100 Years of Olympic Films

27: Lillehammer 1994

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Synopsis

Spanning fifty-three movies and forty-one editions of the Olympic Summer and Winter Games, this one-of-a-kind collection assembles, for the first time, a century’s worth of Olympic films—the culmination of a monumental, award-winning archival project encompassing dozens of new restorations by the International Olympic Committee. These documentaries cast a cinematic eye on some of the most iconic moments in the history of modern sports, spotlighting athletes who embody the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger”: Jesse Owens shattering sprinting world records on the track in 1936 Berlin, Jean Claude-Killy dominating the slopes of Grenoble in 1968, Joan Benoit breaking away to win the first-ever women’s marathon on the streets of Los Angeles in 1984. In addition to the work of Bud Greenspan, the man behind an impressive ten Olympic features, this stirring collective chronicle of triumph and defeat includes such landmarks of the documentary form as Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia and Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad, along with lesser-known but captivating contributions by major directors like Claude Lelouch, Carlos Saura, and Miloš Forman. It also serves as a fascinating window onto the formal development of cinema itself, as well as the technological progress that has enabled the viewer, over the years, to get ever closer to the action. Traversing continents and decades, and reflecting as well the social, cultural, and political changes that have shaped our recent history, this remarkable marathon of films offers nothing less than a panorama of a hundred years of human endeavor.

Picture 6/10

Disc 27 of Criterion’s massive Blu-ray box set 100 Years of Olympic Films present Bud Greenspan’s Lillehammer ’94: 16 Days of Glory, covering the 1994 Winter Games, on a dual-layer disc in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is presented with a 1080i/60hz high-definition encode.

Greenspan did film everything on 16mm film (as I understand it) but since it was being produced for television the film was transferred to tape and edited together on that format. This tape is what the IOC has ultimately stored and that’s what has been used for the source of this presentation. Since Adrian Wood did a new scan and restoration for One Light, One World on the previous disc (which was also stored on tape) I’m going to assume he was unable to do that for this film, possibly because the original materials don’t exist anymore (I’m going to stress that I’m guessing this to be the case).

With that in mind the end product still comes out looking decent enough but it’s ultimately just an above average video presentation. It has that fuzzy video look that limits details but it’s still far better than what a VHS or even DVD presentation would probably offer. Having said that fast motions can have obvious motion blur and I still miss that crispness that was available on most of the presentations prior to this. There are also plenty of artifacts, with jagged edges and shimmering being the worst offenders. The only real plus here is that colours look good, with blues, reds, and the like (and yes, there is still neon present) all looking good. Even blacks look fine. But again, don’t expect anything better than an above-average video presentation.

Audio 7/10

The film still receives a lossless 2.0 PCM stereo surround presentation and it is, at the very least, far better than what a VHS could ever offer. The sound quality is razor sharp and the sound from the events and the crowds are rich and deep, filling in the environment rather nicely. It’s not an overly ambitious presentation, but it works for the film.

Extras 5/10

As mentioned in the other articles on this set there are no on-disc special features to speak of. The set does come with an incredibly thorough 216-page hardbound book, featuring material on the restorations by Adrian Wood along with essays covering the films, all written by film scholar Peter Cowie. It is also filled with photos from the various events. Each film gets its own essay. Cowie’s essay on this film examines how Greenspan changed his focus with this documentary, after the 24 hours news cycle had already oversaturated the Games (and I assume the whole Harding/Kerrigan thing didn’t help as well). Greenspan this time around focuses more time on specific athletes rather than the events, with even the opening and closing ceremonies receiving little fanfare. (The grade given here refers to the supplements for the set as a whole, which, in this case, is just the included book.)

Closing

Sourced from video, the final presentation looks, at best, to be above average video quality, making for one of the weaker looking presentations in the set.

Part of a multi-title set

BUY AT: Amazon.com Amazon.ca

 
 
Blu-ray
32 Discs | BD-50
1.33:1 ratio
1.37:1 ratio
1.66:1 ratio
1.78:1 ratio
1.85:1 ratio
2.35:1 ratio
2.39:1 ratio
1.35:1 ratio
English 1.0 PCM Mono
French 1.0 PCM Mono
Spanish 1.0 PCM Mono
Japanese 1.0 PCM Mono
Italian 1.0 PCM Mono
Russian 1.0 PCM Mono
Swedish 1.0 PCM Mono
German 1.0 PCM Mono
Finnish 1.0 PCM Mono
Korean 1.0 PCM Mono
Norwegian 1.0 PCM Mono
English 2.0 PCM Stereo
Spanish 2.0 PCM Stereo
Korean 2.0 PCM Stereo
Musical Score 2.0 PCM Stereo
English 5.1 DTS-HD MA Surround
French 5.1 DTS-HD MA Surround
Mandarin 5.1 DTS-HD MA Surround
Subtitles: English
Region A
 
 A lavishly illustrated, 216-page hardcover book, featuring notes on the films by cinema historian Peter Cowie; a foreword by Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee; a short history of the restoration project by restoration producer Adrian Wood; and hundreds of photographs from a century of Olympic Games