A treasure trove of Olympic gold

Official films of the Games are being restored.

JO Londres 2012, Athlétisme, saut à la perche Femmes - Finale, Anna ROGOWSKA (POL).

It has been a $41 million seven-year labour of love and the pristine footage on the big screen shows it. For the first time there is an unlined, unmuffled, beautifully shot black and white film of the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm. Athletes in baggy pants are staggering to the finish of the marathon amid fussy well-meaning officials in top hats and coats.

The restored film is a replica, albeit in high definition, of that imagined by AB Svensk Amerikanska Filmkompaniet, which commissioned Pathe to produce the film more than 100 years ago.

This 1912 effort was the first “Olympic Film” and designated a cinematic extravaganza, as earlier footage of the Games from 1900 to 1908 was from newsreels only.

Former IOC president Jacques Rogge decided such historical treasures had to be kept for future generations and initiated a massive restoration and digitisation of the most precious Olympic artefacts. More than 30 people have been involved in obtaining and restoring 50 films for the Olympic Museum and for wider distribution.

Surprisingly, until 2007 the Olympic movement had an ad hoc collection of the films, and had only ever shown them occasionally at the museum. Many were in a fragile state and some were on obsolete formats that were incompatible with modern equipment.

But now the restoration means millions more people will be able to see the films on the big screen during cinematic releases and on the soon to be launched website, the Olympic Channel. Such distribution will be welcomed by the many directors such as the 1996 Atlanta Games director Carlos Saura, who bemoaned that his Olympic work was not extensively released.

The concept of the Olympic film was officially recognised in 1932 and each organising committee since has been contractually obliged to fund one.

Yet many believed the old footage was newsreel and broadcast compilations, not a special cinematic production. British world and Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards, now a broadcaster with the BBC, was at the opening of a new exhibition at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne — The Olympic Games: Behind the Screen is about the history of games broadcasting — and admitted that he had never heard of the official films.

The London 2012 official film almost never saw the light of day. Director Caroline Rowland had produced several videos to help London win the bid, and with no budget, some of her own funding and a determination to record history, she scrambled three cameras, begged for preferred positions during the Games competition and produced First, a film about 12 athletes and their initial Games experience.

“The broadcast rights holders pay huge sums for the best broadcast positions, so it is not that easy to walk in on the first day as the poor relation, we were not the loved and wanted.” Rowland says.

“It is not a sporting film; it is about hubris, growing up, coming of age ... Preservation of that moment in time is absolutely vital.”

The inclusion of the story of Australian BMX rider Caroline Buchanan was about disappointment rather than glory. David Puttnam, who produced the Academy Award-winning Chariots of Fire was a fan. He told Rowland: “The stories of disappointment live with me beyond the film, therein lies the beauty of this film.”

The concept of the official film is to illustrate the Games in an artistic and creative light, says IOC consultant and archive documentary-maker Adrian Wood. Indeed the IOC requires that it is not to be a highlights reel or roundup and is has to reflect a union of nations and diversity.

So we see scenes in the Sochi 2014 film Rings of the World, by Sergey Miroshinichenko, of Australia’s medallist David Morris and his competitors flying through the air in slow motion, but not their takeoff or landing. The stunning technique was first used by the controversial filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in the 1936 Berlin official film Olympia during a particularly artful diving sequence.

Academy honorary award winner, historian Kevin Brownlow, who met Riefenstahl, says she was unfairly victimised for her closeness to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, yet her pioneering filmmaking techniques set the standard for today’s generation.

Riefenstahl’s famous diving segment was cut for the film without alteration in three days and she told Brownlow that filming the Games “was so awful I had no private life”. But she was a perfectionist too. The pole vault competition finished under lights and she was unable to film it, so she demanded the competitors return the next morning to recreate the competition.

The 1956 Melbourne Olympics official film was actually two films. A French company produced Rendezvous in Melbourne directed by Reni Lucot while the second film 1956 The Official Film was directed by Peter Whitchurch and is still being worked on.

The Sydney 2000 official film Sydney 2000: Gold from Down Under was directed by Emmy Award winner Bud Greenspan, best known for his Olympic documentary series, and his partner Nancy Beffa.

By the end of this year, the restoration project will be complete and 50 films will have been digitalised, copied and securely stored.

Some of the films have different versions: the 1996 Atlanta film has a long version created by director Carlos Saura and a shorter version after significant chopping by the producer. “We luckily found the missing negative so we now have the director’s cut and the producer’s cut,” says Wood. The haunting women’s marathon scene, one of the most moving sequences of all Olympic films, was included in both cuts.

Just two films are required to complete the archive. Officials are still hunting down the original negatives for the 1960 official film Squaw Valley and the 1924 Olympic film Les Jeux Olympiques Paris 1924 which includes Johnny Weismuller, not as Tarzan but as an Olympic swimmer. In that film French officials provide wine, as well as water, to help runners rehydrate during the marathon.

IOC head of film restoration Robert Jacquier says they have some later reproductions of both films that they can work on if the original negatives can’t be found. “But if we have the original negative it would be better,’’ he says.

Once completely restored the official Olympic films will be available to view on the soon to be launched Olympic Channel and in various cinema releases.