KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #22: The Games of the V Olympiad Stockholm, 1912 (2016, dir by Adrian Wood, Sweden))

So, the other day a bunch of Olympics movies appeared on the TCM app, and when I was looking for information about one of them I saw that it was also on the Criterion Channel. Then I looked and saw that what Criterion had was all of the same films that were on TCM, plus way more!

Criterion has a collection of 53 films about various Olympic Games from 1912-2012! Now, I know me, and know for a solid fact that I will not be watching all 53 of the films, I’m unlikely to even watch ten of them, but I am an Olympics person all the way, so know in my heart I want to watch all 53, I just have difficulty with follow through, which is, I’m sure, not news to anyone.

This first film is the very first film taken of any Olympics, I believe, but certainly the first extensive footage taken. I mean, proper celluloid film and motion picture cameras were only around 25 years old, only slightly older than the Olympics themselves!

This film is made up of a series of short films made in 1912, recently restored to its original form after years of editing and deterioration. It is really more of an historical document than a film to watch for entertainment. Unless you find Olympic history entertaining, which I do!

It begins with the opening ceremonies, presided over by King Gustav V. The restoration is absolutely stunning, very crisp and clear, with no excess speediness that you would often see in films that old. People look like real people living real lives, not like ancient shadows who couldn’t possibly be as real as we are.

Mostly it is just short bits of events. Since the camera can’t move, they show the beginning and the end of the races, with maybe a shot in the middle of the longer ones, like the marathon, and then a title card of who the winner was, and a shot of them grinning awkwardly into the camera. It’s entirely charming.I particularly enjoy the sports that are no longer in the Games, like tug-of-war, and the running deer shooting competition (not a real deer, a cutout) and the things that are different, like the diving in an actual lake, with what would now be considered entirely unacceptable amounts of splash.

There were very few women’s events in the 1912 Games, but one was platform diving, and you bet the camera was up close to take shots of those women in wet swimming costumes with their nekkid legs in full view, etc. the men’s diving, conversely, was photographed at a distance of several miles, practically.At the end of the 8000m cross country Swedish trials, the winner appeared to not break the tape, but clothesline himself, which makes me wonder what that tape was made of back in 1912. Piano wire?

The prizes were cups and trophies rather than medals, which seems very odd, especially since they seem to be in random sizes and shapes. But I guess this is because of the fact that this part is the trials rather than the games? But since the trials are the preliminaries for the actual contest, why do they even get hardware at all? Who knows, on to the equestrian trials!

Later, much much later, we see the great Jim Thorpe get his prizes for the decathlon and the pentathlon. This prize giving by the King of Sweden is my absolute favourite bit, as he has to shake everyone’s hand and put a laurel on their heads, so when he shakes their hands, he yanks them forward into laurel range, then literally slams it on their heads. Not joking, it is as though his greatest fear is that the laurel will fall off, and he was like, “Not on my watch!” and just jams it on there. These people were picking out bits of laurel embedded in their scalps for a week.

Basically, nearly three hours of this is a lot of a lot, and I don’t necessarily recommend watching it all in one go, but it is pretty interesting, as such things go. One down, 52 more to go!

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog