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Chariots of Fire (album)

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Chariots of Fire

Film score by Vangelis

Released
April 1981
Recorded
1980
Genre
Film score
Length
42:03
Label
Polydor
Producer
Vangelis
Vangelis chronology

See You Later
 (1980) Chariots of Fire
 (1981) Antarctica
 (1983)


Professional ratings

Review scores

Source
Rating
Allmusic 4/5 stars[1]




"Chariots of Fire - Titles"







Vangelis' "Chariots of Fire - Titles" from Chariots of Fire

Problems playing this file? See media help.
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 musical score by Greek electronic composer Vangelis (credited as Vangelis Papathanassiou) for the British film Chariots of Fire, which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Original Music Score.
The album topped Billboard 200 for 4 weeks. The opening theme of the film (called "Titles" on the album track listing but widely known as "Chariots of Fire") was released as a single in 1981, and topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week after, climbing steadily for five months (it made #1 in its 21st week on the chart). "Titles" also reached #12 in the United Kingdom, where its parent album peaked at #5 and spent 107 weeks on the album chart. The single also peaked at #21 in Australia on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report).[2]


Contents  [hide]
1 Track listing
2 Personnel
3 Charts
4 Certifications
5 A new style
6 Additional information
7 Court case
8 Uses in other media
9 References

Track listing[edit]
Side one1."Titles" – 3:33
2."Five Circles" – 5:20
3."Abraham's Theme" – 3:20
4."Eric's Theme" – 4:18
5."100 Metres" – 2:04
6."Jerusalem" – 2:47
Side two1."Chariots of Fire" – 20:41
Personnel[edit]
Vangelis — all instruments
Ambrosian Singers — choir (track 6)
John McCarthy — choir director (track 6)
Raphael Preston — engineer
Raine Shine — engineer
John Walker — engineer
Charts[edit]
The album reached number-one in the sales charts of various countries, including four weeks at number-one in the United States. In total, the album stayed 97 weeks in the Billboard 200, selling three million copies in the first year alone.[3] The album reached number five in the UK Albums Chart and stayed in the listing for 107 weeks.

Chart (1981–82)
Peak
 position


Australia (Kent Music Report)[4]
5
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[5]
11
Canada (RPM)[6]
2
Germany (Media Control Charts)[7]
39
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[8]
6
Netherlands (MegaCharts)[9]
9
UK Albums Chart (Official Charts Company)[10]
5
US Billboard 200[11]
1

Certifications[edit]

Region
Certification
Sales/shipments


Canada (Music Canada)[12]
3× Platinum 300,000^
France (SNEP)[13]
Gold 100,000*
United States (RIAA)[14]
Platinum 1,000,000^
*sales figures based on certification alone
^shipments figures based on certification alone
xunspecified figures based on certification alone


A new style[edit]
The film's director, Hugh Hudson, chose Vangelis to compose the film's music, after becoming impressed with his albums Opera Sauvage and China and having worked with Vangelis on commercials in Paris during the 1970s.[3] Vangelis played all the instruments, including synthesizers, acoustic piano, drums and percussion, and recorded the score in his Nemo studio in London, which he had set up in 1975.[15] The music that he came up with, mostly electronic for a period film, initiated a new style in film scoring. The use of synthesizers in film scores beyond mere textures, and their convenience in allowing directors, producers, and studios to hear preliminary versions of full scores found its roots in Chariots of Fire.
"He [Vangelis] tells us about the way he set about producing the music for Chariots of Fire. About the low budget it really had. About the way in which he endlessly exchanged thoughts with the author about the story. Only when the movie was completely finished did he actually start working on the music for it. Saw it only three times for that purpose and then started work." — Vangelis interview to Music Maker magazine, September 1982 [16]"I didn't want to do period music. I tried to compose a score which was contemporary and still compatible with the time of the film. But I also didn't want to go for a completely electronic sound." — Vangelis interview in American Film magazine, September 1982 [17]
The score album, however, is almost all re-recorded, and sounds different from the music heard on film, with often richer arrangements, particularly in the "Titles" track. The second part of the album is a one-track suite including music from and inspired by the score.[15] On the other hand, some original themes from the film did not make it to the album.
"A record is something other than a film. There have to be changes - not least of all for artistic reasons." — Vangelis interview to Neumusik magazine, issue 5, August 1981 [18]
Although Vangelis had already done a number of film scores, including those for animal documentaries by Frédéric Rossif, Chariots of Fire was his first major film score, and it immediately gave him his big breakthrough as a composer, as "Titles" was an international hit and changed the whole course of his career.
"It occurs very rarely that a composer thinks of his most successful work as his best. I am no exception to that rule. I think of my soundtrack for ... Mutiny on the Bounty as endlessly more interesting than Chariots of Fire." — Vangelis interview to De Telegraaf newspaper, June 15, 1991 [3]
Additional information[edit]
In addition to Vangelis' original music, the album includes an arrangement of "Jerusalem", sung by the Ambrosian Singers, as performed at the 1978 funeral of Harold Abrahams, the event which bookends the film and inspired its title. This famous choral work is a 1916 setting by Sir Hubert Parry of William Blake's poem.
Vangelis dedicated the score to his father Ulysses Papathanassiou who had been a sprinter.
Despite Vangelis public performances being rare, he has played "Chariots of Fire" live in Los Angeles, U.S. (November 7, 1986), Rome, Italy (July 17, 1989, as encore), Rotterdam, Netherlands (June 18, 1991), and Athens, Greece (Mythodea concerts of July 13, 1993 and June 28, 2001, as encore, and August 1, 1997)[19]
In 2000, and again in 2006, the album was relaunched on CD, on both occasions remastered by Vangelis.[15]
Tracks from the album have been included in the following official Vangelis compilations: Themes (1989), Best Of Vangelis (1992), Portraits {So Long Ago, So Clear} (1996), and Odyssey - The Definitive Collection (2003).[20]
Some pieces of Vangelis's music in the film did not end up on the film's soundtrack album. One of them is the background music to the race Eric Liddell runs in the Scottish highlands. The title of this piece is "Hymn," and it is from Vangelis's 1979 album, Opéra sauvage. It is also included on Vangelis's compilation albums Themes, Portraits, and Odyssey: The Definitive Collection.
Director Hugh Hudson's original choice for the famous slow-motion running sequences on the beach was the track "L'Enfant" from Opéra sauvage. Vangelis had to persuade Hudson to let him create something original for the scene, using the same tempo as "L'Enfant." The result was the "Chariots of Fire" title track.
Court case[edit]
In 1985 Greek composer Stavros Logaridis sued Vangelis for plagiarism (EMI vs Warner Brothers), alleging the title track had plagiarised Logaridis' song "City of Violets" (1977) — which does feature similar instrumentation and chord progressions. Vangelis demonstrated his first-take improvisational composition style live on his synthesizers in court and was acquitted of the complaint.
The case reached the London High Courts in 1987, and was referred to as a test case numerous times in the following years in matters relating but not limited to; Music sampling, Copyright infringement etc.
Uses in other media[edit]
The "Titles" track of Chariots of Fire has been used in innumerable parodies in films, television shows, and elsewhere; and also as inspirational music for athletes. A few of these include:
The theme song was played when Apple Inc.'s then-chairman Steve Jobs introduced the first Macintosh on January 24, 1984 at a technology demonstration event, and at another press conference celebrating 100-day anniversary of the release of the first Macintosh.
In a scene of the Griswold family running to the entrance of the theme park Wally World, in the 1983 film National Lampoon's Vacation.[21]
The teaser for the film Marley & Me (2008).
In the 2005 movie Madagascar, when Marty the zebra and Alex the lion are running in slow motion.
In the 2000 film, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, as Jim Carrey playing the Grinch crosses the finish line during a potato sack race during a brief scene.
During the yearly Lilac Bloomsday Run in Spokane, Washington, the world's largest timed road race, and it can be heard as runners round the corner a block before the finish line.
In Good Burger when Dexter and Ed run to Shaquille O'Neal.
At the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, the song was used in a London Symphony Orchestra performance featuring Rowan Atkinson, in character as Mr. Bean.
The song was used in victory ceremonies during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
The song has been played for many years as the campsite wake up song for the Annual Ten Tors Expedition.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Mills, Ted. "Chariots of Fire". Allmusic. Retrieved September 10, 2013.
2.Jump up ^ Steffen Hung. "Forum - One Hit Wonders (General: Music/Charts related)". australian-charts.com. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c Daily Telegraph newspaper, November 21, 1982
4.Jump up ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, New South Wales: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
5.Jump up ^ "Discographie Vangelis". austriancharts.at (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
6.Jump up ^ "50 Albums". RPM (Toronto) 36 (15). May 22, 1982. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
7.Jump up ^ "Discographie Vangelis". charts.de (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
8.Jump up ^ "Discography Vangelis". charts.org.nz. Hung Medien. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
9.Jump up ^ "Discografie Vangelis". dutchcharts.nl (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
10.Jump up ^ "Vangelis" (SELECT "ALBUMS" TAB). Official Charts Company.
11.Jump up ^ "Chariots of Fire [Original Score] – Awards". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
12.Jump up ^ "Canadian album certifications – Vangelis – Chariots of Fire". Music Canada. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
13.Jump up ^ "French album certifications – Vangelis – Chariots of Fire" (in French). InfoDisc. Retrieved July 28, 2013. Select VANGELIS and click OK
14.Jump up ^ "American album certifications – Vangelis – Chariots of Fire". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved July 28, 2013. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH
15.^ Jump up to: a b c Dennis Lodewijks' Elsewhere
16.Jump up ^ Vangelis interview to Music Maker magazine, September 1982
17.Jump up ^ Vangelis interview to American Film magazine, September 1982
18.Jump up ^ Vangelis interview to Neumusik magazine, issue 5, August 1981
19.Jump up ^ Dennis Lodewijks' Elsewhere
20.Jump up ^ Dennis Lodewijks' Elsewhere
21.Jump up ^ "National Lampoon's Vacation". IMDb.com. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
Preceded by
Beauty and the Beat by The Go-Go's Billboard 200 number-one album
 April 17 - May 14, 1982 Succeeded by
Asia by Asia


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Vangelis






























































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Chariots of Fire







  


Categories: Albums certified triple platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association
Albums certified gold by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique
Albums certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America
Film soundtracks
1981 soundtracks
Vangelis soundtracks
Instrumental soundtracks
Polydor Records soundtracks










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This page was last modified on 17 January 2015, at 03:08.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_Fire_(album)













Chariots of Fire (album)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Chariots of Fire

Film score by Vangelis

Released
April 1981
Recorded
1980
Genre
Film score
Length
42:03
Label
Polydor
Producer
Vangelis
Vangelis chronology

