Blog Post # 13 : Chariots of Fire (1981) : Legs of Lightning

'Chariots of Fire' is a 1981 British historical drama film. It tells the real life story of two athletes  : Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice and both their exploits in the 1924 Olympics . The film received 7 nominations and won 4 Oscars, cementing it as one of the best movies of all time. The film was rated 7.3/10 on IMDB and 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.

For glory. For country. For a gold medal.

Plot :

In 1919, Harold Abrahams enters the University of Cambridge, where he experiences anti-Semitism from the staff, but enjoys participating in the Gilbert and Sullivan club. He becomes the first person to ever complete the Trinity Great Court Run (running around the college courtyard in the time it takes for the clock to strike 12). Abrahams achieves an undefeated string of victories in various national running competitions. Although focused on his running, he falls in love with a leading Gilbert and Sullivan soprano, Sybil. Eric Liddell, born in China of Scottish missionary parents, is in Scotland. His devout sister Jennie disapproves of Liddell's plans to pursue competitive running. But Liddell sees running as a way of glorifying God before returning to China to work as a missionary. When they first race against each other, Liddell beats Abrahams. Abrahams takes it poorly, but Sam Mussabini, a professional trainer whom he had approached earlier, offers to take him on to improve his technique. This attracts criticism from the Cambridge college masters, who allege it is not gentlemanly for an amateur to "play the tradesman" by employing a professional coach. Abrahams dismisses this concern, interpreting it as cover for anti-Semitic and class-based prejudice. When Eric Liddell accidentally misses a church prayer meeting because of his running, his sister Jennie upbraids him and accuses him of no longer caring about God. Eric tells her that though he intends to eventually return to the China mission, he feels divinely inspired when running, and that not to run would be to dishonour God, saying, "I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure." The two athletes, after years of training and racing, are accepted to represent Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Also accepted are Abrahams' Cambridge friends, Lord Andrew Lindsay, Aubrey Montague, and Henry Stallard. While boarding the boat to Paris for the Olympics, Liddell learns the news that the heat for his 100-metre race will be on a Sunday, which is on the Sabbath. He refuses to run the race despite strong pressure from the Prince of Wales and the British Olympic committee because his Christian convictions prevent him from running on the Sabbath. Hope appears when Liddell's teammate Lindsay, having already won a silver medal in the 400 metres hurdles, proposes to yield his place in the 400-metre race on the following Thursday to Liddell, who gratefully agrees. His religious convictions in the face of national athletic pride make headlines around the world. Abrahams is badly beaten by the heavily favoured United States runners in the 200 metre race. He knows his last chance for a medal will be the 100 metres. He competes in the race, and wins. His coach Sam Mussabini is overcome that the years of dedication and training have paid off with an Olympic gold medal. Now Abrahams can get on with his life and reunite with his girlfriend Sybil, whom he had neglected for the sake of running. Before Liddell's race, the American coach remarks dismissively to his runners that Liddell has little chance of doing well in his now far longer 400 metre race. But one of the American runners, Jackson Scholz, hands Liddell a note of support for his convictions. Liddell defeats the American favourites and wins the gold medal. The British team returns home triumphant. As the film ends, onscreen text explains that Abrahams married Sybil, and became the elder statesman of British athletics. Liddell went on to missionary work in China. All of Scotland mourned his death in 1945 in Japanese-occupied China.

Analysis & Reflection :

When I was little, I used to compete in all running events for my class and sports house, as I was always the fastest runner. Therefore, when I watched this movie, I couldn't help but feel a tinge of nostalgia. Any and every person who has ever played sports competitively would have felt stress, nervousness, passion, and hope on the journey to success. In this film, it was clear that both Abrahams and Liddell felt this, and the film centred around these themes, especially their motivations. 

