I've been watching all the Olympic documentaries available through the Criterion Collection and almost all photograph the Olympic sporting spectacle admirably. The standard up until this 1961 production were the ultra nationalist but skilfully directed documentaries about the 1936 Berlin Olympics from Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's chosen director.
This 1961 production is a favourite because it's such a contrast to the fascist Berlin documentaries. It documents the Rome 1960 summer Olympics in a relaxed style that is reminiscent of the best early to mid 1960 Italian cinema. The colors are exquisite, the camera lingers and the pace of narration is unhurried to match. The people watching scenes from the streets of Rome and inside the Olympic stadium are truly fascinating. It appears to have been a special time in a nation that had been ravaged during and after the Second World War. The fashion styles of that new era of post war prosperity are in full display with many athletes from numerous nations as carefully and colourfully dressed as the many sophisticated urban fashion leading spectators.
As for the Olympic event coverage, proper coverage is given to the great Track and Field legends who won Gold that year, especially Wilma Rudolph, Rafer Johnson, Armin Hare and Don (Tarzan) Bragg. The coverage of weightlifting is riviting, and the then-new slow motion film capturing of lessor events like Equestrian is terrific.
The highlight of the film also happens to be my first Olympic memory at age 9, etched permanently in my memory from watching live US TV broadcasts. The then unknown Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila runs through the streets of Rome barefoot and blows away the field, finishing under the Arch of Rome in the dark, lit by spotlights. Adding to the drama was that fact that Ethiopia had only recently won national independence from colonial Italy. Fortunately the coverage of this gripping historic race is by far the longest segment in the film.
My primary criticism is the same one I have for every Olympic host nation documentary; there is too much coverage of that nation's athletes. In this Olympics, the Italian team did well in boxing, so there's plenty of boxing coverage featuring Italian winners. But then the boxing Gold medal victory of the probably the greatest Olympic boxer ever,19 year old Cassius Clay, later known to us as Mohammed Ali, is missing entirely.
Finally, a warning to all that the narration fits the era it captures. The script isn't short on what would be considered serious racism and sexism by today's standards. But then one must remember it was produced in Italy over sixty years ago.