See You Later
 (1980) Chariots of Fire
 (1981) Antarctica
 (1983)


Professional ratings

Review scores

Source
Rating
Allmusic 4/5 stars[1]




"Chariots of Fire - Titles"







Vangelis' "Chariots of Fire - Titles" from Chariots of Fire

Problems playing this file? See media help.
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 musical score by Greek electronic composer Vangelis (credited as Vangelis Papathanassiou) for the British film Chariots of Fire, which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Original Music Score.
The album topped Billboard 200 for 4 weeks. The opening theme of the film (called "Titles" on the album track listing but widely known as "Chariots of Fire") was released as a single in 1981, and topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week after, climbing steadily for five months (it made #1 in its 21st week on the chart). "Titles" also reached #12 in the United Kingdom, where its parent album peaked at #5 and spent 107 weeks on the album chart. The single also peaked at #21 in Australia on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report).[2]


Contents  [hide]
1 Track listing
2 Personnel
3 Charts
4 Certifications
5 A new style
6 Additional information
7 Court case
8 Uses in other media
9 References

Track listing[edit]
Side one1."Titles" – 3:33
2."Five Circles" – 5:20
3."Abraham's Theme" – 3:20
4."Eric's Theme" – 4:18
5."100 Metres" – 2:04
6."Jerusalem" – 2:47
Side two1."Chariots of Fire" – 20:41
Personnel[edit]
Vangelis — all instruments
Ambrosian Singers — choir (track 6)
John McCarthy — choir director (track 6)
Raphael Preston — engineer
Raine Shine — engineer
John Walker — engineer
Charts[edit]
The album reached number-one in the sales charts of various countries, including four weeks at number-one in the United States. In total, the album stayed 97 weeks in the Billboard 200, selling three million copies in the first year alone.[3] The album reached number five in the UK Albums Chart and stayed in the listing for 107 weeks.

Chart (1981–82)
Peak
 position


Australia (Kent Music Report)[4]
5
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[5]
11
Canada (RPM)[6]
2
Germany (Media Control Charts)[7]
39
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[8]
6
Netherlands (MegaCharts)[9]
9
UK Albums Chart (Official Charts Company)[10]
5
US Billboard 200[11]
1

Certifications[edit]

Region
Certification
Sales/shipments


Canada (Music Canada)[12]
3× Platinum 300,000^
France (SNEP)[13]
Gold 100,000*
United States (RIAA)[14]
Platinum 1,000,000^
*sales figures based on certification alone
^shipments figures based on certification alone
xunspecified figures based on certification alone


A new style[edit]
The film's director, Hugh Hudson, chose Vangelis to compose the film's music, after becoming impressed with his albums Opera Sauvage and China and having worked with Vangelis on commercials in Paris during the 1970s.[3] Vangelis played all the instruments, including synthesizers, acoustic piano, drums and percussion, and recorded the score in his Nemo studio in London, which he had set up in 1975.[15] The music that he came up with, mostly electronic for a period film, initiated a new style in film scoring. The use of synthesizers in film scores beyond mere textures, and their convenience in allowing directors, producers, and studios to hear preliminary versions of full scores found its roots in Chariots of Fire.
"He [Vangelis] tells us about the way he set about producing the music for Chariots of Fire. About the low budget it really had. About the way in which he endlessly exchanged thoughts with the author about the story. Only when the movie was completely finished did he actually start working on the music for it. Saw it only three times for that purpose and then started work." — Vangelis interview to Music Maker magazine, September 1982 [16]"I didn't want to do period music. I tried to compose a score which was contemporary and still compatible with the time of the film. But I also didn't want to go for a completely electronic sound." — Vangelis interview in American Film magazine, September 1982 [17]
The score album, however, is almost all re-recorded, and sounds different from the music heard on film, with often richer arrangements, particularly in the "Titles" track. The second part of the album is a one-track suite including music from and inspired by the score.[15] On the other hand, some original themes from the film did not make it to the album.
"A record is something other than a film. There have to be changes - not least of all for artistic reasons." — Vangelis interview to Neumusik magazine, issue 5, August 1981 [18]
Although Vangelis had already done a number of film scores, including those for animal documentaries by Frédéric Rossif, Chariots of Fire was his first major film score, and it immediately gave him his big breakthrough as a composer, as "Titles" was an international hit and changed the whole course of his career.
"It occurs very rarely that a composer thinks of his most successful work as his best. I am no exception to that rule. I think of my soundtrack for ... Mutiny on the Bounty as endlessly more interesting than Chariots of Fire." — Vangelis interview to De Telegraaf newspaper, June 15, 1991 [3]
Additional information[edit]
In addition to Vangelis' original music, the album includes an arrangement of "Jerusalem", sung by the Ambrosian Singers, as performed at the 1978 funeral of Harold Abrahams, the event which bookends the film and inspired its title. This famous choral work is a 1916 setting by Sir Hubert Parry of William Blake's poem.
Vangelis dedicated the score to his father Ulysses Papathanassiou who had been a sprinter.
Despite Vangelis public performances being rare, he has played "Chariots of Fire" live in Los Angeles, U.S. (November 7, 1986), Rome, Italy (July 17, 1989, as encore), Rotterdam, Netherlands (June 18, 1991), and Athens, Greece (Mythodea concerts of July 13, 1993 and June 28, 2001, as encore, and August 1, 1997)[19]
In 2000, and again in 2006, the album was relaunched on CD, on both occasions remastered by Vangelis.[15]
Tracks from the album have been included in the following official Vangelis compilations: Themes (1989), Best Of Vangelis (1992), Portraits {So Long Ago, So Clear} (1996), and Odyssey - The Definitive Collection (2003).[20]
Some pieces of Vangelis's music in the film did not end up on the film's soundtrack album. One of them is the background music to the race Eric Liddell runs in the Scottish highlands. The title of this piece is "Hymn," and it is from Vangelis's 1979 album, Opéra sauvage. It is also included on Vangelis's compilation albums Themes, Portraits, and Odyssey: The Definitive Collection.
Director Hugh Hudson's original choice for the famous slow-motion running sequences on the beach was the track "L'Enfant" from Opéra sauvage. Vangelis had to persuade Hudson to let him create something original for the scene, using the same tempo as "L'Enfant." The result was the "Chariots of Fire" title track.
Court case[edit]
In 1985 Greek composer Stavros Logaridis sued Vangelis for plagiarism (EMI vs Warner Brothers), alleging the title track had plagiarised Logaridis' song "City of Violets" (1977) — which does feature similar instrumentation and chord progressions. Vangelis demonstrated his first-take improvisational composition style live on his synthesizers in court and was acquitted of the complaint.
The case reached the London High Courts in 1987, and was referred to as a test case numerous times in the following years in matters relating but not limited to; Music sampling, Copyright infringement etc.
Uses in other media[edit]
The "Titles" track of Chariots of Fire has been used in innumerable parodies in films, television shows, and elsewhere; and also as inspirational music for athletes. A few of these include:
The theme song was played when Apple Inc.'s then-chairman Steve Jobs introduced the first Macintosh on January 24, 1984 at a technology demonstration event, and at another press conference celebrating 100-day anniversary of the release of the first Macintosh.
In a scene of the Griswold family running to the entrance of the theme park Wally World, in the 1983 film National Lampoon's Vacation.[21]
The teaser for the film Marley & Me (2008).
In the 2005 movie Madagascar, when Marty the zebra and Alex the lion are running in slow motion.
In the 2000 film, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, as Jim Carrey playing the Grinch crosses the finish line during a potato sack race during a brief scene.
During the yearly Lilac Bloomsday Run in Spokane, Washington, the world's largest timed road race, and it can be heard as runners round the corner a block before the finish line.
In Good Burger when Dexter and Ed run to Shaquille O'Neal.
At the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, the song was used in a London Symphony Orchestra performance featuring Rowan Atkinson, in character as Mr. Bean.
The song was used in victory ceremonies during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
The song has been played for many years as the campsite wake up song for the Annual Ten Tors Expedition.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Mills, Ted. "Chariots of Fire". Allmusic. Retrieved September 10, 2013.
2.Jump up ^ Steffen Hung. "Forum - One Hit Wonders (General: Music/Charts related)". australian-charts.com. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c Daily Telegraph newspaper, November 21, 1982
4.Jump up ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. St Ives, New South Wales: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
5.Jump up ^ "Discographie Vangelis". austriancharts.at (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
6.Jump up ^ "50 Albums". RPM (Toronto) 36 (15). May 22, 1982. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
7.Jump up ^ "Discographie Vangelis". charts.de (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
8.Jump up ^ "Discography Vangelis". charts.org.nz. Hung Medien. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
9.Jump up ^ "Discografie Vangelis". dutchcharts.nl (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
10.Jump up ^ "Vangelis" (SELECT "ALBUMS" TAB). Official Charts Company.
11.Jump up ^ "Chariots of Fire [Original Score] – Awards". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
12.Jump up ^ "Canadian album certifications – Vangelis – Chariots of Fire". Music Canada. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
13.Jump up ^ "French album certifications – Vangelis – Chariots of Fire" (in French). InfoDisc. Retrieved July 28, 2013. Select VANGELIS and click OK
14.Jump up ^ "American album certifications – Vangelis – Chariots of Fire". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved July 28, 2013. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH
15.^ Jump up to: a b c Dennis Lodewijks' Elsewhere
16.Jump up ^ Vangelis interview to Music Maker magazine, September 1982
17.Jump up ^ Vangelis interview to American Film magazine, September 1982
18.Jump up ^ Vangelis interview to Neumusik magazine, issue 5, August 1981
19.Jump up ^ Dennis Lodewijks' Elsewhere
20.Jump up ^ Dennis Lodewijks' Elsewhere
21.Jump up ^ "National Lampoon's Vacation". IMDb.com. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
Preceded by
Beauty and the Beat by The Go-Go's Billboard 200 number-one album
 April 17 - May 14, 1982 Succeeded by
Asia by Asia


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Vangelis






























































































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Chariots of Fire







  


Categories: Albums certified triple platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association
Albums certified gold by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique
Albums certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America
Film soundtracks
1981 soundtracks
Vangelis soundtracks
Instrumental soundtracks
Polydor Records soundtracks










Navigation menu



Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















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한국어
Italiano
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Nederlands
日本語
Norsk nynorsk
Polski
Português
Edit links
This page was last modified on 17 January 2015, at 03:08.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki
    
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_Fire_(album)


























Chariots of Fire

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Chariots of Fire (film))
Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the film. For other uses, see Chariots of Fire (disambiguation).
‹ The template below (Infobox film) is being considered for merging. See templates for discussion to help reach a consensus.›

