The Body Athletic
Watch Cinefamily’s original trailer for “The Body Athletic”!
Leni Riefenstahl's "Olympia"
Jonas Mekas once said of infamous German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, “If you are an idealist, you’ll see idealism in her films; if you are a classicist, you’ll see in her films an ode to classicism; if you are a Nazi, you’ll see in her films Nazism.” Olympia, her stunning portrait of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, represents the apex of all three. With a crew of at least thirty cameramen and the limitless resources she enjoyed as the Führer’s favorite filmmaker, Riefenstahl didn’t use Olympia to document reality as much as bend its very fabric to her purpose, as she re-imagines Olympic competition as both a compelling nationalist drama and a spectacular cinematic meditation. Before Olympia, few filmmakers had approached sport with imagination and ingenuity, and here Leni freely moves from the sidelines to the center of the action, from reportage to poetry: in the midst of a rowing race, the camera takes on the churning motion of the oar; the climactic moments of a marathon become play of shadows. Perhaps filmdom’s ultimate statement on both the fetishization and transcendence of the human body, Olympia also remains an eternal reminder of the power of cinematic propaganda. Unscreened in L.A. for years, our show of Olympia comes from an archival 35mm print!
Dir. Leni Riefenstahl, 1938, 35mm, 226 min.
Watch an excerpt from “Olympia”!
Visions Of Eight
For fans of Kubrick, Jodorowsky and Bunuel, Visions Of Eight will be a revelatory theatrical experience — for it is the 2001: A Space Odyssey of sports docs! The incredible, mystifying successor to Kon Ichikawa’s ‘60s tone poem Tokyo Olympiad, Visions of Eight charts a tripped-out, blissed-out, highly stylized variety of filmic viewpoints on the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany; international superstar directors like Arthur Penn, John Schlesinger, Milos Forman, Claude Lelouch and Ichikawa himself all contribute. Whether it’s Penn’s hallucinatory slo-mo portrait of pole vaulting (with practically every frame a potential ‘70s prog rock album cover), Mai Zetterling’s Herzog-like peek into the utter strangeness of freakish, bloated weightlifters (and their comically large diets), Lelouch’s astonishing collage of losing competitors’ moments of anguish or Schlesinger’s haunting cross-cutting between the loneliness of the Games’ marathon runners and the Munich hostage tragedy, each of the eight directors in Visions of Eight’s roster deliver phantasmagorical portraits capturing what the spectator’s naked eye cannot possibly see. An unheralded, classic documentary experience!
Dirs. Various, 1973, 35mm, 110 min.
Watch an excerpt from “Visions of Eight”!
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (7/16, 10:00pm)
This wholly immersive cinematic experience transcends the notion of the mere “soccer doc” to become one of the most powerful portraits of human excellence in recent memory! The French-Algerian soccer star Zinédine Zidane, widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, is the sole on-screen presence covered by 17 individual cameras in this visually intense experimental documentary. As the film charts Zidane’s moves throughout a single match between his Real Madrid team against Villareal CF — shuttling from expansive stadium-wide views to extreme close-ups of his every twist and turn — filmmakers Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon (winner of the 1996 Turner Prize) ellipt everything else in the game but Zidane, to crystalline, startling effect. Using the power of editing, the eagle eye of supervising cinematographer Darius Khondji (Seven, Funny Games) and blissful, trancelike tones from Scottish post-rock heroes Mogwai, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait emerges as one of the finest studies of man in the workplace, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete, and the poise and resilience of the human body.
Dirs. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, 2006, 35mm, 91 min.
Watch the trailer for “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait”!
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (7/15, 8:30pm)
This wholly immersive cinematic experience transcends the notion of the mere “soccer doc” to become one of the most powerful portraits of human excellence in recent memory! The French-Algerian soccer star Zinédine Zidane, widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, is the sole on-screen presence covered by 17 individual cameras in this visually intense experimental documentary. As the film charts Zidane’s moves throughout a single match between his Real Madrid team against Villareal CF — shuttling from expansive stadium-wide views to extreme close-ups of his every twist and turn — filmmakers Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon (winner of the 1996 Turner Prize) ellipt everything else in the game but Zidane, to crystalline, startling effect. Using the power of editing, the eagle eye of supervising cinematographer Darius Khondji (Seven, Funny Games) and blissful, trancelike tones from Scottish post-rock heroes Mogwai, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait emerges as one of the finest studies of man in the workplace, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete, and the poise and resilience of the human body.
Dirs. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, 2006, 35mm, 91 min.
Watch the trailer for “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait”!
