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東京オリンピック (Tōkyō Orinpikku) [Tokyo Olympiad]

Film Synopsis

Kon Ichikawa’s film, “Tokyo Olympiad“, is considered a classic documentary. Perhaps since Leni Riefenstahl’s famous film on the Berlin Olympics, it has become de rigeur to make a film about the Games so that audiences can re-live the excitement.

Planning for this film began in 1960, when the Japan Olympic Organizing Committee sent famed Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa to scout the Summer Games in Rome, and observe how the film on the Summer Games in Italy were produced. When Kurosawa and his team provided a budget estimate of about $1.5 million dollars, and also informed the committee that the receipts from distributing the Rome Olympic film was only half a million dollars, they realized they had to scale back.

Having said that the committee eventually selected Kon Ichikawa to be the director. And while the film is visually beautiful, Japan film historian, Donald Richie, writes in his book, “A Hundred Years of Japanese Film“, that so much, as they say, was left on the editing floor.

“Aesthetically, the picture is superb – a masterpiece of visual design,” writes Richie about this documentary by the renown Ichikawa. “One remembers the incisive use of slow motion during the track and field events; the beautiful repeated shots in the pole-vaulting competition; the fast zooms in the shot-put event, and the long, brilliant climax of the marathon – the work of the director and a staff of nearly six hundred people, including sixteen cameramen.”

“None of this, however, was what the Olympic Organizing Board wanted,” continues Richie. “Not only had Ichikawa refused to monumentalize the games, he had humanized them. In the uncut version (never publicly screened), the camera turns time and again from the major events to capture details: the spectators; athletes at rest; those who came in, not first, but third – or last. Japanese victories are not favored. At the end, the celebrations over, the stadium is empty. A man with a ladder crosses the field, from far away comes the sound of children at play. The games were, after all, only games. They are over and life goes on. Much of this footage has never been publicly screened, and among examples of film vandalism, the case of Tokyo Olympiad must rank as especially regrettable.”

[https://theolympians.co/2015/06/11/tokyo-olympiad-a-film-by-kon-ichikawa/]

Video

Film Details

Alternate Titles: Tokyo Olympiad

Language: Japanese

Original Production Country: Japan

Original Release Year: 1965

Original Elements Held By: 

Original Distribution Company: Toho

Production Company: The Organizing Committee for the Tokyo Olympic Games – The Tokyo Olympic Film Association

Executive Producer: Kon Ichikawa

Producer: Suketaro Taguchi

Director: Kon Ichikawa

Writer: Natto Wada, Yoshio Shirasaka, Shintaro Tanikawa & Kon Ichikawa

Cinematography: Kazuo Miyagawa, Shigeichi Nagano, Shigeo Hayashida, Tadashi Tanaka & Kenji Nakamura

Editor: Yoshio Ebara

Sound Editor:

Music/Score: Toshiro Mayuzumi

Narrator: Ichiro Mikuni

Other Credits:

Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

Colour System: Colour

Duration: 169 mins

Restoration Details

Status: Released

Country Where Restored: United States

Restoration Release Date: 5 December 2017

Country Restoration First Screened: Japan

Lab Image Restored By: Warner Bros MPI, Burbank CA

Lab Audio Restored By: Audio Mechanics, Burbank CA

Archive Partner(s) in Restoration: 

Restored Elements Held By: IOC

Restoration Funded By: IOC

Restoration Premiere: 26th Tokyo International Film Festival, 25 Oct 2013

General Restoration Release Date: 2013

Screening Rights Held By: 

Genre

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About

Since 2012, Restoration Asia has been a showcase for the work of archives, technical service providers and distributors in their efforts to preserve the audio-visual heritage of Asia.

Restoration Asia is coordinated by OWL Studio, and is designed for archivists, scholars, students and professionals as well as those with a shared passion for the preservation and restoration of Asian Cinema & Asia’s cinematographic history.

レストレーションアジアは、アジア内外のアーカイブ、技術サービスプロバイダー、そして配給業者の仕事を紹介すると共に、アジアの映像遺産を保存する取り組みに焦点を当てます。

この継続的な技術シンポジウムは、アーキビスト、学者、学生、そしてプロフェッショナルのためにデザインされました。アジア映画とアジアの映画史の保存と復元のための情熱を共有するシンポジウムです。

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