Chariots of Fire
Chariots of fire.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Hugh Hudson
Produced by
David Puttnam
Written by
Colin Welland
Starring
Ben Cross
Ian Charleson
Nigel Havers
Cheryl Campbell
Alice Krige
Lindsay Anderson
Dennis Christopher
Nigel Davenport
Brad Davis
Peter Egan
Sir John Gielgud
Ian Holm
Patrick Magee

Music by
Vangelis
Cinematography
David Watkin
Edited by
Terry Rawlings

Production
 company

Allied Stars Ltd
Goldcrest Films
 Enigma Productions

Distributed by
20th Century Fox (International)
The Ladd Company
Warner Bros (US)

Release dates

30 March 1981 (Royal Command Film Performance)


Running time
 124 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
£3 million[1]
Box office
$58,972,904 (U.S.)[2]
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British historical drama film. It 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, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice.
The film was conceived and produced by David Puttnam, written by Colin Welland, and directed by Hugh Hudson. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute's list of Top 100 British films. The film is also notable for its memorable instrumental theme tune by Vangelis, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
The film's title was inspired by the line, "Bring me my chariot of fire," from the William Blake poem adapted into the popular British hymn "Jerusalem"; the hymn is heard at the end of the film.[3] The original phrase "chariot(s) of fire" is from 2 Kings 2:11 and 6:17 in the Bible.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Historical accuracy 3.1 Characters
3.2 1924 Olympics 3.2.1 Personal inaccuracies at the Olympics

4 Production 4.1 Script and direction
4.2 Casting
4.3 Music
4.4 Filming locations
5 Revival for the 2012 Olympics 5.1 Stage adaptation
5.2 UK cinematic re-release, Blu-ray
6 Accolades 6.1 Awards and nominations
7 See also
8 References
9 Notes
10 External links

Plot[edit]
In 1919, Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) enters the University of Cambridge, where he experiences anti-Semitism from the staff, but enjoys participating in the Gilbert and Sullivan club. He becomes the first person to ever complete the Trinity Great Court Run – running around the college courtyard in the time it takes for the clock to strike 12. Abrahams achieves an undefeated string of victories in various national running competitions. Although focused on his running, he falls in love with a leading Gilbert and Sullivan soprano, Sybil (Alice Krige).
Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), born in China of Scottish missionary parents, is in Scotland. His devout sister Jennie (Cheryl Campbell) disapproves of Liddell's plans to pursue competitive running. But Liddell sees running as a way of glorifying God before returning to China to work as a missionary.
When they first race against each other, Liddell beats Abrahams. Abrahams takes it poorly, but Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm), a professional trainer whom he had approached earlier, offers to take him on to improve his technique. This attracts criticism from the Cambridge college masters (John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson), who allege it is not gentlemanly for an amateur to "play the tradesman" by employing a professional coach. Abrahams dismisses this concern, interpreting it as cover for anti-Semitic and class-based prejudice.
When Eric Liddell accidentally misses a church prayer meeting because of his running, his sister Jennie upbraids him and accuses him of no longer caring about God. Eric tells her that though he intends to eventually return to the China mission, he feels divinely inspired when running, and that not to run would be to dishonour God, saying, "I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure."
The two athletes, after years of training and racing, are accepted to represent Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Also accepted are Abrahams' Cambridge friends, Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers), Aubrey Montague (Nicholas Farrell), and Henry Stallard (Daniel Gerroll). While boarding the boat to Paris for the Olympics, Liddell learns the news that the heat for his 100 metre race will be on a Sunday. He refuses to run the race – despite strong pressure from the Prince of Wales and the British Olympic committee – because his Christian convictions prevent him from running on the Sabbath.
Hope appears when Liddell's teammate Lindsay, having already won a silver medal in the 400 metres hurdles, proposes to yield his place in the 400 metre race on the following Thursday to Liddell, who gratefully agrees. His religious convictions in the face of national athletic pride make headlines around the world.
Liddell delivers a sermon at the Paris Church of Scotland that Sunday, and quotes from Isaiah 40, ending with:
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Abrahams is badly beaten by the heavily favoured United States runners in the 200 metre race. He knows his last chance for a medal will be the 100 metres. He competes in the race, and wins. His coach Sam Mussabini is overcome that the years of dedication and training have paid off with an Olympic gold medal. Now Abrahams can get on with his life and reunite with his girlfriend Sybil, whom he had neglected for the sake of running. Before Liddell's race, the American coach remarks dismissively to his runners that Liddell has little chance of doing well in his now far longer 400 metre race. But one of the American runners, Jackson Scholz, hands Liddell a note of support for his convictions. Liddell defeats the American favourites and wins the gold medal.
The British team returns home triumphant. As the film ends, onscreen text explains that Abrahams married Sybil, and became the elder statesman of British athletics. Liddell went on to missionary work in China. All of Scotland mourned his death in 1945 in Japanese-occupied China.
Cast [edit]
Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams, a Jewish student at Cambridge University
Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell, the son of Scottish missionaries to China
Nicholas Farrell as Aubrey Montague, a runner and friend of Harold Abrahams
Nigel Havers as Lord Andrew Lindsay, a Cambridge student runner partially based on David Burghley and Douglas Lowe
Ian Holm as Sam Mussabini, Abrahams's running coach
John Gielgud as Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University
Lindsay Anderson as Master of Caius College at Cambridge University
Cheryl Campbell as Jennie Liddell, Eric's devout sister (Janet Lillian "Jenny" Liddell)
Alice Krige as Sybil Gordon, Abrahams' fiancée (his actual fiancée was Sybil Evers)
Struan Rodger as Sandy McGrath, Liddell's friend and running coach
Nigel Davenport as Lord Birkenhead, member of the British Olympic Committee, who counsels the athletes
Patrick Magee as Lord Cadogan, chairman of the British Olympics Committee, who is unsympathetic to Liddell's religious plight
David Yelland as the Prince of Wales, who tries to get Liddell to change his mind about running on Sunday
Peter Egan as the Duke of Sutherland, president of the British Olympic Committee, who is sympathetic to Liddell
Daniel Gerroll as Henry Stallard, a Cambridge student and runner
Dennis Christopher as Charley Paddock, American Olympic runner
Brad Davis as Jackson Scholz, American Olympic runner
Historical accuracy[edit]
Characters[edit]
The film depicts Abrahams as attending Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge with three other Olympic athletes: Henry Stallard, Aubrey Montague, and Lord Andrew Lindsay. Abrahams and Stallard were in fact students there and competed in the 1924 Olympics. Montague also competed in the Olympics as depicted, but he attended Oxford, not Cambridge.[4] Aubrey Montague sent daily letters to his mother about his time at Oxford and the Olympics; these letters were the basis of Montague's narration in the film.
The character of Lindsay was based partially on Lord Burghley, a significant figure in the history of British athletics. Although Burghley did attend Cambridge, he was not a contemporary of Harold Abrahams, as Abrahams was an undergraduate from 1919 to 1923 and Burghley was at Cambridge from 1923 to 1927. One scene in the film depicts the Burghley-based "Lindsay" as practising hurdles on his estate with full champagne glasses placed on each hurdle – this was something the wealthy Burghley did, although he used matchboxes instead of champagne glasses.[5] The fictional character of Lindsay was created when Douglas Lowe, who was Britain's third athletics gold medallist in the 1924 Olympics, was not willing to be involved with the film.[6]



Abrahams (left) and the Burghley-based Lindsay (right) attempt the Great Court Run.
Another scene in the film recreates the Great Court Run, in which the runners attempt to run around the perimeter of the Great Court at Trinity College, Cambridge in the time it takes the clock to strike 12 at midday. The film shows Abrahams performing the feat for the first time in history. In fact, Abrahams never attempted this race, and at the time of filming the only person on record known to have succeeded was Lord Burghley, in 1927. In Chariots of Fire, Lindsay, who is based on Lord Burghley, runs the Great Court Run with Abrahams in order to spur him on, and crosses the finish line just a moment too late. Since the film's release, the Great Court Run has also been successfully run by Trinity undergraduate Sam Dobin, in October 2007.[7]
In the film, Eric Liddell is tripped up by a Frenchman in the 400 metre event of a Scotland–France international athletic meeting. He recovers, makes up a 20 metre deficit, and wins. This was based on fact; the actual race was the 440 yards at a Triangular Contest meet between Scotland, England, and Ireland at Stoke-on-Trent in England in July 1923. His achievement was remarkable as he had already won the 100- and 220-yard events that day.[8] Also unmentioned with regard to Liddell is that it was he who introduced Abrahams to Sam Mussabini.[9] This is alluded to: In the film Abrahams first encounters Mussabini while he is watching Liddell race. The film, however, suggests that Abrahams himself sought Mussabini's assistance.
Abrahams' fiancée is misidentified as Sybil Gordon, a soprano at the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. In fact, in 1936, Abrahams married Sybil Evers, who sang at the D'Oyly Carte, but they did not meet until 1934.[10] Also, in the film, Sybil is depicted as singing the role of Yum-Yum in The Mikado, but neither Sybil Gordon nor Sybil Evers ever sang that role with D'Oyly Carte,[11][12] although Evers was known for her charm in singing Peep-Bo, one of the two other "little maids from school".[10] Harold Abrahams' love of and heavy involvement with Gilbert and Sullivan, as depicted in the film, is factual.[13]
Liddell's sister was several years younger than she was portrayed in the film. Her disapproval of Liddell's track career was creative licence; she actually fully supported his sporting work. Jenny Liddell Somerville cooperated fully with the making of the film and has a brief cameo in the Paris Church of Scotland during Liddell's sermon.[14]
At the memorial service for Harold Abrahams, which opens the film, Lord Lindsay mentions that he and Aubrey Montague are the only members of the 1924 Olympic team still alive. However, Montague died in 1948, 30 years before Abrahams' death.
1924 Olympics[edit]
See also: Great Britain at the 1924 Summer Olympics
The film takes some liberties with the events at the 1924 Olympics, including the events surrounding Liddell's refusal to race on a Sunday. In the film, he doesn't learn that the 100 metre heat is to be held on the Christian Sabbath until he is boarding the boat to Paris. In fact, the schedule was made public several months in advance. Liddell did however face immense pressure to run on that Sunday and to compete in the 100 metres, getting called before a grilling by the British Olympic Committee, the Prince of Wales, and other grandees;[13] and his refusal to run made headlines around the world.[15] The decision to change races was, even so, made well before embarking to Paris, and Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 metres, an event in which he had previously excelled. It is true, nonetheless, that Liddell's success in the Olympic 400m was largely unexpected.
The film depicts Lindsay, having already won a medal in the 400 metre hurdles, giving up his place in the 400 metre race for Liddell. In fact Burghley, on whom Lindsay is loosely based, was eliminated in the heats of the 110 hurdles (he would go on to win a gold medal in the 400 hurdles at the 1928 Olympics), and was not entered for the 400 metres.
The film reverses the order of Abrahams' 100m and 200m races at the Olympics. In reality, after winning the 100 metres race, Abrahams ran the 200 metres but finished last, Jackson Scholz taking the gold medal. In the film, before his triumph in the 100m, Abrahams is shown losing the 200m and being scolded by Mussabini. And during the following scene in which Abrahams speaks with his friend Montague while receiving a massage from Mussabini, there is a French newspaper clipping showing Scholz and Charlie Paddock with a headline which states that the 200 metres was a triumph for the United States. In the same conversation, Abrahams laments getting "beaten out of sight" in the 200. The film thus has Abrahams overcoming the disappointment of losing the 200 by going on to win the 100, a reversal of the real order.
Eric Liddell actually also ran in the 200m race, and finished third, behind Paddock and Scholz. This was the only time in reality that Liddell and Abrahams competed in the same race. Their meeting in the 1923 AAA Championship in the film was fictitious, though Liddell's record win in that race did spur Abrahams to train even harder.[16]
Abrahams also won a silver medal as an opening runner for the 4 x 100 metres relay team, not shown in the film. Aubrey Montague placed sixth in the steeplechase, as depicted.[4]
Personal inaccuracies at the Olympics[edit]
In the film, the 100m bronze medallist is a character called "Tom Watson"; the real medallist was Arthur Porritt of New Zealand, who refused permission for his name to be used in the film, allegedly out of modesty. His wish was accepted by the film's producers, even though his permission was not necessary.[17] However, the brief back-story given for Watson, who is called up to the New Zealand team from the University of Oxford, substantially matches Porritt's history. With the exception of Porritt, all the runners in the 100m final are identified correctly when they line up for inspection by the Prince of Wales.
Jackson Scholz is depicted as handing Liddell an inspirational Bible-quotation message before the 400 metres final: "It says in the good Book, 'He that honors me, I will honor.' Good luck."[18] In reality, the note was from members of the British team, and was handed to Liddell before the race by his attending masseur at the team's Paris hotel.[19] For dramatic purposes, screenwriter Welland asked Scholz if he could be depicted handing the note, and Scholz readily agreed, saying "Yes, great, as long as it makes me look good."[13][20]
Production[edit]
Script and direction[edit]



