Classic Movie Review: Chariots of Fire

Best Picture: #54
Original Release Date: September 25, 1981
Rating: PG
Runtime: 2 hours, 5 minutes
Director: Hugh Hudson

Quick Impressions:
As we geared up to watch Chariots of Fire, I spent about two weeks humming the theme song to my daughter, convinced that she would eventually recognize it.  After all, the catchy, inspiring music by Vangelis didn’t just win the Oscar for Best Score.  It dominated the 1980s, popping up everywhere.  As soon as that inspiring theme plays, I think fondly of the first Vacation movie, but I’m positive it showed up in countless sitcoms and commercials, too.  And there were also non-parodic uses of the theme.  I’m sure I’ve sung it as a praise chorus, heard it playing in the background at the mall, and hummed it non-stop as I did clumsy cartwheels on my 1984 Sam the Olympic Eagle towel, pretending I was Mary Lou Retton.

But my daughter would just stare at me blankly.  “Maybe I’ll recognize it when I hear it in the movie,” she’d say.

“Maybe you just don’t know it,” I finally realized.  That theme may have been everywhere in the 1980s, but my daughter wasn’t anywhere until 2009.

Then as the movie began, she immediately cried in recognition, “Ohhhh!  This song!  Everyone knows this song!”

I was a little exasperated since I had hummed the melody of the entire song so many times.  (I mean, I didn’t do the “bwuhbwuhbuwhbuwhbwuh” parts.  Just the fact that I say there are “bwuhbwuhbwuhbwuhbwuh” parts tells you I’m not a musician.  But I can carry a tune!)

After several majestic seconds, she decided, “This song is really overwhelming.”

“Yes,” I answered, “it overwhelmed the whole 80s.”

“It’s a meme now,” she said.

“It was basically a meme then,” I told her.  “We just hadn’t quite defined the concept.”

Then my son wandered down to see if we were watching Tik-Toks.  Apparently he’s also familiar with the theme song as a meme.

So (as long as I’m not humming it) everyone in the entire house is more than familiar with the main theme of Chariots of Fire.  But I had never seen the movie before.  I knew it was about Olympians.  I should have guessed religion was a central theme of the story, too, because I always think of that theme as being a hymn.  For some reason, I know lyrics to it.  All I can remember for sure is, “I give you my heart, my strength, my joy,/ I give you my all.”  My Google searches suggest that various Christian musicians have taken a stab at writing lyrics for this majestic earworm, though I can’t seem to find the exact version I remember singing as a child in church.  (I can’t even remember which church I was attending when we sang it.  We moved all the time.)

The Plot:
Two British runners race toward glory at the 1924 Paris Olympics. One, the son of Scottish missionaries, Eric Liddell lets his Christian faith influence his every step.  The other, the son of a Lithuanian immigrant, Harold Abrahams runs to prove to his classmates at Cambridge that he’s as good an Englishman as any of them, even though he is Jewish.  Both men run brilliantly and think daily about their religious and cultural identities.  But each runs a different race.

The Good:
Chariots of Fire initially gives the impression of being about two runners on the British Olympic team in 1924, but I think it’s actually much more about Harold Abrahams than Eric Liddell.  In fact, if I remade this movie, I would place the emphasis even more clearly on Abrahams because the biggest thing Liddell actually does in the story is step aside and create an opportunity that Abrahams is ready to seize. The real story here is about Harold Abrahams. Eric Liddell is the man who inspires him. (Eric’s almost like a ghost Harold is always racing even when he’s not physically present on the track.)

Ben Cross is quite good as Harold, who comes across as the more dynamic of the two protagonists.  (I mean that literally.  He’s the one who grows and changes.  Eric starts out a gifted runner devoted to his Christian faith and never really deviates from that course.)  There’s something kind of otherworldly about Eric (played well enough by Ian Charleson), but it’s Harold whose adventures seem more relatable.  (Maybe this is the film’s attempt to counteract any lingering anti-Semitism in audiences.  The characters talk constantly about Harold’s Jewishness and Eric’s Christianity.  Both are mentioned repeatedly in scene after scene.  It’s almost like a trick.  We see how much their faith matters to them.  But to us, the audience, their humanity makes a bigger impression.  Though I’m a Christian, I find Harold far easier to relate to.  He seems more like me. I can relate to his feelings of being an outsider.  I can understand how that motivates him.  I can appreciate all his hard work.  And I rejoice in his love of Gilbert and Sullivan because that brings some great music into the movie.) Now don’t get me wrong. Eric is also a person of fine character who possesses a number of admirable traits, but it’s easier to cheer for the man who works tirelessly to improve as an athlete than the one who could outrun a cheetah with his eyes closed but refuses to compete when the time comes.

