Tokyo Olympiad against Riefenstahl

NOV 05 2018

A video essay comparing Kon Ichikawa's 1965 film of the Tokyo Games with Riefenstahl's Olympia, two records of the same event type made under very different commissions. The comparison isolates the choices that carry ideology: whether the camera looks up at the athlete or across at them, whether exhaustion is shown, whether the crowd is a mass or a collection of faces. It is a practical demonstration that framing, not subject, decides what a documentary argues.