Released: 1965
Length: 170 minutes
Producer: Olympic Organizing Board/Toho
Director: Ichikawa, Kon
Screenplay: Wada, Natto; Shirasaka, Yoshio;
Tanikawa, Shuntaro; Ichikawa Kon
Cinematography: Hayashida, Shigeo; Miyagawa,
Kazuo; Nagano, Shigeichi; Makamura, Kinichi; Tanaka, Tadashi
Music: Mayuzumi, Toshiro
Cast: The athletes of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics
and the people of Tokyo...
Awards: Kinema Jumpo #2, 1965.
Commentary:
Ichikawa is perhaps best known for his antiwar films, including The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959), as well as for his somewhat quirky films based on famous Japanese literary works, such as Odd Obsession (1959), The Broken Commandment (1962), I Am a Cat (1975), and The Makioka Sisters (1983). He was therefore a rather strange choice when the Tokyo Olympic Committee selected a director to film Japan's first Olympic games in 1964. But Ichikawa had shown considerable adaptability, so perhaps the committee felt he could do the job after Kurosawa's budget demands proved to be too much even for the lavish Olympic effort planned to celebrate Japan's (re)emergence into the community of nations.
Ichikawa mounted an enormous effort to capture the games on film: 164 cameramen, more than 100 cameras, live synch sound using microphones buried all over the new Olympic stadium -- overall he spent nearly a million dollars (that's 1964 dollars!) making the film. By the end of the games, Ichikawa had over 70 hours of film, which was edited entirely under his direct supervision.
This original director's cut was seen only once -- by the Olympic Organizing Board. Stunned by Ichikawa's unconventional documentary of what was perhaps Japan's proudest moment in the 20th century, the Board asked Ichikawa if he couldn't redo the film more to their liking. Ichikawa told them this was impossible, since the "cast" had already gone home. He compromised, however, reducing the length of the film to a 154 minute version which was grudgingly released to an enthusiastic response in Japan and at the international film festival in Cannes.
Later releases of the film ranged from a butchered 93 minute version originally shown in the US to the present 170 minute Criterion version (which is probably as close to Ichikawa's intent as we'll ever get).
Tokyo Olympiad is anything but a conventional sports documentary, although this may not seem immediately obvious in today's climate of "up close and personal" sports coverage. Ichikawa focuses on the individual athletes and on the details of the games -- things like dripping rain, the "thump" as a shot-put hits the field, audience reactions, etc. What comes through most clearly nearly 40 years after the film was made, however, is the tremendous importance of the 1964 games as a symbol of Japan's recovery from the dark days of World War II and the pride of finally being accepted in the world, especially by the west. That and some truly incredible images of individual athletic skill.