Ian Charleson, who studied the Bible intensively for his role, wrote Eric Liddell's post-race inspirational speech to a working-class crowd.
Producer David Puttnam was looking for a story in the mould of A Man for All Seasons (1966), regarding someone who follows his conscience, and felt sports provided clear situations in this sense.[21] He discovered Eric Liddell's story by accident in 1977, when he happened upon a reference book on the Olympics while housebound from the flu in a rented house in Los Angeles.[22][23]
Screenwriter Colin Welland, commissioned by Puttnam, did an enormous amount of research for his Academy Award-winning script. Among other things, he took out advertisements in London newspapers seeking memories of the 1924 Olympics, went to the National Film Archives for pictures and footage of the 1924 Olympics, and interviewed everyone involved who was still alive. Welland just missed Abrahams, who died 14 January 1978, but he did attend Abrahams' February 1978 memorial service, which inspired the present-day framing device of the film.[5] Aubrey Montague's son saw Welland's newspaper ad and sent him copies of the letters his father had sent home – which gave Welland something to use as a narrative bridge in the film. Except for changes in the greetings of the letters from "Darling Mummy" to "Dear Mum" and the change from Oxford to Cambridge, all of the readings from Montague's letters are from the originals.[13]
Welland's original script also featured, in addition to Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, a third protagonist, 1924 Olympic gold medallist Douglas Lowe, who was presented as a privileged aristocratic athlete. However, Lowe refused to have anything to do with the film, and his character was written out and replaced by the fictional character of Lord Andrew Lindsay.[24]
Ian Charleson himself wrote Eric Liddell's speech to the post-race workingmen's crowd at the Scotland v. Ireland races. Charleson, who had studied the Bible intensively in preparation for the role, told director Hugh Hudson that he didn't feel the portentous and sanctimonious scripted speech was either authentic or inspiring. Hudson and Welland allowed him to write words he personally found inspirational instead.[25]
The film was slightly altered for the U.S. audience. A brief scene depicting a pre-Olympics cricket game between Abrahams, Liddell, Montague, and the rest of the British track team appears shortly after the beginning of the original film. For the American audience, this brief scene was deleted. In the U.S., to avoid the initial G rating, which had been strongly associated with children's films and might have hindered box office sales, a different scene was used – one depicting Abrahams and Montague arriving at a Cambridge railway station and encountering two World War I veterans who use an obscenity – in order to be given a PG rating.[26]
Puttnam chose Hugh Hudson, a multiple award-winning advertising and documentary filmmaker who had never helmed a feature film, to direct Chariots of Fire. Hudson and Puttnam had known each other since the 1960s, when Puttnam was an advertising executive and Hudson was making films for ad agencies. In 1977, Hudson had also been second-unit director on the Puttnam-produced film Midnight Express.[27]
Casting[edit]
Director Hugh Hudson was determined to cast young, unknown actors in all the major roles of the film, and to back them up by using veterans like John Gielgud, Lindsay Anderson, and Ian Holm as their supporting cast. Hudson and producer David Puttnam did months of fruitless searching for the perfect actor to play Eric Liddell. They then saw Scottish stage actor Ian Charleson performing the role of Pierre in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Piaf, and knew immediately they had found their man. Unbeknownst to them, Charleson had heard about the film from his father, and desperately wanted to play the part, feeling it would "fit like a kid glove".[28]
Ben Cross, who plays Harold Abrahams, was discovered while playing Billy Flynn in Chicago. In addition to having a natural pugnaciousness, he had the desired ability to sing and play the piano.[13][29] Cross was thrilled to be cast, and said he was moved to tears by the film's script.[30]
20th Century Fox, which put up half of the production budget in exchange for distribution rights outside of North America,[31] insisted on having a couple of notable American names in the cast.[23] Thus the small parts of the two American champion runners, Jackson Scholz and Charlie Paddock, were cast with recent headliners: Brad Davis had recently starred in Midnight Express (also produced by Puttnam), and Dennis Christopher had recently starred, as a young bicycle racer, in the popular indie film Breaking Away.[30]
All of the actors portraying runners underwent a gruelling three-month training intensive, with renowned running coach Tom McNab. This training and isolation of the actors also created a strong bond and sense of camaraderie among them.[30]
Music[edit]
Main article: Chariots of Fire (album)



Ian Charleson (foreground) and Ben Cross (left) running in the "Chariots of Fire" music scene which bookends the film.
Although the film is a period piece, set in the 1920s, the Academy Award-winning original soundtrack composed by Vangelis uses a modern 1980s electronic sound, with a strong use of synthesizer and piano among other instruments. This was a bold and significant departure from earlier period films, which employed sweeping orchestral instrumentals. The title theme of the film has become iconic, and has been used in subsequent films and television shows during slow-motion segments.
Vangelis, a Greek-born electronic composer who moved to Paris in the late 1960s, had been living in London since 1974.[32] Director Hugh Hudson had collaborated with him on documentaries and commercials, and was also particularly impressed with his 1979 albums Opera Sauvage and China.[33] David Puttnam also greatly admired Vangelis's body of work, having originally selected his compositions for his previous film Midnight Express.[34] Hudson made the choice for Vangelis and for a modern score: "I knew we needed a piece which was anachronistic to the period to give it a feel of modernity. It was a risky idea but we went with it rather than have a period symphonic score."[27] The soundtrack had a personal significance to Vangelis: After composing the iconic theme tune he told Puttnam, "My father is a runner, and this is an anthem to him."[5][32]
Hudson originally wanted Vangelis's 1977 tune "L'Enfant",[35] from his Opera Sauvage album, to be the title theme of the film, and the beach running sequence was actually filmed with "L'Enfant" playing on loudspeakers for the runners to pace to. Vangelis finally convinced Hudson he could create a new and better piece for the film's main theme – and when he played the now-iconic "Chariots of Fire" theme for Hudson, it was agreed the new tune was unquestionably better.[36] The "L'Enfant" melody still made it into the film: When the athletes reach Paris and enter the stadium, a brass band marches through the field, and first plays a modified, acoustic performance of the piece.[37] Vangelis's electronic "L'Enfant" track eventually was used prominently in the 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously.
Some pieces of Vangelis's music in the film did not end up on the film's soundtrack album. One of them is the background music to the race Eric Liddell runs in the Scottish highlands. This piece is a version of "Hymn", the original version of which appears on Vangelis's 1979 album, Opéra sauvage. Various versions are also included on Vangelis's compilation albums Themes, Portraits, and Odyssey: The Definitive Collection, though none of these include the version used in the film.
Five lively Gilbert and Sullivan tunes also appear in the soundtrack, and serve as jaunty period music which nicely counterpoints Vangelis's modern electronic score. These are: "He is an Englishman" from H.M.S. Pinafore, "Three Little Maids from School Are We" from The Mikado, "With Catlike Tread" from The Pirates of Penzance, "The Soldiers of Our Queen" from Patience, and "There Lived a King" from The Gondoliers.
The film also incorporates a major traditional work: "Jerusalem", sung by a British choir at the 1978 funeral of Harold Abrahams. The words, written by William Blake in 1804-8, were set to music by Parry in 1916 as a celebration of England. This hymn has been described as "England's unofficial national anthem",[38] concludes the film and inspired its title.[39] A handful of other traditional anthems and hymns and period-appropriate instrumental ballroom-dance music round out the film's soundtrack.
Filming locations[edit]



 The beach running scene.
The beach scenes associated with the theme tune were filmed at West Sands, St. Andrews. A plaque commemorating the filming can be found there today. The very last scene of the opening titles crosses the 1st and 18th holes of the Old Course at St Andrews Links.[40][41]
All of the Cambridge scenes were actually filmed at Hugh Hudson's alma mater Eton College, because Cambridge refused filming rights, fearing depictions of anti-Semitism. The Cambridge administration greatly regretted the decision after the film's enormous success.[13]
Liverpool Town Hall was the setting for the scenes depicting the British Embassy in Paris.[13] The Colombes Olympic Stadium in Paris was represented by the Oval Sports Centre, Bebington, Merseyside.[42] The nearby Woodside ferry terminal was used to represent the embarkation scenes set in Dover.[42] The railway station scenes were filmed at the National Railway Museum in York.[13] The scene depicting a performance of The Mikado was filmed in the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool with members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company who were on tour.[43]
Revival for the 2012 Olympics[edit]



