Shelf Life: Downhill Racer

Every once in a patch (okay, usually in Feb and September) I encounter myself and my colleagues sorrowful the fact that movies just aren't as beatific as they utilised to be. Looking backwards at the trend volume of venerated classics from decades past, much a decree seems pretty indisputable. But the actuality is that tone has ever churned out heaps and heaps of movies, and not all of them are good. In fact, most of them aren't. And that's the think we advert the beatific ones, and forget the others. Even hunting backwards just a few years, how some grouping ever think about The Man, starring metropolis Levy and Samuel L. Jackson? Or Ecks Vs. Sever, eliminate maybe as a punchline?

That, however, is not to say that there are plentitude of irrecoverable or overlooked films that aren't rattling good. Quite the opposite, in fact: the fill of grindhouse movies free in past eld notwithstanding (and there are a clump of gems among those too), films same Freebie and the Bean, Grand Prix, The Killer Elite and some more featured big-name stars and high-profile directors, and are mostly unnoticed because they fit into filmographies and nowadays in flick history that featured super successes.

In constituent to their always-stellar listing of external remasters and re-releases, Criterion has quietly dedicated themselves to resuscitating films from field studios with field stars that hit otherwise been forfeited to time. Last month, they reissued the archangel Ritchie flick Downhill Racer, which stars parliamentarian Redford, Gene Hackman and Dabney Coleman among others, and this week's "Shelf Life" is determined to discover whether it needs to be seen by equal audiences, or it's a flick meliorate mitt in the instance in which it was originally released.

The Facts: Downhill Racer was originally free in Feb 1969 by Paramount Pictures. Starring parliamentarian histrion as king Chappellet, an Olympic anticipative who joins the US downhill runner team, it became digit of the films that cemented the person as a directive Negro (along with Barefoot In The Park and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the latter of which was free almost simultaneously in the U.S.). Additionally, it ingrained archangel Ritchie as a thoughtful and precocious feature flick director (prior to Downhill Racer he worked primarily in television).

The flick currently enjoys a 77 proportionality firm rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and writer saint Salter was nominated for Best Screenplay by the Writer's Guild of America. Additionally, histrion won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Chappellet.

What Still Works: While the flick sure features some of the hallmarks that became boilerplate gathering for equal sports stories, Ritchie's image of Salter's screenplay leaves plentitude of panoramic open spaces for Redford's character to contemplate his locate not exclusive in his chosen profession, but in equal culture. Like the same Grand Prix and a containerful of other "sports" films made in the 1960s and '70s, Downhill Racer examines the empiric rather than fleshly demands of competition, which at that instance seemed to be a alikeness of dweller culture's possess effort to become to terms with the dreamer mentality, that intent that women and (especially) men could pursue their passions, which overtook the practicality and bootstrap-success idealism of early generations.

There's a rattling interesting, ethereal equilibrise that the flick strikes between making king a rattling precocious guy with clean passion for what he does, and a prima donna who makes excuses and alienates others with his significance of superiority. histrion plays the persona expertly, uncovering both youthful hauteur and hard-won humility, generating empathy and depreciation from the conference in equal and sometimes simultaneous measures. And ultimately, the flick conveys this category of beautifully humour intent that modify in the throes of victory, there is ever someone correct behindhand you, chasing your cut and disagreeable to verify absent what you see same you hit earned. Contemporary sports movies aim purely for the untied victory, but this digit seeds its possess happy success with the prospect that glory is fleeting.

What Doesn't Work: Not a full lot, though it's fairly understandable ground the flick didn't quite earn its locate among history's most celebrated sports stories (speaking commercially, anyway). The sport of skiing itself doesn't hit the immediate, visceral attractiveness of clog same football or baseball, and what the flick does well is amplify the significance that these skiers are essentially alone, modify if they're on a team, so there's lowercase significance of brawny comradery or attachment that seems often to be conveyed in equal sports films.

Furthermore, the screenwriter and director do lowercase to ingratiate king to the audience, and histrion offers an unshrinking portrait of his cavalier hauteur and superiority, modify if we can sometimes understand that there strength be a think ground he fell or failed that makes him not at fault. And finally, the film's anachronistic directorial style feels authentic to the positioning and puts audience correct in the skis themselves, but again because the sport is instrument so super against these albescent expanses of snow, the seeable construction of the flick is more meditative than narrative-oriented, which haw invoke off audiences more easy with equal news structures.

What's The Verdict: Downhill Racer is a rattling terrific movie, and sure holds up – both as a superlative sports flick (which Roger Ebert keenly observed occurs "without rattling existence about sports at all") and a alikeness of the instance in which it was made. The Criterion DVD thankfully preserves Ritchie's glorious cinematography, making the alpine vistas look meliorate than ever, patch Redford's impact on concealment not exclusive reminds us ground he's a star, but ground he's thoughtful a great actor, as well.