Visions of Eight | |
---|---|
Directed by | Miloš Forman Claude Lelouch Yuri Ozerov Mai Zetterling Kon Ichikawa John Schlesinger Arthur Penn Michael Pfleghar |
Written by | David Hughes Deliara Ozerowa Shuntaro Tanikawa |
Produced by | Stan Margulies |
Cinematography | Arthur Wooster Alan Hume Daniel Bocly Michael J. Davis Rune Ericson Walter Lassally Jorgen Persson Igor Slabnevich Ernst Wild Masuo Yamaguchi |
Edited by | Dede Allen Catherine Bernard Jim Clark Lars Hagstrom Edward Roberts |
Music by | Henry Mancini |
Distributed by | Cinema 5 |
Release date |
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Running time | 110 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Visions of Eight is a 1973 American documentary film offering a stylized look at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Produced by Stan Margulies and executive produced by David L. Wolper, it was directed by eight directors. It was screened out-of-competition at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. [1] It was later shown as part of the Cannes Classics section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. [2] Some visuals of the Munich stadium from the documentary were used in Without Limits . [3]
Wolper asked eight directors to select their own crews and create a segment which would capture some aspect of the Munich Games.
Alan Hume shot the segment The Fastest for director Kon Ichikawa. Arthur Wooster shot The Longest for director John Schlesinger, and Walter Lassally directed the photography for Arthur Penn's segment The Highest. [4]
Visions of Eight won the best documentary award at the Golden Globe Awards, held in 1974 for films which were released in 1973.
Peter Rainer of Bloomberg News wrote that, "Schlesinger's is the only segment that fully acknowledges the Black September terrorist attacks, in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, and a West German policeman, were murdered."
Rainer continues, "Penn's entry begins daringly. Not only is the imagery a slo-mo crawl, it's also out of focus and the soundtrack is silent. Gradually the visuals sharpen, the stadium sounds come up, but, for the most part, the pole vaulters rising into the sky remain superslow abstractions. Along with his great editor Dede Allen, who cut Bonnie and Clyde , Penn anatomizes the action without ever losing sight of the fact that these athletes, including USA's Bob Seagren, are men and not gods (as Riefenstahl might have us believe)" — referring to Leni Riefenstahl's 1938 documentary Olympia .
Rainer sees French director Claude Lelouch's segment as a welcome contrast to the other directors' worshipful heroic depictions: "Lelouch's The Losers ... shows us a boxer who rants in the ring after his defeat; wrestlers gamely trying to fight after tearing ligaments and dislocating limbs; swimmers treading befuddled in the pool after their last losing lap." [5]
It is available at the Criterion Collection as part of the 100 Years of Olympic Films box set. [6] It became available as a standalone release on June 22, 2021. [7]
Kon Ichikawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959), to the documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965), which won two BAFTA Film Awards, and the 19th-century revenge drama An Actor's Revenge (1963). His film Odd Obsession (1959) won the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, producer, writer, editor, photographer and actress. She is considered one of the most controversial personalities in film history. On the one hand, she is regarded by many critics as an "innovative filmmaker and creative aesthete", while on the other hand she is criticized for her works in the service of propaganda during the Nazi era.
Masaki Kobayashi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, best known for the epic trilogy The Human Condition (1959–1961), the samurai films Harakiri (1962) and Samurai Rebellion (1967), and the horror anthology Kwaidan (1964). Senses of Cinema described him as "one of the finest depicters of Japanese society in the 1950s and 1960s."
Dreams, also known as Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, is a 1990 magical realist anthology film of eight vignettes written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. Inspired by actual recurring dreams that Kurosawa had, it stars Akira Terao, Martin Scorsese, Chishū Ryū, Mieko Harada and Mitsuko Baisho. It was the director's first film in 45 years in which he was the sole author of the screenplay. An international co-production of Japan and the United States, Dreams was made five years after Ran, with assistance from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and funded by Warner Bros. The film was screened out of competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, and has consistently received positive reviews.
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Claude Barruck Joseph Lelouch is a French film director, writer, cinematographer, actor and producer. Lelouch grew up in an Algerian Jewish family. He emerged as a prominent director in the 1960s. Lelouch gained critical acclaim for his 1966 romantic melodrama film A Man and A Woman. At the 39th Academy Awards in 1967, A Man and a Woman won Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film. Lelouch was also nominated for Best Director. While his films have gained him international recognition since the 1960s, Lelouch's methods and style of film are known for attracting criticism.
Arthur Hiller Penn was an American film-maker, theatre director and producer. He was a Tony Award winner, and was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Director, as well as a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, two Primetime Emmys. As a member of the New Hollywood movement, Penn directed several critically-acclaimed films dealing with countercultural issues of the late 1960s and 1970s, notably the drama The Chase (1966), the biographical crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the comedy Alice's Restaurant (1969), and the revisionist Western Little Big Man (1970).
Eraclio Petri, commonly known as Elio Petri, was an Italian film and theatre director, screenwriter and film critic. The Museum of Modern Art described him as "one of the preeminent political and social satirists of 1960s and early 1970s Italian cinema". His film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, and his subsequent film The Working Class Goes to Heaven received the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.
The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl is a 1993 German documentary film about the life of German film director Leni Riefenstahl, directed by Ray Müller.
Tokyo Olympiad, also known in Japan as Tōkyō Olympic, is a 1965 Japanese documentary film directed by Kon Ichikawa which documents the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Like Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia, which documented the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Ichikawa's film was considered a cinematographic milestone in documentary filmmaking. However, Tokyo Olympiad keeps its focus far more on the atmosphere of the games and the human side of the athletes rather than concentrating on winning and the results. It is one of the few sports documentaries included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
Jaromil Jireš was a director associated with the Czechoslovak New Wave movement.
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Fires on the Plain is a 1959 Japanese war film directed by Kon Ichikawa, starring Eiji Funakoshi. The screenplay, written by Natto Wada, is based on the novel Nobi by Shōhei Ōoka, translated as Fires on the Plain. It initially received mixed reviews from both Japanese and international critics concerning its violence and bleak theme. In following decades, however, it has become highly regarded.
The Grand Olympics is a 1961 Italian documentary film, directed by Romolo Marcellini, made in 1961. It was nominated as Best Documentary Feature at 34th Academy Awards in 1961.
The 26th Cannes Film Festival was held from 10 to 25 May 1973. The Grand Prix du Festival International du Film went to Scarecrow by Jerry Schatzberg and The Hireling by Alan Bridges. At this festival two new non-competitive sections were added: 'Étude et documents' and 'Perspectives du Cinéma Français'.
Her Brother is a 1960 Japanese drama film directed by Kon Ichikawa. It is based on the novel Otōto by Aya Koda.
Jeffrey Friedman is an American filmmaker. In 2021, he and Rob Epstein won a Grammy Award for their work on the documentary film Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice
"13 jours en France" is a French film from 1968. Its English title is "13 Days in France." The film was directed by French filmmakers Claude Lelouch and François Reichenbach. It takes the form of a documentary-style film, featuring scenes shot in various regions of France.
David Lloyd Wolper was an American television and film producer, responsible for shows such as Roots, The Thorn Birds, and North and South, and the theatrically-released films Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and L.A. Confidential. He was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 57th Academy Awards in 1985 for his work producing the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, as well as helping to bring the games there. His 1971 film about the study of insects, The Hellstrom Chronicle, won an Academy Award.
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