thing, which is a blur. Arthur Penn has some extremely pretty pictures of pole vaulters slowly soaring, but when he cuts a lot of vaults together to form a sort of aerial ballet, we are inevitably reminded that Leni Riefenstahl did the same thing, using divers, 36 years ago. It is disappointing to see a man of Penn's caliber ripping off an old master.
For the rest, Claude Lelouch does a little essay on losers, Juri Ozerov of Russia focuses on athletes preparing for competition, and Michael Pfleghar of Germany contributes a piece on women athletes. None is distinguished by either a strong point of view or depth of insight.
∙ Richard Schickel