To be clear, I respect Eric’s choice to honor God, and I do think Christians who share his beliefs about honoring Sunday as the sabbath will be encouraged by his example. But Eric’s decision not to run comes from such a place of privilege. (Given the behavior of everyone in the movie, it’s hard to believe that the British Olympic committee would work so hard to accommodate Harold if he refused to participate in a heat on Saturday.) And I’m confused about why Eric keeps letting his sister make him feel guilty about running, and why she feels so driven to persist in that behavior. Why would Eric’s creator be upset to see him use his natural gifts? Clearly the one who resents Eric’s Olympic endeavors is his sister, not his God. But I do respect Eric. For me, though, it’s just easier to identify with the person who is actively working to improve as a runner, so he can prove himself. If the movie wanted to explore the tension between Eric and his sister, I’d be interested. But as things stand, Harold is the character I find far more relatable and more fully developed and explored, and the film works best when it’s Harold we’re following.

I also love Harold’s girlfriend, Sybil Gordon (a delightful Alice Krige).  When she’s around, the movie finds a sense of fun. “Why is she always whispering?” my daughter would ask with bemused delight.  She reminds me a bit of Dianne Wiest’s character in Bullets Over Broadway.  I could never decide if this character intends to be taken entirely seriously, or if she just enjoys entertaining people so much that she’s thrilled to bring a bit of drama everywhere she goes.

Also fantastic is Ian Holm who received his only Oscar nomination for his memorable turn as Harold’s trainer, Sam Mussabini.  In fact, Holm arguably gives the best performance in the entire movie.  He gets a wonderful moment in his celebration scene after Harold’s win.

As Cambridge masters, John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson outdo themselves in haughty disdain, oozing subtle (and not-so-subtle) snobbery.  And I also liked Nigel Havers as Lord Lindsay (even though his character is heavily fictionalized).

Chariots of Fire also won Oscars for screenplay, costume design, and score.  Taken together, costume design and score give us the unlikely essence of this movie.  Everywhere we look, it’s 1924.  But when that music starts (any part of the score, really, not just the iconic theme), you want to cock your head and ask, “Are you sure it’s not the 1980s right now?”  The incongruity between what we see and what we hear creates a unique, memorable ambiance for the film.

Best Action Sequence/Best Scene:
Probably my favorite moment in the movie is when Harold first watches Eric race, and Eric falls.  To me this is one of the most exciting and satisfying moments in Chariots of Fire.  In fact, this is the best moment involving Eric.

Best Scene Visually/Aurally:
It’s hard to beat that iconic run along the beach that opens and closes the film.  Surprisingly, in light of how often it’s been borrowed for parody or praise choruses, the film’s theme by Vangelis remains quite powerful and managed to stir up feelings of inspiration within me even when I attempted to watch it with ironic distance. 

In a training montage toward the middle of the film, we get a second Vangelis theme which (while not as well known as the first) is nearly just as good.

The Negatives:
I wanted more from Chariots of Fire.  On paper, Eric’s story is magnificent.  He’s such a gifted, determined runner that he can fall all the way to the ground during a race, then somehow get up and win with a commanding lead.  That shows not only training, grit, and determination, but also extraordinary giftedness.  A champion gets up and finishes the race.  A future Olympic gold medalist gets up and wins it.  You won’t win if you don’t get up, but even if you do get up, actually winning the race at that point becomes an extraordinary feat.  Not just anyone can do it.  So Eric is a remarkably gifted man who obviously cares about his career as a runner (because a gifted athlete who didn’t care would stay down).  And yet he refuses to run a heat (in a race he’s heavily favored to win) on a Sunday.  The entire world is watching, and an Olympic gold medal is on the line. He gives that all up to honor his faith.

After reading that paragraph, wouldn’t you expect Eric to be fascinating?  A character like that should be immensely compelling, and he should dominate (at least his half of) the movie.

But he isn’t, and he doesn’t.

On paper, he’s great.  But in execution, something about Eric’s story falls terribly flat. 

My daughter clearly articulated a vague complaint that gnawed at me the whole time I watched Chariots of Fire.  “Eric’s only personality trait is being a Christian,” she said.

Blunt but true.

By contrast, Harold is so multidimensional and interesting that the film seems unbalanced.  Harold has more passions and hobbies.  He has more friends.  He has more enemies.  He has a love interest.  He has more motivation to run and more of a struggle to achieve Eric’s level of natural greatness. 

Now part of this is obviously a point that the movie’s making, and a point that Harold himself makes.

