dual personalities

Our movie pick as the end of the 2012 Olympics approaches is kind of a no-brainer and we have blogged about it already here, but we do love this movie! Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British film, which tells the fact-based story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God,

and Harold Abrahams, a determined British Jew who runs to prove he’s as good as (if not better than) anyone else.

Harold does have an enormous chip on his shoulder in the movie, and whether this was the case in “real life” we don’t know. The fact is he ran the 100m race in 10.6, a mere second slower than the great Usain Bolt did a few days ago, eighty-eight years after Abrahams. I say, hats off to Abrahams and Liddell in their old-fashioned shoes and baggy shorts!

The film was written by Colin Welland and directed by Hugh Hudson, and was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning four, including Best Picture. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute’s list of Top 100 British films.

I loved this movie when it was first released in 1981 and saw it 3 times in the theater, before the days of VHS and DVDs made that kind of desperate action unnecessary.

The film’s title was of course inspired by the line, “Bring me my chariot of fire,” from the William Blake poem adapted into the popular British hymn. “Jerusalem” was a popular hymn at our private school, where we sang it often in our morning chapel service. Here is a snippet of the hymn to get you in the mood:

The original phrase “chariot(s) of fire” is from 2 Kings 2:11 and 6:17.