Picture of the film VISIONS OF EIGHT by Miloš FORMAN, Kon ICHIKAWA, Claude LELOUCH, Youri OZEROV, Arthur PENN, Michael PFLEGHAR, John SCHLESINGER, Mai ZETTERLING © IOC
Visions of Eight: summer of ’72 forever
Over and above serving as the official documentary for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Visions of Eight offers up eight perspectives of this sporting event, as seen through the lenses of eight iconic directors. Awarded the Golden Globe for best documentary in 1974, the film(s) by Youri Ozerov, Kon Ichikawa, Michael Pfleghar, and their five fellow filmmakers marked a turning point in how sport went on to be filmed.
The film looks at sport from all angles, covering the Munich Olympics through eight different subjects, from well-established events such as the decathlon, the 100 metres and the marathon to broader issues such as women and losing athletes. Widely deemed to be the most impactful, The Longest by John Schlesinger examines Palestinian militant organisation Black September's terrorist attack on members of the Israeli Olympic team, who were taken hostage and assassinated.
Yet the other directors dazzle just as intensely, from Claude Lelouch's handling of sporting defeat and Arthur Penn with his slow-motion crawl shots, to Miloš Forman's take on the decathlon and Mai Zetterling and her weightlifting sequences.
Eight visions from eight great filmmakers, collated in a complex, fascinating hybrid documentary reminiscent of the Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 by Naomi Kawase, also selected for Cannes Classics. Snapshots to remind viewers of the words of journalist Jean Dion: "Sport is a game of thrills".
