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Sports haven't fared well in classic Hollywood, where hero-worship comes
first and authenticity second. The reality of personalities like coach Knute
Rockne (Knute Rockne All American, 1940) and Native American star Jim
Thorpe (Jim Thorpe - All American, 1951) has been forever distorted
by their filmic surrogates Pat O'Brien and Burt Lancaster. The sports
content of these movies is more often than not reduced to superhuman feats
and stylized montages.
This background makes Michael Ritchie's semi-documentary drama
Downhill Racer all the more significant. The 1969 film about
competition skiing began as a "deal" picture concocted by Paramount to
attract hot director Roman Polanski, an avid skier. When Polanski chose
instead to do Rosemary's Baby the project's enthusiastic star Robert
Redford put together the production on his own. The directing nod was given
to Michael Ritchie, a TV talent untested on the big screen. Filming in
distant Austria proved to be a major plus that allowed the show to maintain
independent of studio oversight.
Using a camera style more suited to documentaries, Downhill Racer
fashions an intelligent drama around the American Olympic skiing team, then
considered inexperienced outsiders outclassed by the European pros. James
Salter's lean script establishes the character of David Chappellet, a highly
motivated country boy from Colorado who gets his break when an injury
creates an opening in the team lineup. Chappellet is a handsome, vain and
anti-social loner who considers his own teammates enemy competitors; he's
only interested in winning. He has no interest in the problems of his coach
Eugene Claire (Gene Hackman, excellent), who must bow and scrape to woo team
sponsors. Robert Redford is perfect for the role, and uncharacteristically
for a Hollywood star, he's willing to portray David as an unlikable heel.
Chappellet picks up an old girl friend back in Colorado for some fast sex;
he refuses to waste the time or effort to even have a conversation with
her.
Salter and Redford use Downhill Racer to tell the truth that movies
never admit: after all the sentiment about sportsmanship, competition is all
about winning and nothing else. Even today, television injects fake dramatic
conflicts into the Olympics. When not promoting national rivalries the
coverage exploits insipid inspirational back stories, with athletes
overcoming hardship and trauma on their path to glory. Focused sports pros
are certainly not all like David Chappellet, but hotheaded egoists are often
the best performers.
Unlike John Frankenheimer's Formula One racing epic Grand Prix,
Downhill Racer doesn't use announcers and random voiceovers to
explain the facts and mechanics of the sport. We learn by observation. We
see the skiers preparing their equipment and shivering at the top of the ski
runs. Nobody need tell us that the athletes are cold. The freezing waits
must surely leave their muscles in knots.
When the races begin director Ritchie's docu methods take over completely.
The racers fly down the narrow, bumpy runs at up to 80 mph, sometimes racing
through snowy fog. The skiing action is excellent. Realizing that they
needed to roll thousands of feet of film to get a few useful seconds, the
production switched to 16mm for much of the downhill action. When they
captured an impressive spill, they'd then contrive to have one of their
skier-actors dress in the same color suit and helmet to match continuity.
The large numbers printed on the racers' elastic Bibs don't really matter.
In the ultra-fast skiing scenes, the Bibs are largely unreadable
anyway!
Ritchie extends the docu filming style throughout the show, shooting with
long lenses and arranging and cutting scenes as if the camera just happened
to catch important moments. This European look was very fresh in Hollywood
of 1969. The film was one of the first to show TV announcers fumbling in
stage waits and false starts, a revelation that amused audiences that
wouldn't think to question the polished surface of The Wide World of
Sports. Most scenes are fragments without full exits or entrances.
Dialogue rarely extends beyond an exchange or two. As David spends most of
his time being sullen and incommunicative this method works out quite well.
David becomes particularly irate about his lowly status in the starting
order. Starting back in the pack he must race down a course already rutted
and torn up by dozens of skiers that have gone before. Eugene tells him that
low Bib Numbers have to be earned.
Downhill Racer keeps its dramatics lean, but telling. On David's trip
back home we learn that his father considers him a worthless ski bum. He
dismisses David's desire to be a champion in four bitter words: "World's
full of 'em". The narcissistic David eagerly pursues an affair with Swiss
beauty Carole Stahr (Camilla Sparv), who works for a ski equipment
manufacturer hungry for product endorsements. David gives Carole his best
silent charm treatment; she seems another easy conquest. Only too late does
he discover that a European woman might be an even more experienced User
than he is.
The unspoken lesson behind all of this is that talent trumps all notions of
sportsmanship and even civility; David Chappellet is a promising contender
and therefore is indulged at every turn. He's "centered" and "focused",
positive terms for conceit and insensitivity. David's mind is wired only for
self-interest. He has no reaction to the fate of teammates who suffer
career-ending injuries. The film challenges our automatic approval of
winners.
Downhill Racer's brilliant ending opts neither for easy cynicism nor
an audience-pleasing comeuppance. Even as he accepts his big prize David
realizes that more talented and ruthless competitors will be coming down the
runs every year. Like a western gunfighter, he'll eventually be overtaken by
the winner-take-all code. For the Lone Wolf competitor, forced retirement is
only a bad season or a single accident away.
Criterion's DVD of Downhill Racer is a great-looking enhanced
transfer of an excellent picture that was reportedly not given much of a
release by Paramount Pictures. The digital cleanup is careful not to disturb
original flaws in some of the 16mm material, including a brief flurry of
emulsion spotting during one of the best high-speed spills. Kenyon Hopkins,
a composer noted for his work with Elia Kazan and Robert Rosson, provides an
effective and unobtrusive score.
Robert Redford and screenwriter James Salter appear in a new interview
explaining the studio politics that both aided and obstructed the film's
production. Another set of interviews gathers the production manager, the
film editor and a pro skier / ski double to provide technical details of the
shoot. Director Ritchie would work again with Redford on The
Candidate; he passed away in 2001. Ritchie appears in an audio interview
from 1977 when he was at the peak of his career.
In addition to an original trailer the disc offers How Fast?, a
promotional featurette narrated by Robert Redford that plays more like a
quality short subject. The insert booklet carries an exceptionally good
essay by critic Todd McCarthy.
For more information about Downhill Racer, visit The Criterion Collection. To order
Downhill Racer, go to
TCM Shopping.
by Glenn Erickson
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