 The Chariots of Fire stage adaptation: Stars Jack Lowden and James McArdle flank Vangelis, watching the Olympic Torch Relay set to the iconic tune, from the Gielgud Theatre, July 2012.
Chariots of Fire became a recurring theme in promotions for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The film's theme tune was featured at the opening of the 2012 London New Years fireworks celebrating the Olympics,[44] and the film's iconic beach-running scene and theme tune were used in The Sun's "Let's Make It Great, Britain" Olympic ads.[45] The runners who first tested the new Olympic Park were spurred on by the Chariots of Fire theme tune,[46] and the iconic music was also used to fanfare the carriers of the Olympic flame on parts of its route through the UK.[47][48] The film's theme was also performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle, during the Opening Ceremony of the games; the performance was accompanied by a comedy skit by Rowan Atkinson (in persona as Mr. Bean) which included the opening beach-running footage from the film.[49] The film's theme tune was also played during each medal ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.
Stage adaptation[edit]
Main article: Chariots of Fire (play)
A stage adaptation of Chariots of Fire was mounted in honour of the 2012 Olympics. The play, Chariots of Fire, which was adapted by playwright Mike Bartlett and included the iconic Vangelis score, ran from 9 May to 16 June 2012 at London's Hampstead Theatre, and transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End on 23 June, where it ran until 5 January 2013.[50] It starred Jack Lowden as Eric Liddell and James McArdle as Harold Abrahams, and Edward Hall directed. Stage designer Miriam Buether transformed each theatre into an Olympic stadium, and composer Jason Carr wrote additional music.[51][52][53] Vangelis also created several new pieces of music for the production.[54][55] The stage version for the London Olympic year was the idea of the film's director, Hugh Hudson, who co-produced the play; he stated, "Issues of faith, of refusal to compromise, standing up for one's beliefs, achieving something for the sake of it, with passion, and not just for fame or financial gain, are even more vital today."[56]
Another play, Running for Glory, written by Philip Dart, based on the 1924 Olympics, and focusing on Abrahams and Liddell, toured parts of Britain from 25 February to 1 April 2012. It starred Nicholas Jacobs as Harold Abrahams, and Tom Micklem as Eric Liddell.[57][58]
UK cinematic re-release, Blu-ray[edit]
As an official part of the London 2012 Festival celebrations, a new digitally re-mastered version of the film screened in 150 cinemas throughout the UK. The re-release began 13 July 2012, two weeks before the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.[59]
A Blu-ray of the film was released on 10 July 2012 in North America,[60] and was released 16 July 2012 in the UK.[61] The release includes nearly an hour of special features, a CD sampler, and a 32-page "digibook".[62][63]
Accolades[edit]
Chariots of Fire was very successful at the 54th Academy Awards, winning four of seven nominations. When accepting his Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Colin Welland famously announced "The British are coming".[64] At the 1981 Cannes Film Festival the film won two awards and competed for the Palme d'Or.[65]
BFI Top 100 British films (1999) – rank 19
Hot 100 No. 1 Hits of 1982 (USA) (8 May) – Vangelis, Chariots of Fire theme
American Film Institute recognition
1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores - Nominated
2006: AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers - No. 100
2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated
2008: AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Sports Movie
Awards and nominations[edit]

Award
Category
Recipients and nominees
Result
54th Academy Awards Academy Award for Best Picture David Puttnam Won
Academy Award for Best Director Hugh Hudson Nominated
Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) Colin Welland Won
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Ian Holm Nominated
Academy Award for Best Film Editing Terry Rawlings Nominated
Academy Award for Best Costume Design Milena Canonero Won
Academy Award for Best Original Score Vangelis Won
American Movie Awards Best Supporting Actor Ian Holm Nominated
35th British Academy Film Awards BAFTA Award for Best Film David Puttnam Won
BAFTA Award for Best Direction Hugh Hudson Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay Colin Welland Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Nigel Havers Nominated
Ian Holm Won
BAFTA Award for Best Editing Terry Rawlings Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design Milena Canonero Won
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography David Watkin Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Film Music Vangelis Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Production Design Roger Hall Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Sound Clive Winter, Bill Rowe, Jim Shields Nominated
British Society of Cinematographers  David Watkin Nominated
1981 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Hugh Hudson Nominated
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Special Mention Won
Best Supporting Actor Ian Holm Won
Directors Guild of America Award Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film Hugh Hudson Nominated
39th Golden Globe Awards Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film Hugh Hudson Won
25th Grammy Awards Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance Ernie Watts Won
London Film Critics' Circle London Film Critics Circle Award for Film of the Year Hugh Hudson Won
London Film Critics Circle Award for Screenwriter of the Year Colin Welland Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 1981 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Film Hugh Hudson 2nd place
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Music Vangelis 2nd place
National Board of Review Awards 1981 National Board of Review Award for Best Film  Won
National Board of Review: Top Ten Films  Won
1981 New York Film Critics Circle Awards New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film  4th place
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director Hugh Hudson 3rd place
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography David Watkin Won
Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award Hugh Hudson Won
See also[edit]
Chariots of Fire (race), inspired by the film, held in Cambridge since 1991
Great Britain at the 1924 Summer Olympics
Sabbath breaking
References[edit]
Chapman, James. "The British Are Coming: Chariots of Fire (1981)". In: Past and Present: National Identity and the British Historical Film. London: I.B. Tauris & Co, 2005. pp. 270–298.
McLaughlin, John (February 2012). "In Chariots They Ran". Runner's World (Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale).
Ryan, Mark. Running with Fire: The True Story of Chariots of Fire Hero Harold Abrahams. Robson Press, 2012 (paperback). (Original hardback: JR Books Ltd, 2011.)
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Alexander Walker, Icons in the Fire: The Rise and Fall of Practically Everyone in the British Film Industry 1984-2000, Orion Books, 2005 p28
2.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire at Box Office Mojo
3.Jump up ^ Dans, Peter E. Christians in the Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners. Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. p. 223.
4.^ Jump up to: a b Aubrey Montague biography at SportsReference.com
5.^ Jump up to: a b c McLaughlin, John. "In Chariots They Ran". Runner's World. February 2012.
6.Jump up ^ Chapman, pp. 275, 295.
7.Jump up ^ "Modern-day hero runs away with Chariots of Fire challenge." Daily Mail 27 October 2007.
8.Jump up ^ Ramsey, Russell W. (1987). God's Joyful Runner. Bridge Publishing, Inc. p. 54. ISBN 0-88270-624-1.
9.Jump up ^ "A Sporting Nation: Eric Liddell". BBC.co.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
10.^ Jump up to: a b Ryan (2012), p. 188.
11.Jump up ^ Stone, David. Sybil Gordon at the Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company website, 11 July 2002. Retrieved 8 November 2009
12.Jump up ^ Stone, David. Sybil Evers at the Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company website, 28 January 2002. Retrieved 8 November 2009
13.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Hugh Hudson's commentary to the 2005 Chariots of Fire DVD
14.Jump up ^ Ramsey, Russell W. A Lady – A Peacemaker. Boston: Branden Publishing Company, 1988.
15.Jump up ^ Murray, Feg. "DID YOU KNOW THAT ...". Los Angeles Times. 24 June 1924. Full headline reads, "Did You Know That Famous Scotch Sprinter Will Not Run In The Olympic 100 Metres Because The Trials Are Run On Sunday".
16.Jump up ^ "Recollections by Sir Arthur Marshall". Content.ericliddell.org. Retrieved 28 April 2009.[dead link]
17.Jump up ^ Arthur Espie Porritt 1900–1994. "Reference to Porritt's modesty". Library.otago.ac.nz. Retrieved 28 April 2009.
18.Jump up ^ The quoted passage is First Samuel 2:30.
19.Jump up ^ Reid, Alasdair. "Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell". The Times. 1 August 2000.
20.Jump up ^ "Britain's 1924 Olympic Champs Live Again in 'Chariots of Fire'—and Run Away with the Oscars". People 17 (18). 10 May 1982. Retrieved 22 August 2009.
21.Jump up ^ Goodell, Gregory. Independent Feature Film Production: A Complete Guide from Concept Through Distribution. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. p. xvii.
22.Jump up ^ Nichols, Peter M. The New York Times Essential Library, Children's Movies: A Critic's Guide to the Best Films Available on Video and DVD. New York: Times Books, 2003. p. 59.
23.^ Jump up to: a b Hugh Hudson in Chariots of Fire – The Reunion (2005 video; featurette on 2005 Chariots of Fire DVD)
24.Jump up ^ Chapman, pp. 274–295.
25.Jump up ^ Ian McKellen, Hugh Hudson, Alan Bates, et al. For Ian Charleson: A Tribute. London: Constable and Company, 1990. pp. 37–39. ISBN 0-09-470250-0
26.Jump up ^ Puttnam interviewed in BBC Radio obituary of Jack Valenti.
27.^ Jump up to: a b Round, Simon. "Interview: Hugh Hudson". The Jewish Chronicle. 10 November 2011.
28.Jump up ^ Ian McKellen, Hugh Hudson, Alan Bates, et al. For Ian Charleson: A Tribute. London: Constable and Company, 1990. pp. xix, 9, 76.
29.Jump up ^ Ben Cross – Bio on Official site
30.^ Jump up to: a b c Wings on Their Heels: The Making of Chariots of Fire. (2005 video; featurette on 2005 DVD).
31.Jump up ^ Chapman, pp. 273–274.
32.^ Jump up to: a b Daily Telegraph newspaper, 21 November 1982
33.Jump up ^ MacNab, Geoffrey. "Everyone Was a Winner when British Talent Met the Olympic Spirit". The Independent. 13 April 2012.
34.Jump up ^ Hubbert, Julie. Celluloid Symphonies: Texts and Contexts in Film Music History. University of California Press, 2011. p. 426.
35.Jump up ^ "L'Enfant", from Opera Sauvage
36.Jump up ^ Vangelis in Chariots of Fire – The Reunion (2005 video; featurette on 2005 Chariots of Fire DVD)
37.Jump up ^ Trivia about Vangelis
38.Jump up ^ Sanderson, Blair. Hubert Parry. AllMusic Guide, reprinted in Answers.com.
39.Jump up ^ Manchel, Frank. Film Study: An Analytical Bibliography. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990. p. 1013
40.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire – St Andrews Scotland: The Movie Location Guide
41.Jump up ^ Tours: St Andrews Gray Line Tours. Describes Grannie Clark’s Wynd, a public right-of-way over the 1st and the 18th of the Old Course, which was where the athletes were filmed running for the final titles shot.
42.^ Jump up to: a b "Chariots of Fire". Where Did They Film That?. Retrieved 18 February 2007.
43.Jump up ^ Bradley, Ian, ed.The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan. Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 576.
44.Jump up ^ London Fireworks 2012 - New Year Live - BBC One
45.Jump up ^ "Let's Make It Great, Britain"
46.Jump up ^ "London 2012: Olympic Park Runners Finish Race". BBC News. 31 March 2012.
47.Jump up ^ "Musicians Set to Fanfare the Flame". Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph. 3 April 2012.
48.Jump up ^ Line the Streets: Celebration Guide. London 2012. p. 4.
49.Jump up ^ "Mr. Bean's 'Chariots Of Fire' Skit At 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony". International Business Times. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
50.Jump up ^ Rees, Jasper. "Chariots of Fire Is Coming!" The Arts Desk. 18 April 2012.
51.Jump up ^ "Cast Announced for Hampstead Theatre's Chariots of Fire; Opens May 9". Broadway World. 2 April 2012.
52.Jump up ^ Girvan, Andrew. "Black Watch's Lowden plays Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire". What's On Stage. 9 March 2012.
53.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire – Hampstead Theatre
54.Jump up ^ Twitter: Chariots Tweeter, 16 April 2012, 18 April 2012.
55.Jump up ^ Rees, Jasper. "Chariots of Fire: The British Are Coming... Again". The Daily Telegraph. 3 May 2012.
56.Jump up ^ Jury, Louise. "Theatre to Run Chariots of Fire with Vangelis Tracks". London Evening Standard. 30 January 2012.
57.Jump up ^ Elkin, Susan. "Running for Glory". The Stage. 2 March 2012.
58.Jump up ^ "Olympic Play Is Victory on Stage". This Is Kent. 10 February 2012.
59.Jump up ^ "Chariots of Fire Returns to UK Cinemas Ahead of the Olympics". British Film Institute. 23 March 2012.
60.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire – Blu-ray
61.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire – 30th Anniversary Limited Edition Blu-ray
62.Jump up ^ Sluss, Justin. "1981 Hugh Hudson Directed Film Chariots of Fire Comes to Blu-ray in July". HighDefDiscNews.com.
63.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire Blu-ray press release
64.Jump up ^ "This week's new theatre and dance". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 August 2012
65.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Chariots of Fire". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 31 May 2009.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Chariots of Fire
Chariots of Fire at the Internet Movie Database
Chariots of Fire at the TCM Movie Database
Chariots of Fire at AllMovie
Chariots of Fire at Rotten Tomatoes
Critics' Picks: Chariots of Fire retrospective video by A. O. Scott, The New York Times (2008)
4 Speeches from the Movie in Text and Audio from AmericanRhetoric.com
Chariots of Fire review by Roger Ebert
Chariots of Fire review in Variety
Chariots of Fire at the Arts & Faith Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films
The Real Chariots of Fire – 2012 documentary
Chariots of Fire filming locations
Chariots of Fire screenplay, second draft, February 1980
Great Court Run
Chariots of Fire play – Hampstead Theatre


