Joining the British Olympic team sailing for Paris, Liddell learns that his race is on a Sunday, and refuses to run. He is popular and privileged, but perceives Anti-Semitism in the smiles and handshakes of the upper crust society he lives in.īoth men are fast, and clash with the Establishment. Gravely handsome and fiercely competitive, Abrahams sees running as a way of conquering prejudice. Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) is an English Jew studying at Cambridge University. “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. He uses his talent on the track to inspire his congregation. However, its two central characters may run with the Union Jack on their chests, but their motivations are much deeper and more personal than King & Country.Įric Liddell (Ian Charleson) is a devout Scottish Christian, born to Missionaries in China, who runs for the glory of God. Amadeus over The Killing Fields.Ĭhariots of Fire, at first glance, looks like a nostalgic postcard to the privileged, amateur sportsmen of the British Empire. James L Brooks’ weepie Terms of Endearment sneaking the gong over The Right Stuff. The early Eighties was a particularly notorious era: Robert Redford’s Ordinary People beating Scorsese’s Raging Bull. Everyone with an interest in movies knows the Academy operates in a parallel universe one slight remove from current taste, with a lag of about thirty years. The era saw a number of British athletes dominate their fields, including Daley Thompson and Sebastian Coe, and the emergence of a certain Steve Redgrave.Ĭhariots of Fire always struck me as one of those prestige pictures the Academy throws bucket loads of Oscars at, then nobody watches again. Chariots of Fire, telling the story of two driven sprinters taking Olympic Gold in the 1924 games in Paris, was poignantly timed: during production, Allan Wells became the first Brit since Harold Abrahams in 1924 to win gold in the 100m. Perhaps Welland wasn’t talking about movies, but athletes. Moviegoers from the Sceptred Isle had to wait twenty-seven years before another solely Brit venture took best picture, Danny Boyle’s overrated Slumdog Millionaire. Hugh Hudson’s handsome period piece picked up the Best Picture Oscar at the 54th Academy Awards, prompting screenwriter Colin Welland’s infamously inaccurate prediction: “The British Are Coming!”. Pieces of music that have featured in so many adverts and comedy sketches that their original charm and power are lost, and it feels weird when hearing again in their original context.
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The Chariots of Fire theme is one of those pieces of movie music, like Bernard Hermann’s shrieking strings from Psycho, or John Williams’ Jaws theme that is so famous it has a life of its own above and beyond the original film.
Mr Bean still gets air time on Czech TV, so Rowan Atkinson’s skit involving the London Symphony Orchestra and Vangelis’ iconic Chariots of Fire theme was one reassuring light amidst the general bafflement for many viewers round my way. Living in the Czech Republic, I found that one segment translated. After China’s daunting display of might in Beijing 2008, what would it say to the viewer in Bolivia or Burkina Faso about British culture? What must the World be thinking, I wondered, watching Danny Boyle’s extravagant, silly, spectacular, self-referential, nostalgic, ultra-modern opening ceremony for the London Olympics.
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