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The Olympic Games from the point of view of cinema
In the late 19th and early 20th century cinema made its first experimental steps, as did the modern Olympics. As early as from the organization of 1896  pioneer film-makers recorded parts from the ceremonies of the Games and the efforts of the athletes, something which was repeated in the following organizations as well. Soon, a sort of information cinema, the "cinema news", made its appearance in special theatres, which were created mostly in the big European and North American cities. The topics of the news focused especially on important events of national or international interest, which included the Olympic organizations.
However, these were fragmentary recordings, which by no means bore the characteristics of a film. During that time, namely the 1920s and the 1930s, cinema was shaping into a form of art and very popular at that. It was the time when the film studios, Hollywood and the production companies were created. At the same time, the first artistic movements were initiated among film-makers and international contests were organized in the USA (oscars) and in Europe (Venice, Cannes).
The first film that was created using material from the Olympic Games was "Olympia" by Leni Riefenstahl. This was the official film of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The idea and responsibility of its realization belonged to Carl Diem, the secretary general of the organizing committee for the Games. Tens of film-makers worked for the film, cameras of new technology were used as well as pioneer techniques (e.g. underwater filming). On the whole, shots of 200 hours approximately were filmed, which after two years of process gave the four-hour film "Olympia". The film won the first prize in the Venice film festival in 1938 and became particularly popular, not only in Germany but in many other countries, until the beginning of World War II.
Riefenstahl was accused of having adhered to nazism (after the war she was put to trial but was not convicted) and her film was regarded as a typical case of committed art. Nevertheless, "Olympia" is an excellent production, both aesthetically and technically, which ranks among the most important films of the first half of the 20th century and has constituted since then the example for the broadcasting of every sports event.
The filming of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was an equally significant work and at the same time strongly criticized and contested. The organization of the Olympic Games was a fine opportunity for Japan to make known the economic and technological progress that it had made in the two decades after the end of the war.
Indeed, the Tokyo Olympics, which were the most expensive Olympic organization yet, offered a "different" picture of Japan and of its culture from that, which prevailed during World War II. To this contributed the transformation of Tokyo into a modern big city, the technological facilities (e.g. satellite television for the coverage of the Games), as well as the imposing presence, the functionality and the architectural design of the Olympic Village and of the sports venues. As part of this policy, the organizing committee for the Olympic Games decided to create a film for the Olympics.
At first, the organizers of the Olympic Games addressed to Akira Kurosawa. But they did not reach an agreement, so they looked for another film director. Eventually they found Kon Ichikawa, a few months before the beginning of the Games. Ichikawa filmed the Games and gathered material of a duration of 240 hours. Several months later, in the spring of 1965, after the process of the material, the film was completed. Its duration was 170 minutes and it was entitled "Tokyo Olympiad". However, the film caused the reactions of the organizing committee and of the government, seeing that none of the objectives they wanted to achieve through this film had been accomplished.
Échikawa's film did not show the works that had been carried out in the city of Tokyo, nor the sports and other infrastructures that had been constructed in view of the Olympic Games. Furthermore, it did not praise the efforts of the Japanese athletes, who performed their best appearance yet, winning 16 gold medals, 5 silvers and 8 bronzes, which ranked them third, behind the USA and the Soviet Union. Lastly, the film did not necessarily focus on the protagonists, but on the effort of any athlete, irrespective of his/her ranking. It is characteristic that according to the director's standpoint, the hero of the 10,000m event was not the actual winner, but the runner who finished last. What Ichikawa wanted to express was not the result of each contest, but the effort of the athletes and the impressions created.
The reaction of the Japanese government consisted in the prohibition of the film in Japan and the creation of a new one, with a different director but, necessarily, with the material that Ichikawa had filmed. Indeed, a few months later, in July 1965, a new film made its appearance entitled "Impressive Century". However, Ichikawa's film had been shown in several European countries and in the USA and had obtained very favourable critiques, as well as the first prize (Golden Palm) in the Cannes Film Festival.
Ichikawa's film on the 1964 Olympics, as well as Riefenstahl's on the 1936 Olympics, have constituted excellent works of art and for this reason they won prizes in two of the major film festivals (Cannes, Venice). At the same time, these two films were associated in a positive way ("Olympia") or a negative way ("Tokyo Olympiad") with the effort of the organizers to gain political benefits through the film presentation of the Olympic Games.
A different case is that of a third film, which, like the previous two, does not constitute an informative presentation of an Olympic organization, but an original artistic creation. It is a documentary film by eight famous film-makers entitled "Visions of Eight", which refers to the 1972 Munich Olympics. One of the prerequisites for the making of the film was the total thematic freedom and freedom of expression by the directors, who had to give eight different perspectives of the organization.
One of the eight directors of the film was Ichikawa, whose camera focused exclusively on the athletes of the 100m. Milos Forman filmed the decathlon, John Schlesinger the marathon, Claude Lelouch the defeated, Juri Ozerov focused on the athletes short before and right after the competition, Michael Pfleghar on the women athletes, Arthur Penn on the pole vault and Mai Zetterling on weightlifting.
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