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Categories: 1981 films
English-language films
British films
French-language films
20th Century Fox films
1924 Summer Olympics
1980s drama films
Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe winners
Best Picture Academy Award winners
British biographical films
British drama films
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Cambridge in fiction
University of Cambridge in fiction
Films about Christianity
Culture of the University of Cambridge
Directorial debut films
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Films directed by Hugh Hudson
Films set in 1924
Films set in England
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Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Gilbert and Sullivan
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Chariots of Fire

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This article is about the film. For other uses, see Chariots of Fire (disambiguation).
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Chariots of Fire
Chariots of fire.jpg
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Hugh Hudson
Produced by
David Puttnam
Written by
Colin Welland
Starring
Ben Cross
Ian Charleson
Nigel Havers
Cheryl Campbell
Alice Krige
Lindsay Anderson
Dennis Christopher
Nigel Davenport
Brad Davis
Peter Egan
Sir John Gielgud
Ian Holm
Patrick Magee

Music by
Vangelis
Cinematography
David Watkin
Edited by
Terry Rawlings

Production
 company

Allied Stars Ltd
Goldcrest Films
 Enigma Productions

Distributed by
20th Century Fox (International)
The Ladd Company
Warner Bros (US)

Release dates

30 March 1981 (Royal Command Film Performance)


Running time
 124 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
£3 million[1]
Box office
$58,972,904 (U.S.)[2]
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British historical drama film. It 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, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice.
The film was conceived and produced by David Puttnam, written by Colin Welland, and directed by Hugh Hudson. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute's list of Top 100 British films. The film is also notable for its memorable instrumental theme tune by Vangelis, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
The film's title was inspired by the line, "Bring me my chariot of fire," from the William Blake poem adapted into the popular British hymn "Jerusalem"; the hymn is heard at the end of the film.[3] The original phrase "chariot(s) of fire" is from 2 Kings 2:11 and 6:17 in the Bible.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Historical accuracy 3.1 Characters
3.2 1924 Olympics 3.2.1 Personal inaccuracies at the Olympics

4 Production 4.1 Script and direction
4.2 Casting
4.3 Music
4.4 Filming locations
5 Revival for the 2012 Olympics 5.1 Stage adaptation
5.2 UK cinematic re-release, Blu-ray
6 Accolades 6.1 Awards and nominations
7 See also
8 References
9 Notes
10 External links

Plot[edit]
In 1919, Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) enters the University of Cambridge, where he experiences anti-Semitism from the staff, but enjoys participating in the Gilbert and Sullivan club. He becomes the first person to ever complete the Trinity Great Court Run – running around the college courtyard in the time it takes for the clock to strike 12. Abrahams achieves an undefeated string of victories in various national running competitions. Although focused on his running, he falls in love with a leading Gilbert and Sullivan soprano, Sybil (Alice Krige).
Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), born in China of Scottish missionary parents, is in Scotland. His devout sister Jennie (Cheryl Campbell) disapproves of Liddell's plans to pursue competitive running. But Liddell sees running as a way of glorifying God before returning to China to work as a missionary.
When they first race against each other, Liddell beats Abrahams. Abrahams takes it poorly, but Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm), a professional trainer whom he had approached earlier, offers to take him on to improve his technique. This attracts criticism from the Cambridge college masters (John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson), who allege it is not gentlemanly for an amateur to "play the tradesman" by employing a professional coach. Abrahams dismisses this concern, interpreting it as cover for anti-Semitic and class-based prejudice.
When Eric Liddell accidentally misses a church prayer meeting because of his running, his sister Jennie upbraids him and accuses him of no longer caring about God. Eric tells her that though he intends to eventually return to the China mission, he feels divinely inspired when running, and that not to run would be to dishonour God, saying, "I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure."
The two athletes, after years of training and racing, are accepted to represent Great Britain in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Also accepted are Abrahams' Cambridge friends, Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers), Aubrey Montague (Nicholas Farrell), and Henry Stallard (Daniel Gerroll). While boarding the boat to Paris for the Olympics, Liddell learns the news that the heat for his 100 metre race will be on a Sunday. He refuses to run the race – despite strong pressure from the Prince of Wales and the British Olympic committee – because his Christian convictions prevent him from running on the Sabbath.
Hope appears when Liddell's teammate Lindsay, having already won a silver medal in the 400 metres hurdles, proposes to yield his place in the 400 metre race on the following Thursday to Liddell, who gratefully agrees. His religious convictions in the face of national athletic pride make headlines around the world.
Liddell delivers a sermon at the Paris Church of Scotland that Sunday, and quotes from Isaiah 40, ending with:
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Abrahams is badly beaten by the heavily favoured United States runners in the 200 metre race. He knows his last chance for a medal will be the 100 metres. He competes in the race, and wins. His coach Sam Mussabini is overcome that the years of dedication and training have paid off with an Olympic gold medal. Now Abrahams can get on with his life and reunite with his girlfriend Sybil, whom he had neglected for the sake of running. Before Liddell's race, the American coach remarks dismissively to his runners that Liddell has little chance of doing well in his now far longer 400 metre race. But one of the American runners, Jackson Scholz, hands Liddell a note of support for his convictions. Liddell defeats the American favourites and wins the gold medal.
The British team returns home triumphant. As the film ends, onscreen text explains that Abrahams married Sybil, and became the elder statesman of British athletics. Liddell went on to missionary work in China. All of Scotland mourned his death in 1945 in Japanese-occupied China.
Cast [edit]
Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams, a Jewish student at Cambridge University
Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell, the son of Scottish missionaries to China
Nicholas Farrell as Aubrey Montague, a runner and friend of Harold Abrahams
Nigel Havers as Lord Andrew Lindsay, a Cambridge student runner partially based on David Burghley and Douglas Lowe
Ian Holm as Sam Mussabini, Abrahams's running coach
John Gielgud as Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University
Lindsay Anderson as Master of Caius College at Cambridge University
Cheryl Campbell as Jennie Liddell, Eric's devout sister (Janet Lillian "Jenny" Liddell)
Alice Krige as Sybil Gordon, Abrahams' fiancée (his actual fiancée was Sybil Evers)
Struan Rodger as Sandy McGrath, Liddell's friend and running coach
Nigel Davenport as Lord Birkenhead, member of the British Olympic Committee, who counsels the athletes
Patrick Magee as Lord Cadogan, chairman of the British Olympics Committee, who is unsympathetic to Liddell's religious plight
David Yelland as the Prince of Wales, who tries to get Liddell to change his mind about running on Sunday
Peter Egan as the Duke of Sutherland, president of the British Olympic Committee, who is sympathetic to Liddell
Daniel Gerroll as Henry Stallard, a Cambridge student and runner
Dennis Christopher as Charley Paddock, American Olympic runner
Brad Davis as Jackson Scholz, American Olympic runner
Historical accuracy[edit]
Characters[edit]
The film depicts Abrahams as attending Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge with three other Olympic athletes: Henry Stallard, Aubrey Montague, and Lord Andrew Lindsay. Abrahams and Stallard were in fact students there and competed in the 1924 Olympics. Montague also competed in the Olympics as depicted, but he attended Oxford, not Cambridge.[4] Aubrey Montague sent daily letters to his mother about his time at Oxford and the Olympics; these letters were the basis of Montague's narration in the film.
The character of Lindsay was based partially on Lord Burghley, a significant figure in the history of British athletics. Although Burghley did attend Cambridge, he was not a contemporary of Harold Abrahams, as Abrahams was an undergraduate from 1919 to 1923 and Burghley was at Cambridge from 1923 to 1927. One scene in the film depicts the Burghley-based "Lindsay" as practising hurdles on his estate with full champagne glasses placed on each hurdle – this was something the wealthy Burghley did, although he used matchboxes instead of champagne glasses.[5] The fictional character of Lindsay was created when Douglas Lowe, who was Britain's third athletics gold medallist in the 1924 Olympics, was not willing to be involved with the film.[6]



