Name: Tokyo Olympiad
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1965-03-20
Duration: 170 min
Rating: 7.7
Cast: Abebe Bikila, Ahmed Issa, Yoshinori Sakai, Joe Frazier, Emperor Hirohito of Japan

Tokyo Olympiad

The Man’s Picture… Every Woman Will Love!

This impressionistic portrait of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics pays as much attention to the crowds and workers as it does to the actual competitive events. Highlights include an epic pole-vaulting match between West Germany and America, and the final marathon race through Tokyo's streets. Two athletes are highlighted: Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila, who receives his second gold medal, and runner Ahamed Isa from Chad, representing a country younger than he is.

Documentary

DirectorKon Ichikawa

WritersKon Ichikawa, Yoshio Shirasaka, Natto Wada, Shuntaro Tanikawa

StatusReleased

LanguageJapanese

Release DateMarch 20, 1965

Runtime2h 50m

100 Years of Olympic Films: 1912–2012

Includes: The 1924 Chamonix Olympic Games, The Olympic Games as They Were Practiced in Ancient Greece, The Olympic Games in Paris 1924, The Olympic Games, Amsterdam 1928, The IX Olympiad in Amsterdam, The White Stadium, Youth of the World, XIVth Olympiad: The Glory of Sport, Fight Without Hate, The VI Olympic Winter Games, Oslo 1952, Where the World Meets, Gold and Glory, Memories of the Olympic Summer of 1952, The Horse in Focus, Olympic Games 1956, White Vertigo, The Melbourne Rendezvous, Alain Mimoun, People, Hopes, Medals, The Grand Olympics, IX Olympic Winter Games, Innsbruck 1964, Tokyo Olympiad, Sensation of the Century, 13 Days in France, Snows of Grenoble, The Olympics in Mexico, Sapporo Winter Olympics, Visions of Eight, White Rock, Games of the XXI Olympiad, Olympic Spirit, O Sport, You Are Peace!, A Turning Point, 16 Days of Glory, Beyond All Barriers, Hand in Hand, Seoul 1988, Calgary ’88: 16 Days of Glory, One Light, One World, Marathon, Lillehammer ’94: 16 Days of Glory, Atlanta’s Olympic Glory, Nagano ’98 Olympics: Stories of Honor and Glory, Sydney 2000: Stories of Olympic Glory, Salt Lake City 2002: Stories of Olympic Glory, Bud Greenspan’s Athens 2004: Stories of Olympic Glory, Bud Greenspan’s Torino 2006: Stories of Olympic Glory, The Everlasting Flame, Bud Greenspan Presents Vancouver 2010: Stories of Olympic Glory, First, The Games of the V Olympiad Stockholm, 1912

CinemaSerf

@Geronimo1967

June 9, 20257/10

Television sport coverage was so often a fertile source of innovation and this couple of hours of highlights from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics showcases that really well. Initially, though, we focus a little on the rejuvenating effects of getting the games in your city. Demolition of derelict areas and the construction of new facilities designed to last well beyond the fortnight of the Games. Thence to an opening ceremony that sees the USA and the USSR walking just feet apart (with no obvious defections) before the Emperor opens the world’s only truly global exercise in competitive excellence. Now the editorial does rather follow the requirements of the paymasters at bit, so some nations feature far more than others but in the main this showcases well the strenuous and impassioned performances of runners, jumpers, throwers, gymnast and shooters as the diverse nature of some nineteen sports feature. With the television production garnering expertise from nations around the world, we see more creative use of not just camera and microphone positions but also of filming techniques like slow-motion and head-on photography that enables the efforts of these characters to be writ large across their faces and bodies as we watch from the comfort of an armchair. It was the first Olympics to be filmed largely in colour, to be fed live to many countries and it was significant for it’s ban on any form of racial segregation amongst the teams. The commentaries are maybe not the most informative, especially as the teams parade for the flag parades, and some of the references: 17 decimal 45 rather than 17.45 sound a bit quaint now, but that all adds to the richness of an event that illustrated signs of a post WWII worldly reconciliation. The editing doesn’t always look the most natural - watch the women’s shot put coverage, for example, but even there we get a sense of just how tough it can be lugging a 4lb cannon ball fifty foot into the air. There are no talking heads nor interviews, just a fairly comprehensive compendium of sporting activity peppered with a little social commentary and if it inspires anyone to look at an whole range of what they call “Official Films” from the Olympics, then it could serve to explore not just the evolution of sport but also of television coverage thereof.