The moment Abrahams knew he had to beat Liddell or die trying

First of all, Abrahams was a Jew, and was subject to discrimination and prejudice in the English society. This made him insecure and inferior, and according to Alfred Adler’s theory of the inferiority complex, feelings as the source of human striving seem to fit Abrahams and his behavior really well. Based on the theory, it was posited that all humans experience inferiority and was the cause of all human striving and motivations. Humans would then grow from the effort of overcoming the inferiority, a process he (Adler) called compensation. This could be seen in Abraham's personality, when he was motivated to train for running due to his overwhelming desire to fit in the society despite prejudice and being recognized as an excellent gold medal winner by the entire world. It is particularly evident in one scene in the movie, where he (Abrahams) tells Sybil about his motivations for running, which starts with Sybil asking him whether he loved running, to which he replies "I'm more of an addict actually. It's a compulsion. A weapon". She then asks him "Against what?" to which he then replies "Being Jewish, I suppose".

And if I lose? 0_0

On the other hand, Liddell's motivation was derived from his faith in God. According to McClelland's needs-motivation theory, a human's motivation is derived from 3 things, namely achievement, power, and affiliation. Power is divided into two types, namely personal power and institutional power. In this context, Liddell is motivated by the need for institutional power, in which the institution is Christianity. He is depicted as a very very religious man in the film, even going so far as to decide to not run on the Sabbath and attend church. He even tells his sister, Jennie, that he believes that God created him, but also made him to be fast, and believes that to not run at all would be to dishonour God, indicating that God is the main reason for Liddell's participation in the Olympics.

GOD HELP ME

Conclusion :

This movie was fast-paced (pun intended) but still managed to explain the back stories of Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, both of whom were real-life people who achieved what was depicted in the movie. A story of hope and success, the movie teaches us to never give up on our dreams.

*Cue music*

Rating : 6/10

Blog Post # 12 : Schindler's List (1993) : Holocaust Hero

One of my personal favourites, Schindler's List is a 1993 American epic historical period drama film, directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and scripted by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the novel 'Schindler's Ark' by Thomas Keneally, an Australian novelist. The film is based on the life of Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Amon Goeth, and Ben Kingsley (who has a knack for acting in award-winning films) as Schindler's Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern. The movie received 12 nominations, and won a staggering amount of 7 Oscars, and various other awards. The movie was rated 8.9/10 on IMDB and a crazy-high 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Hail

Plot :

In Kraków during World War II, the Germans had forced local Polish Jews into the overcrowded Kraków Ghetto. Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German, arrives in the city hoping to make his fortune. A member of the Nazi Party, Schindler lavishes bribes on Wehrmacht (German armed forces) and SS officials and acquires a factory to produce enamelware. To help him run the business, Schindler enlists the aid of Itzhak Stern, a local Jewish official who has contacts with black marketeers and the Jewish business community. Stern helps Schindler arrange loans to finance the factory. Schindler maintains friendly relations with the Nazis and enjoys wealth and status as "Herr Direktor", and Stern handles administration. Schindler hires Jewish workers because they cost less, while Stern ensures that as many people as possible are deemed essential to the German war effort, which saves them from being transported to concentration camps or killed. SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) Amon Goeth arrives in Kraków to oversee construction of Płaszów concentration camp. When the camp is completed, he orders the ghetto liquidated. Many people are shot and killed in the process of emptying the ghetto. Schindler witnesses the massacre and is profoundly affected. He particularly notices a tiny girl in a red coat – one of the few splashes of color in the black-and-white film – as she hides from the Nazis, and later sees her body (identifiable by the red coat) among those on a wagonload being taken away to be burned. Schindler is careful to maintain his friendship with Goeth and, through bribery and lavish gifts, continues to enjoy SS support. Goeth brutally mistreats his maid and randomly shoots people from the balcony of his villa, and the prisoners are in constant daily fear for their lives. As time passes, Schindler's focus shifts from making money to trying to save as many lives as possible. He bribes Goeth into allowing him to build a sub-camp for his workers so that he can better protect them. As the Germans begin to lose the war, Goeth is ordered to ship the remaining Jews at Płaszów to Auschwitz concentration camp. Schindler asks Goeth to allow him to move his workers to a new munitions factory he plans to build in his home town of Zwittau-Brinnlitz. Goeth agrees, but charges a huge bribe. Schindler and Stern create "Schindler's List" – a list of people to be transferred to Brinnlitz and thus saved from transport to Auschwitz. The train carrying women and children is accidentally redirected to Auschwitz-Birkenau; Schindler bribes Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz with a bag of diamonds to win their release. At the new factory, Schindler forbids the SS guards to enter the production rooms and encourages the Jews to observe the Jewish Sabbath. To keep his workers alive, he spends much of his fortune bribing Nazi officials and buying shell casings from other companies; his factory does not produce any usable armaments during its seven months of operation. Schindler runs out of money in 1945, just as Germany surrenders, ending the war in Europe. As a Nazi Party member and war profiteer, Schindler must flee the advancing Red Army to avoid capture. The SS guards have been ordered to kill the Jews, but Schindler persuades them not to so they can "return to their families as men, not murderers." He bids farewell to his workers and prepares to head west, hoping to surrender to the Americans. The workers give Schindler a signed statement attesting to his role saving Jewish lives, together with a ring engraved with a Talmudic quotation: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." Schindler is touched but is also deeply ashamed, as he feels he should have done even more. As the Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) wake up the next morning, a Soviet soldier announces that they have been liberated. The Jews leave the factory and walk to a nearby town. Following scenes depicting Goeth's execution after the war and a summary of Schindler's later life, the black-and-white frame changes to a color shot of actual Schindlerjuden at Schindler's grave in Jerusalem. Accompanied by the actors who portrayed them, the Schindlerjuden place stones on the grave.