Abrahams (left) and the Burghley-based Lindsay (right) attempt the Great Court Run.
Another scene in the film recreates the Great Court Run, in which the runners attempt to run around the perimeter of the Great Court at Trinity College, Cambridge in the time it takes the clock to strike 12 at midday. The film shows Abrahams performing the feat for the first time in history. In fact, Abrahams never attempted this race, and at the time of filming the only person on record known to have succeeded was Lord Burghley, in 1927. In Chariots of Fire, Lindsay, who is based on Lord Burghley, runs the Great Court Run with Abrahams in order to spur him on, and crosses the finish line just a moment too late. Since the film's release, the Great Court Run has also been successfully run by Trinity undergraduate Sam Dobin, in October 2007.[7]
In the film, Eric Liddell is tripped up by a Frenchman in the 400 metre event of a Scotland–France international athletic meeting. He recovers, makes up a 20 metre deficit, and wins. This was based on fact; the actual race was the 440 yards at a Triangular Contest meet between Scotland, England, and Ireland at Stoke-on-Trent in England in July 1923. His achievement was remarkable as he had already won the 100- and 220-yard events that day.[8] Also unmentioned with regard to Liddell is that it was he who introduced Abrahams to Sam Mussabini.[9] This is alluded to: In the film Abrahams first encounters Mussabini while he is watching Liddell race. The film, however, suggests that Abrahams himself sought Mussabini's assistance.
Abrahams' fiancée is misidentified as Sybil Gordon, a soprano at the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. In fact, in 1936, Abrahams married Sybil Evers, who sang at the D'Oyly Carte, but they did not meet until 1934.[10] Also, in the film, Sybil is depicted as singing the role of Yum-Yum in The Mikado, but neither Sybil Gordon nor Sybil Evers ever sang that role with D'Oyly Carte,[11][12] although Evers was known for her charm in singing Peep-Bo, one of the two other "little maids from school".[10] Harold Abrahams' love of and heavy involvement with Gilbert and Sullivan, as depicted in the film, is factual.[13]
Liddell's sister was several years younger than she was portrayed in the film. Her disapproval of Liddell's track career was creative licence; she actually fully supported his sporting work. Jenny Liddell Somerville cooperated fully with the making of the film and has a brief cameo in the Paris Church of Scotland during Liddell's sermon.[14]
At the memorial service for Harold Abrahams, which opens the film, Lord Lindsay mentions that he and Aubrey Montague are the only members of the 1924 Olympic team still alive. However, Montague died in 1948, 30 years before Abrahams' death.
1924 Olympics[edit]
See also: Great Britain at the 1924 Summer Olympics
The film takes some liberties with the events at the 1924 Olympics, including the events surrounding Liddell's refusal to race on a Sunday. In the film, he doesn't learn that the 100 metre heat is to be held on the Christian Sabbath until he is boarding the boat to Paris. In fact, the schedule was made public several months in advance. Liddell did however face immense pressure to run on that Sunday and to compete in the 100 metres, getting called before a grilling by the British Olympic Committee, the Prince of Wales, and other grandees;[13] and his refusal to run made headlines around the world.[15] The decision to change races was, even so, made well before embarking to Paris, and Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 metres, an event in which he had previously excelled. It is true, nonetheless, that Liddell's success in the Olympic 400m was largely unexpected.
The film depicts Lindsay, having already won a medal in the 400 metre hurdles, giving up his place in the 400 metre race for Liddell. In fact Burghley, on whom Lindsay is loosely based, was eliminated in the heats of the 110 hurdles (he would go on to win a gold medal in the 400 hurdles at the 1928 Olympics), and was not entered for the 400 metres.
The film reverses the order of Abrahams' 100m and 200m races at the Olympics. In reality, after winning the 100 metres race, Abrahams ran the 200 metres but finished last, Jackson Scholz taking the gold medal. In the film, before his triumph in the 100m, Abrahams is shown losing the 200m and being scolded by Mussabini. And during the following scene in which Abrahams speaks with his friend Montague while receiving a massage from Mussabini, there is a French newspaper clipping showing Scholz and Charlie Paddock with a headline which states that the 200 metres was a triumph for the United States. In the same conversation, Abrahams laments getting "beaten out of sight" in the 200. The film thus has Abrahams overcoming the disappointment of losing the 200 by going on to win the 100, a reversal of the real order.
Eric Liddell actually also ran in the 200m race, and finished third, behind Paddock and Scholz. This was the only time in reality that Liddell and Abrahams competed in the same race. Their meeting in the 1923 AAA Championship in the film was fictitious, though Liddell's record win in that race did spur Abrahams to train even harder.[16]
Abrahams also won a silver medal as an opening runner for the 4 x 100 metres relay team, not shown in the film. Aubrey Montague placed sixth in the steeplechase, as depicted.[4]
Personal inaccuracies at the Olympics[edit]
In the film, the 100m bronze medallist is a character called "Tom Watson"; the real medallist was Arthur Porritt of New Zealand, who refused permission for his name to be used in the film, allegedly out of modesty. His wish was accepted by the film's producers, even though his permission was not necessary.[17] However, the brief back-story given for Watson, who is called up to the New Zealand team from the University of Oxford, substantially matches Porritt's history. With the exception of Porritt, all the runners in the 100m final are identified correctly when they line up for inspection by the Prince of Wales.
Jackson Scholz is depicted as handing Liddell an inspirational Bible-quotation message before the 400 metres final: "It says in the good Book, 'He that honors me, I will honor.' Good luck."[18] In reality, the note was from members of the British team, and was handed to Liddell before the race by his attending masseur at the team's Paris hotel.[19] For dramatic purposes, screenwriter Welland asked Scholz if he could be depicted handing the note, and Scholz readily agreed, saying "Yes, great, as long as it makes me look good."[13][20]
Production[edit]
Script and direction[edit]



Ian Charleson, who studied the Bible intensively for his role, wrote Eric Liddell's post-race inspirational speech to a working-class crowd.
Producer David Puttnam was looking for a story in the mould of A Man for All Seasons (1966), regarding someone who follows his conscience, and felt sports provided clear situations in this sense.[21] He discovered Eric Liddell's story by accident in 1977, when he happened upon a reference book on the Olympics while housebound from the flu in a rented house in Los Angeles.[22][23]
Screenwriter Colin Welland, commissioned by Puttnam, did an enormous amount of research for his Academy Award-winning script. Among other things, he took out advertisements in London newspapers seeking memories of the 1924 Olympics, went to the National Film Archives for pictures and footage of the 1924 Olympics, and interviewed everyone involved who was still alive. Welland just missed Abrahams, who died 14 January 1978, but he did attend Abrahams' February 1978 memorial service, which inspired the present-day framing device of the film.[5] Aubrey Montague's son saw Welland's newspaper ad and sent him copies of the letters his father had sent home – which gave Welland something to use as a narrative bridge in the film. Except for changes in the greetings of the letters from "Darling Mummy" to "Dear Mum" and the change from Oxford to Cambridge, all of the readings from Montague's letters are from the originals.[13]
Welland's original script also featured, in addition to Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, a third protagonist, 1924 Olympic gold medallist Douglas Lowe, who was presented as a privileged aristocratic athlete. However, Lowe refused to have anything to do with the film, and his character was written out and replaced by the fictional character of Lord Andrew Lindsay.[24]
Ian Charleson himself wrote Eric Liddell's speech to the post-race workingmen's crowd at the Scotland v. Ireland races. Charleson, who had studied the Bible intensively in preparation for the role, told director Hugh Hudson that he didn't feel the portentous and sanctimonious scripted speech was either authentic or inspiring. Hudson and Welland allowed him to write words he personally found inspirational instead.[25]
The film was slightly altered for the U.S. audience. A brief scene depicting a pre-Olympics cricket game between Abrahams, Liddell, Montague, and the rest of the British track team appears shortly after the beginning of the original film. For the American audience, this brief scene was deleted. In the U.S., to avoid the initial G rating, which had been strongly associated with children's films and might have hindered box office sales, a different scene was used – one depicting Abrahams and Montague arriving at a Cambridge railway station and encountering two World War I veterans who use an obscenity – in order to be given a PG rating.[26]
Puttnam chose Hugh Hudson, a multiple award-winning advertising and documentary filmmaker who had never helmed a feature film, to direct Chariots of Fire. Hudson and Puttnam had known each other since the 1960s, when Puttnam was an advertising executive and Hudson was making films for ad agencies. In 1977, Hudson had also been second-unit director on the Puttnam-produced film Midnight Express.[27]
Casting[edit]
Director Hugh Hudson was determined to cast young, unknown actors in all the major roles of the film, and to back them up by using veterans like John Gielgud, Lindsay Anderson, and Ian Holm as their supporting cast. Hudson and producer David Puttnam did months of fruitless searching for the perfect actor to play Eric Liddell. They then saw Scottish stage actor Ian Charleson performing the role of Pierre in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Piaf, and knew immediately they had found their man. Unbeknownst to them, Charleson had heard about the film from his father, and desperately wanted to play the part, feeling it would "fit like a kid glove".[28]
Ben Cross, who plays Harold Abrahams, was discovered while playing Billy Flynn in Chicago. In addition to having a natural pugnaciousness, he had the desired ability to sing and play the piano.[13][29] Cross was thrilled to be cast, and said he was moved to tears by the film's script.[30]
20th Century Fox, which put up half of the production budget in exchange for distribution rights outside of North America,[31] insisted on having a couple of notable American names in the cast.[23] Thus the small parts of the two American champion runners, Jackson Scholz and Charlie Paddock, were cast with recent headliners: Brad Davis had recently starred in Midnight Express (also produced by Puttnam), and Dennis Christopher had recently starred, as a young bicycle racer, in the popular indie film Breaking Away.[30]
All of the actors portraying runners underwent a gruelling three-month training intensive, with renowned running coach Tom McNab. This training and isolation of the actors also created a strong bond and sense of camaraderie among them.[30]
Music[edit]
Main article: Chariots of Fire (album)