Eric shows up in Scotland for the first time in years (maybe the first time ever since he was born in China to missionary parents).  He makes a speech and declares himself a Scot who loves Scotland.  Everyone cries, “Hooray!”  And they all embrace him.

Meanwhile, Harold (thanks to his father’s determined backing) seems to be checking every box on the way to being a highly respectable Englishman.  He’s an athlete, a musician, an academically steady student at Cambridge.  He’s handsome, personable, impeccably dressed.  He knows all the right people and does all the right things.  In fact, he pulls off an athletic feat at Cambridge that no one has managed in centuries.  Then he says, “I’m an Englishman, just like all of you,” and they reply, “Huh, you seem kind of Jewish, though…”

When Eric refuses to run on a Sunday, the people in charge are annoyed and frustrated, sure, but he’s an exceptionally gifted Christian.  What can they do?  Meanwhile Harold gets chewed out for trying to win (by hiring a coach and working hard).  The implication seems to be, “We want you to win.  We just don’t want you to appear to try,” along with the unstated but heavily hinted, “P.S. If you insist on trying something, try to be less Jewish.  We find it embarrassing.”

So of course, Harold is going to be trying harder than Eric.  By all appearances, Eric is more naturally gifted as a runner.  And, although he’s vexingly a bit too Christian for highbrow tastes, at least (from their point of view) he is Christian.  He’s a white, Christian man with Scottish parents.  His identity is much more convenient.  So, as a result, the most significant thing Eric does is choose not to run.  Meanwhile, Harold is continuously trying harder both as an athlete and an Englishman.  He’s the one who wants to be accepted.  He’s the one with something to prove.  As a result, we see a lot more of his efforts, and so the audience naturally responds with greater feeling to Harold.  We spend more time with him.  We see all his work, all his frustration.  We also see everything that makes him human.  By comparison, Eric seems kind of vaguely drawn.  He doesn’t seem as human.  Even he seems to think of himself as a vessel, running for God’s glory, not running for God’s glory.  His own needs and desires do not matter. Harold, on the other hand, is running to prove himself.  That’s a narrative that resonates with most audiences.  We see more of Harold’s humanity, so Harold seems more like us, and we like Harold.

Despite the fact that we’re Christians ourselves, my daughter and I were one million times more invested in Harold as a character.  We identified with his frustration and desperation.  We admired his hard work and training.  (We loved his girlfriend who wouldn’t stop whispering, and his trainer who worked a lifetime to earn vicarious honor and acceptance.)

Of course, Harold might seem more well-rounded and interesting simply because he gets more time (especially in the second half of the movie where Eric all but disappears).  After the film, I discovered that a big chunk of the movie was cut for time, including lots of material related to Eric’s personal life (especially his wooing of a Canadian woman).  For me, the depiction of Eric’s personal life doesn’t really work.  Except for running and not running on Sunday, all Eric ever gets to do is listen to his sister yell at him for not dedicating enough of his time to evangelism and missionary work.  These scenes feel unbalanced.  The sister is not very interesting.  (In fact, she was so boring, that whenever she talked, I just zoned out and thought about Jane Eyre.) I did constantly wonder what right she thought she had to boss her brother around that way.  For a while, I worried that maybe I had misheard something. Was she his wife? She behaves more like a (toxic) love interest than a sister.  But it’s not clear why they have this dynamic.  Perhaps if the sister had a better part, we could become more invested in Eric’s personal life.  As is, he simply doesn’t seem to have much of a personal life.  He seems to vanish into his athletic gifts and his faith. Harold also has faith and athletic gifts, but there’s more to him than that.

And it’s not only Harold who is more interesting than Eric.  Basically, everybody else in the movie is more interesting than Eric, too–Harold’s girlfriend, Harold’s trainer.  Even Lord Lindsay is sometimes more interesting than Eric, and he’s kind of made up (based on a real lord who wouldn’t let his name be used in the film).

When somebody falls to the ground during a race, gets up, still wins, and then decides not to compete in that race at the Olympics because the heat is on a Sunday, and then that character is the most boring person in the movie, something is wrong.

Also, with all this emphasis on faith and religious identity, if I were making this movie, I’d find a way of drawing more attention to the fact that Harold wins gold in the race Eric skips for religious reasons.  That’s one element of the story with immense dramatic potential.  It’s uncanny, kind of like how Gary Sinise’s character is exposed to measles in Apollo 13.

Overall:
Chariots of Fire has iconic, memorable music (especially its main theme), and a story that’s riveting on paper.  I think it stumbles a bit in execution, but since it struggled to its feet, kept running, and won the Best Picture race of 1981, I guess I can’t fault it much.