Critiquing the Olympic documentary: Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad

Abstract

Tokyo Olympiad is not only a cinematically accomplished documentary film, but also presents a highly insightful critique of Olympism and its limitations. In critiquing the production and politics of the film, I argue that Tokyo Olympiad ought to be seen as an expressive or ‘poetic’ documentary film in which Ichikawa, the humanist filmmaker, captures the complex and contradictory nature of humanism in the Olympic Games. By highlighting Ichikawa's decidedly ambivalent perspective on the spirit of Olympism, I extend previous critiques that posit Tokyo Olympiad as the saviour of the true spirit of Olympism from its fascistic rendering in Riefenstahl's Olympia. In so doing, my analysis points to the contrast between the sentimental and hackneyed treatments of sport often found in the media coverage of the Olympics, and the subtle profound examination of the banality and heroism of sport in Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad.

Notes

¹ Cited in Bock, Japanese Film Directors, 223.

² Actually, the first film on the Olympic Games was made by Riefenstahl's mentor, Arnold Fanck, who in 1928 made Das Weisse Stadion (The White Stadium) on the 1928 Winter Olympic Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland. In 1932 an attempt was made to make a film on the 1932 Olympics held in Los Angeles. Despite much footage being taken, a film never emerged. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that Riefenstahl's film was the first cinematically and commercially successful film to be made on the Olympic Games. (See Hinton, The Films of Leni Riefenstahl, 47–8.)

³ Richie, Japanese Cinema, 192.

⁴ Bock, Japanese Film Directors, 137.

⁵ The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964: The Official Report of the Organising Committee, 479.

⁶ The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964: The Official Report of the Organising Committee, 483.

⁷ Quandt, ‘Tokyo Olympiad: A Symposium’, 337.

⁸ Cited in Rotha, Documentary Film, 70.

⁹ Nichols, Introduction to Documentary, 20.

¹⁰ Winston, Claiming the Real, 11.

¹¹ Renov, Theorizing Documentary, 12–36.

¹² This became clear to me when I screened Douglas Gordon and Philip Parento's documentary, Zidane: A Twenty-First Century Portrait in my sport documentary class: many of the students complained that it did not say anything about Zidane's talents as a football players or his social origins and upbringing. Significantly, the directors cite Tokyo Olympiad as a formative influence on the making of Zidane.

¹³ Masumoto and MacDonald, ‘Tokyo Olympiad’, 190.

¹⁴ Masumoto and MacDonald, ‘Tokyo Olympiad’, 194.

¹⁵ The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964: The Official Report of the Organising Committee.

¹⁶ Mandell, The Nazi Olympics, x–xiv.

¹⁷ Kruger, ‘The Ministry of Popular Enlightenment’, 41.

¹⁸ Sontag, ‘Fascinating Fascism’, 95.

¹⁹ Sontag, ‘Fascinating Fascism’, 76.

²⁰ Sontag, ‘Fascinating Fascism’., 96.

²¹ McFee and Tomlinson, ‘Riefenstahl's Olympia’, 103.

²² Vaughan, ‘Berlin versus Tokyo’.

²³ Dry humour permeates many scenes. For example, in the coverage of the rear-ends of walkers, in close-ups of double chins of spectators, and in the rifle-shooting event where the narrator explains, ‘Over a period of 6.5 hours, the riflemen shoot 120 shots each. The target is 300 metres away. The competitors bring their lunch with them.’ The camera then cuts to a rifleman munching on his lunch in an isolated booth, silent except for the isolated muffled shots of other rifles. Typically, there is no mention of who the competitors are or what countries are being represented: the winner is announced by a title inserted in the final scene of this event.

²⁴ Vaughan, ‘Berlin versus Tokyo’, 109–10.

²⁵ Slater, ‘Changing Partners’, 54.

²⁶ ‘150 years of NHK Television’ http://www.nhk.or.jp/digitalmuseum/nhk50years_en/history/p10/index.html (accessed 3 January 2008).

²⁷ Nichols, Introduction to Documentary, 107.

²⁸ McDonald, ‘Situating the Sport Documentary’.

²⁹ Ward, Documentary, 14.

³⁰ Masumoto and MacDonald, ‘Tokyo Olympiad’, 192.

³¹ Olympism is the official ideology of the Olympic Movement. It is a late nineteenth-century construction as the vision of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. Olympism reflects a synthesis of de Coubertin's interpretation of classical Greek and English public school conceptions of sport: its basis is a belief in the educational value of sport, generalized from the individual to the sphere of international politics. Thus, Olympism places sport at the centre of a universal campaign for peace and international understanding, drawing on the legacy of the truce and the symbol of peace associated with the Games in Antiquity.

³² Albert Camus (1913–60) was a French writer and philosopher, often associated with existentialism. His most well known work is probably L'Etranger [The Stranger] (1942), better known in English by the translated title, The Outsider, which deals with the meaninglessness of the world.

³³ Quandt, ‘Tokyo Olympiad: A Symposium’, 336.

³⁴ Bock, Japanese Film Directors, 219.

³⁵ Bock, Japanese Film Directors, 242.

³⁶ Burch, To the Distant Observer, 287.

³⁷ Burch, To the Distant Observer, 290.

³⁸ Vaughan, ‘Berlin versus Tokyo’, 109.

³⁹ Quandt, ‘Tokyo Olympiad: A Symposium’, 335.

⁴⁰ Enjo (1958), better known by its English title, Conflagration and Bonchi (1960) are well-known films by Ichikawa that deal with issues of domineering matriarchs, sexuality and expressing the post-war frustrations of the ‘little-man’.

⁴¹ Richie, Japanese Cinema, 196.