These Games were in America, but “People, Hopes, Medals” was a (West) German production. That might well be why the very first athlete we see compete is downhill skier from Deutschland and why we even briefly hop across the ocean to Munich where the German Nordic Combined winner Georg Thoma triumphantly returns home. Then again, he was the first non-Nordic to win the event and perhaps that was worth lingering over. Even so, the movie feels American in its presentation, the dueling German narrators – Heinz Fischer-Karwin and Heinz Maegerlein – frequently evoking “The stars are out!” narrators of the Oscar red carpet in their breezy tenor. They also crack jokes, wondering aloud at one point what event they should segue to next. (They even sometimes poke fun at spectators and competitors in a way that I wouldn’t hesitate to call mean-spirited.) There are other Olympic documentaries that have nonchalant passages, like 1956’s “Rendez-Vous a Melbourne”, but rarely one that is as thoroughly nonchalant as “People, Hopes, Medals”, sort of assuming the perspective of the spectator we see in the shadow of a ski jump platform smoking a cigarette, playing it cool.
That relaxed manner is mostly expressed through music. Here and there Meisel lets the soundtrack drop out to revel in the sounds of the game, like the less famous U.S. hockey upset of the U.S.S.R., where prominent boos can be heard from the crowd, though to what point and purpose is never exactly explained. But that’s an outlier, as if fearful such vérité will mellow the buzz, instead opting for a nigh omnipresent score of orchestral big band music that renders so much Olympian bravado, from the ski slopes to the skating rink, as carefree. When we see cross country skiers huffing and puffing, or windy conditions at the top of the downhill run, the dissonance between the image on screen and the jauntiness of the score is profound. Honestly, I kind of loved this jovial approach, especially in light of our recently (understandably) dour Olympics, to feel like I had just wandered into a full length 1960s newsreel recounting our Olympic athletes like so many radiant silver screen gladiators. In one avant-garde touch, Meisel will from time to time cut to a reoccurring image of fireworks. “Stars, all of them stars,” the narrator says each time, equating an athlete’s preceding feat of strength with a comet streaking across the sky.
That relaxed manner is mostly expressed through music. Here and there Meisel lets the soundtrack drop out to revel in the sounds of the game, like the less famous U.S. hockey upset of the U.S.S.R., where prominent boos can be heard from the crowd, though to what point and purpose is never exactly explained. But that’s an outlier, as if fearful such vérité will mellow the buzz, instead opting for a nigh omnipresent score of orchestral big band music that renders so much Olympian bravado, from the ski slopes to the skating rink, as carefree. When we see cross country skiers huffing and puffing, or windy conditions at the top of the downhill run, the dissonance between the image on screen and the jauntiness of the score is profound. Honestly, I kind of loved this jovial approach, especially in light of our recently (understandably) dour Olympics, to feel like I had just wandered into a full length 1960s newsreel recounting our Olympic athletes like so many radiant silver screen gladiators. In one avant-garde touch, Meisel will from time to time cut to a reoccurring image of fireworks. “Stars, all of them stars,” the narrator says each time, equating an athlete’s preceding feat of strength with a comet streaking across the sky.
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