The white stadium
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The white stadium |
| Country of production | Switzerland |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1928 |
| length | 6 acts, 2255 m, approx. 88 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Arnold Fanck , Othmar Gurtner |
| production | Othmar Gurtner |
| camera |
Sepp Allgeier , Hans Schneeberger , Albert Benitz , Richard Angst |
| cut | Arnold Fanck, Walter Ruttmann (ice skating) |
The White Stadium is a Swiss documentary by director Arnold Fanck about the Winter Olympics in St. Moritz in February 1928 . It is the first ever film documentary of the Olympic Winter Games .
content
The film begins with winter landscape shots in the Engadine . Take the Rhaetian Railway to St. Moritz; other guests arrive by car. The Chantarella - cable car brings amateur skiers in the ski area above St. Moritz, while train Olympic athletes in the valley. After the final preparation of the sports facilities, the course of the games, beginning with the opening ceremony in the St. Moritz Stadium in the snowstorm, is shown with the individual disciplines.
You can see:
- 500 meters speed skating : run between John Farrell (USA) and Bertel Backman (FIN) as well as the final between world champion Clas Thunberg (FIN) and Bernt Evensen (NOR), which ended at the same time and led to a shared Olympic victory.
- 5000 meters speed skating: final run between Ivar Ballangrud (NOR) and Julius Skutnabb (FIN); this is followed by slow motion shots of Thunberg (FIN) and Arthur Vollstedt (GER)
- 50 kilometers of cross-country skiing : with Ole Hegge (NOR), Per-Erik Hedlund (SWE), Olav Kjelbotn (NOR) and the Swiss team, consisting of Hans Zeier , Robert Wampfler , Carlo Gourlaouen and Walter Bussmann . With Hedlund's victory, the favored Norwegians are defeated for the first time.
- Military patrol run (30 km team): In the battle of the favorites Norway, Finland and Germany, Norway wins with Ole Imerslund Reistad as the leader of the military patrol.
- Curling
- A horse-drawn sleigh caravan takes you to the somewhat secluded ski jump - the Olympic hill . Erich Recknagel (GER), Sigmund Ruud (NOR) and Alf Andersen (NOR) can be seen in the ski jumping competition , the latter with the Norwegian double victory with 64 meters each. World champion Jacob Tullin Thams (NOR) tries a world record jump, but falls at a jump of 73 meters.
- Skeleton and bobsleigh take place on the natural ice bobsleigh run in St. Moritz . In the skeleton, the battle is focused on England versus America, featuring Lord Northesk (ENG) and John and Jennison Heaton (USA). In the bobsleigh, the teams from Switzerland, Germany and America are shown lying on their stomachs in the five-man bobsleigh and falling head forward down the ice channel.
- A horse race and the demonstration competition in skijoring will be held on the frozen Lake St. Moritz, with a portrait of the winner Rudolf Wettstein (SUI).
- Figure skating men: Nathaniel Niles (USA), Roger Turner (USA), Marcus Nikkanen (FIN), Montgomery Wilson (CAN), Karl Schäfer (AUT), Willy Böckl (AUT) and world and Olympic champion Gillis Grafström (SWE)
- Figure skating women: Melitta Brunner (AUT), Elly Winter (GER), Maribel Vinson (USA), Ellen Brockhöft (GER), Beatrix Loughran (USA) and Constance Wilson (CAN)
- Figure skating pairs: Melitta Brunner / Ludwig Wrede (AUT), Libuše Veselá / Vojtěch Veselý (TCH), Ilse Kishauer / Ernst Gaste (GER), Beatrix Loughran / Sherwin Badger (USA), Josy Van Leberghe / Robert Van Zeebroeck (BEL), the world championship pair Andrée Joly / Pierre Brunet (FRA), Lilly Scholz / Otto Kaiser (AUT) and Theresa Weld Blanchard / Nathaniel Niles (USA)
- The young figure skaters pose in front of the camera, Sonja Henie gives a demonstration of her skills with an extensive run in front of an enthusiastic audience.
- Ice hockey : Canada - Switzerland . With a wink, the first subtitle says that this is the only match in which the Canadians, who have been undefeated for 30 years, have almost lost a goal due to the brilliant playing technique of the Swiss. After every goal of the highly superior Canadians, the change of the digits on the manual scoreboard is cut in between. The game ended 13-0.
The games end with a show event - a kind of ice cream carnival - and the award ceremony for Norway, the winner of the national ranking. The film ends with winter impressions.
background
With this film, Fanck created a new type of sports reporting with its own aesthetic quality, so that the Olympic film could be shown in cinemas. Fanck dedicates the film in an introductory text to the "millions" who did not have the opportunity to be present at the games themselves. The winter landscape of the Engadine is shown from the perspective of the athletes and guests arriving by train in Sankt Moritz. Here mounted Fanck impressions of nature, technical close-ups of the train and the train stations in St. Moritz and Tirano and sensual shots of travelers.
All sports recordings are highlighted in their details through the use of slow motion , as it was later used by Fanck's student Leni Riefenstahl in her Olympic film . The figure skating competitions are reproduced by means of quickly cut recordings of the performances of various runners. Fanck shows the extensively documented ice hockey game from different, sometimes surprising camera perspectives; So he changes from the long shot , which captures the field, but also the mountain landscape from the stands, to close-ups of the players. The impressive technique of the players, the intensity of the sporting confrontation, but also psychological aspects such as the comparison of the two goalkeepers are worked out by Fanck.
Fanck only had two cameras available for filming, with which he still filmed almost 30,000 meters of film. He was able to win over the director Walter Ruttmann as support for the editing, as well as Fanck: "At least he took the editing of the nude about ice skating from me and did it so well that I might not have been able to do it."
The film premiered on March 20, 1928 in the UFA pavilion on Nollendorfplatz in Berlin.
Contemporary reception
"You can call this film one of the best sports films, and so it will probably be very popular with every audience."
Lore
Until 2011 the film was considered lost . After parts of the film on 16-millimeter and 35-millimeter film were found in the Federal Film Archives , the Gosfilmofond of Russia and the Cinémathèque Suisse , the International Olympic Committee had a restored version created in 2012.
Web links
- The White Stadium in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The white stadium at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c The white stadium ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on arte.tv
- ↑ The white stadium. (No longer available online.) Stummfilm.at, formerly in the original ; Retrieved January 20, 2014 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Arnold Fanck : He directed with glaciers, storms and avalanches. A film pioneer tells. Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-485-01756-6 ( online ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On www .stummfilm.at. Accessed February 12, 2014).
