Film #2: The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 (1924)

[StevePulaski]

The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 (1924)
Directed by: Jean de Rovera

Slow motion technology showcases the nuances of ski-jumping in The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924.

Rating: ★★★
Film #2/53; part of the Criterion Collection's "100 Years of Olympic Film" box-set

The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 is the first of a trilogy of Olympic films by Jean de Rovera. It's followed by an eight-minute, avant-garde short film and a 174 minute documentary. de Rovera makes his ambition known from the start of his first stint in Chamonix, which is located at the base of Mont Blanc in France, as part of a deal with the French film studio Pathé. The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 also kicks off an interesting and ongoing era in the Winter Olympics, for from this moment on in history, we've compiled accessible footage of the games following a cancelled event in 1916 Berlin and no found footage of the 1920 games in Antwerp, Belgium.

de Rovera's historic short-film, at only 36 minutes long, consists of skating, ice hockey, bobsleighing, and ski-jumping, and marks one of the first instances of slow-motion videography being employed for emphasis. Contrary to assumption, the slow motion techniques are not employed gratuitously; in fact, I'd argue they're not used enough, leaving me only to conclude technological limitations as the main reason why it is not showcased as prolifically as it could've been. The short begins with competitors marching into the snowy tundra of Chamonix with their hockey sticks, skis, and brooms in hand, mostly stone-faced, but not with the hyper-condensed formality one might expect from this group. With skating being the first event we see, it's almost mesmerizing the way skaters' bodies flail and contort to look almost inhuman as they put their immaculate figures through intense, and often grueling, physical labor in hopes of a perfect score. Interspersed title-cards do their best to elaborate on the more ambiguous movements of the skaters and the subsequent competitors, but the resilience of these athletes is something that need not be communicated through sporadically cheeky paratext.

Ice hockey and bobsleighing are the two most exhilarating events. A circular chunk of wood, perfectly carved and rounded, substitutes a conventional puck or ball during the former event. Canadians square off against the American team and nearly blow them out 6-1 with some painfully easy goals in what amounts to an event made all the better in hindsight thanks to a diverse array of camera angles. On the other hand, each bobsleighing event begins with a machine that mirrors a ski-lift, carrying the sleigh uphill and pulling off a thread when it reaches the starting point in order to accurately timestamp the start of the event. The showcase in technology precedes the bobs cutting corners and maneuvering tricky terrain that is shown ever-so-elegantly with slow motion videography. A reminder at how dangerous these events are emerges when cue-cards inform us that, during the bobsleighing games, and the ski-jumping events, two competitors broke both of their legs in the process (thankfully off-camera).

The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 concludes with sequences of ski-jumping, one of which being a gorgeous shot of an airborne jumper sticking a perfect landing. Titles inform us a jumper is usually going about 60 miles an hour upon touchdown; for every perfect landing, we see, there's roughly four or five brutal falls that show the peril of this life. Technique is everything, as de Rovera proves, with what he shows and with what he creates in this elegant short.

Directed by: Jean de Rovera.