Analysis & Reflection :

To survive in Nazi Germany as a Jew, you needed intelligence, skills, a healthy body and most of all, luck, which in the context of the movie meant working for Oskar. The shot of the camps where they had gassed the “unfit” Jews reminded me of Frankl’s experience, in which even he was lucky enough to escape death at the beginning of his slave days. In his (Frankl) book, 'Man's Search for Meaning', he told of his experiences and was very lucky indeed to have survived the whole ordeal, partly due to his will and purpose of living, something that was difficult to find in tragic times as he was in, at the Auschwitz camp. After reading the entire book a few months ago, I decided that since Frankl could survive the whole experience during his time at the Auschwitz concentration camp (with the lowest amount of hope that anyone could ever have but yet , he still found meaning in living), as could I, with my everyday life problems, which can be considered minute compared to Frankl's problems at the time. 

No Wifi?!? And you think you've got problems?

  

The Lady in Red

In the photo above is one of the few scenes in the movie with actual color in it apart from the constant black and white. To me, it signified the change in Schindler’s conscience that made him do what he did throughout the movie. what was truly captivating to me is that the director used that moment to highlight that little girls movement in a crowd of cruelty and uncertainty, which somehow indicated that everything that was transpiring around the little girl did not faze her and change her innocence, or that even the innocent were not spared. 

Where Am I

Schindler’s list is nothing short of a brilliant movie. It showed the views of various different people within and outside the camps, namely that there were some sympathizers in some group of Germans, whereas some merely relished in their glory and power as others suffered. The levels of hatred we saw in the Germans towards the Jews were unreal, as if that they had had millenia of disgust, disagreements, and rage towards them. Some scenes even showed German children throwing dirt at adult Jews showed the effect that had been passed down from their own parents (nature or nurture, it's their parent's fault). Watching the movie now just makes it seem so much more unreal as the thought of such slave labor and mass killing is just too much for the generation of today to even think about. The question that arose from watching the movie is "what truly made the Nazi soldiers treat the Jews in such a way that remorse was rarely ever seen on their face, if any?" The relationship between the Jews and the Nazi militants reminded me of Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. Despite criticisms on his part, it would seem that when explaining situations of such, his research still holds possibly the best value in which we can study to look for concrete answers. This is due to the experiment possibly being able to indicate the Germans at the time only hated the Jews because they were told to do so (as seen by a scene where Schindler was reprimanded for kissing a Jewish girl at his birthday party).

"Mate, you can't do that, it's against the law"

Conclusion :

All in all a fantastic movie, it makes you ponder on the capabilities of us humans to do both great and destructive things to our fellow man. As we possess the ability to do good, do we also possess the ability to do evil. This film about the Holocaust gives us a glimpse of what the Jews once suffered through, and serves as a painful reminder of tragic history, and the dark side of mankind. That being said, the movies created about the subject matter should be as accurate as can be, as although the depictions were wrong then, and is wrong now, but they should be depicted exactly as they were when it happened, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming that these tragic occurrences never happened.

You PARDON them

Oh what a movie

Like this class :'(

Rating : 9/10