Tokyo Olympiad
Presented in an IB Tech 35mm print! Armed with over 150 movie cameras (and as large a number of impeccably skilled cameramen, all with seemingly laser-guided vision), Kon Ichikawa stunned the world with Tokyo Olympiad, his impressionistic, highly idiosyncratic and highly addictive three-hour document of the 1964 Summer Olympics, held in Japan. Immediately setting the tone with an opening Cinemascope shot of a fiery, iridescent sun in mid-day repose, Ichikawa dispenses with trivial matters like straight reportage, to instead poetically focus on all the little reflective moments that add up to the majestic human spectacle that is the Olympics: grins, grimaces, stretching, straining, exaltations from the crowd, competitors’ flesh in slo-mo fight, the gentle placement of track shoes on pavement, and many emotionally devastating instances of athletes defeated on the playing field. Capturing an abundance of human drama in these startlingly filmed instances of mournful defeat, Ichikawa imparts the transcendent, eternal message: “The Games are more important than the games.”
Dir. Kon Ichikawa, 1965, 35mm, 170 min.
Watch an excerpt from “Tokyo Olympiad”!
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (7/15, 2:00pm)
This wholly immersive cinematic experience transcends the notion of the mere “soccer doc” to become one of the most powerful portraits of human excellence in recent memory! The French-Algerian soccer star Zinédine Zidane, widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, is the sole on-screen presence covered by 17 individual cameras in this visually intense experimental documentary. As the film charts Zidane’s moves throughout a single match between his Real Madrid team against Villareal CF — shuttling from expansive stadium-wide views to extreme close-ups of his every twist and turn — filmmakers Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon (winner of the 1996 Turner Prize) ellipt everything else in the game but Zidane, to crystalline, startling effect. Using the power of editing, the eagle eye of supervising cinematographer Darius Khondji (Seven, Funny Games) and blissful, trancelike tones from Scottish post-rock heroes Mogwai, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait emerges as one of the finest studies of man in the workplace, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete, and the poise and resilience of the human body.
Dirs. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, 2006, 35mm, 91 min.
Watch the trailer for “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait”!
Dirs. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, 2006, 35mm, 91 min.
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (7/14, 7:00pm)
This wholly immersive cinematic experience transcends the notion of the mere “soccer doc” to become one of the most powerful portraits of human excellence in recent memory! The French-Algerian soccer star Zinédine Zidane, widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, is the sole on-screen presence covered by 17 individual cameras in this visually intense experimental documentary. As the film charts Zidane’s moves throughout a single match between his Real Madrid team against Villareal CF — shuttling from expansive stadium-wide views to extreme close-ups of his every twist and turn — filmmakers Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon (winner of the 1996 Turner Prize) ellipt everything else in the game but Zidane, to crystalline, startling effect. Using the power of editing, the eagle eye of supervising cinematographer Darius Khondji (Seven, Funny Games) and blissful, trancelike tones from Scottish post-rock heroes Mogwai, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait emerges as one of the finest studies of man in the workplace, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete, and the poise and resilience of the human body.
Dirs. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, 2006, 35mm, 91 min.
Watch the trailer for “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait”!
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (7/14, 4:45pm)
This wholly immersive cinematic experience transcends the notion of the mere “soccer doc” to become one of the most powerful portraits of human excellence in recent memory! The French-Algerian soccer star Zinédine Zidane, widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, is the sole on-screen presence covered by 17 individual cameras in this visually intense experimental documentary. As the film charts Zidane’s moves throughout a single match between his Real Madrid team against Villareal CF — shuttling from expansive stadium-wide views to extreme close-ups of his every twist and turn — filmmakers Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon (winner of the 1996 Turner Prize) ellipt everything else in the game but Zidane, to crystalline, startling effect. Using the power of editing, the eagle eye of supervising cinematographer Darius Khondji (Seven, Funny Games) and blissful, trancelike tones from Scottish post-rock heroes Mogwai, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait emerges as one of the finest studies of man in the workplace, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete, and the poise and resilience of the human body.
Dirs. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, 2006, 35mm, 91 min.
Watch the trailer for “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait”!
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (7/13, 7:45pm)
This wholly immersive cinematic experience transcends the notion of the mere “soccer doc” to become one of the most powerful portraits of human excellence in recent memory! The French-Algerian soccer star Zinédine Zidane, widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, is the sole on-screen presence covered by 17 individual cameras in this visually intense experimental documentary. As the film charts Zidane’s moves throughout a single match between his Real Madrid team against Villareal CF — shuttling from expansive stadium-wide views to extreme close-ups of his every twist and turn — filmmakers Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon (winner of the 1996 Turner Prize) ellipt everything else in the game but Zidane, to crystalline, startling effect. Using the power of editing, the eagle eye of supervising cinematographer Darius Khondji (Seven, Funny Games) and blissful, trancelike tones from Scottish post-rock heroes Mogwai, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait emerges as one of the finest studies of man in the workplace, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete, and the poise and resilience of the human body.
Dirs. Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno, 2006, 35mm, 91 min.
Watch the trailer for “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait”!