Ian Charleson (foreground) and Ben Cross (left) running in the "Chariots of Fire" music scene which bookends the film.
Although the film is a period piece, set in the 1920s, the Academy Award-winning original soundtrack composed by Vangelis uses a modern 1980s electronic sound, with a strong use of synthesizer and piano among other instruments. This was a bold and significant departure from earlier period films, which employed sweeping orchestral instrumentals. The title theme of the film has become iconic, and has been used in subsequent films and television shows during slow-motion segments.
Vangelis, a Greek-born electronic composer who moved to Paris in the late 1960s, had been living in London since 1974.[32] Director Hugh Hudson had collaborated with him on documentaries and commercials, and was also particularly impressed with his 1979 albums Opera Sauvage and China.[33] David Puttnam also greatly admired Vangelis's body of work, having originally selected his compositions for his previous film Midnight Express.[34] Hudson made the choice for Vangelis and for a modern score: "I knew we needed a piece which was anachronistic to the period to give it a feel of modernity. It was a risky idea but we went with it rather than have a period symphonic score."[27] The soundtrack had a personal significance to Vangelis: After composing the iconic theme tune he told Puttnam, "My father is a runner, and this is an anthem to him."[5][32]
Hudson originally wanted Vangelis's 1977 tune "L'Enfant",[35] from his Opera Sauvage album, to be the title theme of the film, and the beach running sequence was actually filmed with "L'Enfant" playing on loudspeakers for the runners to pace to. Vangelis finally convinced Hudson he could create a new and better piece for the film's main theme – and when he played the now-iconic "Chariots of Fire" theme for Hudson, it was agreed the new tune was unquestionably better.[36] The "L'Enfant" melody still made it into the film: When the athletes reach Paris and enter the stadium, a brass band marches through the field, and first plays a modified, acoustic performance of the piece.[37] Vangelis's electronic "L'Enfant" track eventually was used prominently in the 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously.
Some pieces of Vangelis's music in the film did not end up on the film's soundtrack album. One of them is the background music to the race Eric Liddell runs in the Scottish highlands. This piece is a version of "Hymn", the original version of which appears on Vangelis's 1979 album, Opéra sauvage. Various versions are also included on Vangelis's compilation albums Themes, Portraits, and Odyssey: The Definitive Collection, though none of these include the version used in the film.
Five lively Gilbert and Sullivan tunes also appear in the soundtrack, and serve as jaunty period music which nicely counterpoints Vangelis's modern electronic score. These are: "He is an Englishman" from H.M.S. Pinafore, "Three Little Maids from School Are We" from The Mikado, "With Catlike Tread" from The Pirates of Penzance, "The Soldiers of Our Queen" from Patience, and "There Lived a King" from The Gondoliers.
The film also incorporates a major traditional work: "Jerusalem", sung by a British choir at the 1978 funeral of Harold Abrahams. The words, written by William Blake in 1804-8, were set to music by Parry in 1916 as a celebration of England. This hymn has been described as "England's unofficial national anthem",[38] concludes the film and inspired its title.[39] A handful of other traditional anthems and hymns and period-appropriate instrumental ballroom-dance music round out the film's soundtrack.
Filming locations[edit]



 The beach running scene.
The beach scenes associated with the theme tune were filmed at West Sands, St. Andrews. A plaque commemorating the filming can be found there today. The very last scene of the opening titles crosses the 1st and 18th holes of the Old Course at St Andrews Links.[40][41]
All of the Cambridge scenes were actually filmed at Hugh Hudson's alma mater Eton College, because Cambridge refused filming rights, fearing depictions of anti-Semitism. The Cambridge administration greatly regretted the decision after the film's enormous success.[13]
Liverpool Town Hall was the setting for the scenes depicting the British Embassy in Paris.[13] The Colombes Olympic Stadium in Paris was represented by the Oval Sports Centre, Bebington, Merseyside.[42] The nearby Woodside ferry terminal was used to represent the embarkation scenes set in Dover.[42] The railway station scenes were filmed at the National Railway Museum in York.[13] The scene depicting a performance of The Mikado was filmed in the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool with members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company who were on tour.[43]
Revival for the 2012 Olympics[edit]



 The Chariots of Fire stage adaptation: Stars Jack Lowden and James McArdle flank Vangelis, watching the Olympic Torch Relay set to the iconic tune, from the Gielgud Theatre, July 2012.
Chariots of Fire became a recurring theme in promotions for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The film's theme tune was featured at the opening of the 2012 London New Years fireworks celebrating the Olympics,[44] and the film's iconic beach-running scene and theme tune were used in The Sun's "Let's Make It Great, Britain" Olympic ads.[45] The runners who first tested the new Olympic Park were spurred on by the Chariots of Fire theme tune,[46] and the iconic music was also used to fanfare the carriers of the Olympic flame on parts of its route through the UK.[47][48] The film's theme was also performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle, during the Opening Ceremony of the games; the performance was accompanied by a comedy skit by Rowan Atkinson (in persona as Mr. Bean) which included the opening beach-running footage from the film.[49] The film's theme tune was also played during each medal ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.
Stage adaptation[edit]
Main article: Chariots of Fire (play)
A stage adaptation of Chariots of Fire was mounted in honour of the 2012 Olympics. The play, Chariots of Fire, which was adapted by playwright Mike Bartlett and included the iconic Vangelis score, ran from 9 May to 16 June 2012 at London's Hampstead Theatre, and transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End on 23 June, where it ran until 5 January 2013.[50] It starred Jack Lowden as Eric Liddell and James McArdle as Harold Abrahams, and Edward Hall directed. Stage designer Miriam Buether transformed each theatre into an Olympic stadium, and composer Jason Carr wrote additional music.[51][52][53] Vangelis also created several new pieces of music for the production.[54][55] The stage version for the London Olympic year was the idea of the film's director, Hugh Hudson, who co-produced the play; he stated, "Issues of faith, of refusal to compromise, standing up for one's beliefs, achieving something for the sake of it, with passion, and not just for fame or financial gain, are even more vital today."[56]
Another play, Running for Glory, written by Philip Dart, based on the 1924 Olympics, and focusing on Abrahams and Liddell, toured parts of Britain from 25 February to 1 April 2012. It starred Nicholas Jacobs as Harold Abrahams, and Tom Micklem as Eric Liddell.[57][58]
UK cinematic re-release, Blu-ray[edit]
As an official part of the London 2012 Festival celebrations, a new digitally re-mastered version of the film screened in 150 cinemas throughout the UK. The re-release began 13 July 2012, two weeks before the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.[59]
A Blu-ray of the film was released on 10 July 2012 in North America,[60] and was released 16 July 2012 in the UK.[61] The release includes nearly an hour of special features, a CD sampler, and a 32-page "digibook".[62][63]
Accolades[edit]
Chariots of Fire was very successful at the 54th Academy Awards, winning four of seven nominations. When accepting his Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Colin Welland famously announced "The British are coming".[64] At the 1981 Cannes Film Festival the film won two awards and competed for the Palme d'Or.[65]
BFI Top 100 British films (1999) – rank 19
Hot 100 No. 1 Hits of 1982 (USA) (8 May) – Vangelis, Chariots of Fire theme
American Film Institute recognition
1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores - Nominated
2006: AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers - No. 100
2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated
2008: AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Sports Movie
Awards and nominations[edit]

Award
Category
Recipients and nominees
Result
54th Academy Awards Academy Award for Best Picture David Puttnam Won
Academy Award for Best Director Hugh Hudson Nominated
Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) Colin Welland Won
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Ian Holm Nominated
Academy Award for Best Film Editing Terry Rawlings Nominated
Academy Award for Best Costume Design Milena Canonero Won
Academy Award for Best Original Score Vangelis Won
American Movie Awards Best Supporting Actor Ian Holm Nominated
35th British Academy Film Awards BAFTA Award for Best Film David Puttnam Won
BAFTA Award for Best Direction Hugh Hudson Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay Colin Welland Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Nigel Havers Nominated
Ian Holm Won
BAFTA Award for Best Editing Terry Rawlings Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design Milena Canonero Won
BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography David Watkin Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Film Music Vangelis Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Production Design Roger Hall Nominated
BAFTA Award for Best Sound Clive Winter, Bill Rowe, Jim Shields Nominated
British Society of Cinematographers  David Watkin Nominated
1981 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Hugh Hudson Nominated
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Special Mention Won
Best Supporting Actor Ian Holm Won
Directors Guild of America Award Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film Hugh Hudson Nominated
39th Golden Globe Awards Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film Hugh Hudson Won
25th Grammy Awards Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance Ernie Watts Won
London Film Critics' Circle London Film Critics Circle Award for Film of the Year Hugh Hudson Won
London Film Critics Circle Award for Screenwriter of the Year Colin Welland Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 1981 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Film Hugh Hudson 2nd place
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Music Vangelis 2nd place
National Board of Review Awards 1981 National Board of Review Award for Best Film  Won
National Board of Review: Top Ten Films  Won
1981 New York Film Critics Circle Awards New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film  4th place
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director Hugh Hudson 3rd place
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cinematography David Watkin Won
Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award Hugh Hudson Won
See also[edit]
Chariots of Fire (race), inspired by the film, held in Cambridge since 1991
Great Britain at the 1924 Summer Olympics
Sabbath breaking
References[edit]
Chapman, James. "The British Are Coming: Chariots of Fire (1981)". In: Past and Present: National Identity and the British Historical Film. London: I.B. Tauris & Co, 2005. pp. 270–298.
McLaughlin, John (February 2012). "In Chariots They Ran". Runner's World (Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale).
Ryan, Mark. Running with Fire: The True Story of Chariots of Fire Hero Harold Abrahams. Robson Press, 2012 (paperback). (Original hardback: JR Books Ltd, 2011.)
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Alexander Walker, Icons in the Fire: The Rise and Fall of Practically Everyone in the British Film Industry 1984-2000, Orion Books, 2005 p28
2.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire at Box Office Mojo
3.Jump up ^ Dans, Peter E. Christians in the Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners. Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. p. 223.
4.^ Jump up to: a b Aubrey Montague biography at SportsReference.com
5.^ Jump up to: a b c McLaughlin, John. "In Chariots They Ran". Runner's World. February 2012.
6.Jump up ^ Chapman, pp. 275, 295.
7.Jump up ^ "Modern-day hero runs away with Chariots of Fire challenge." Daily Mail 27 October 2007.
8.Jump up ^ Ramsey, Russell W. (1987). God's Joyful Runner. Bridge Publishing, Inc. p. 54. ISBN 0-88270-624-1.
9.Jump up ^ "A Sporting Nation: Eric Liddell". BBC.co.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
10.^ Jump up to: a b Ryan (2012), p. 188.
11.Jump up ^ Stone, David. Sybil Gordon at the Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company website, 11 July 2002. Retrieved 8 November 2009
12.Jump up ^ Stone, David. Sybil Evers at the Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company website, 28 January 2002. Retrieved 8 November 2009
13.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Hugh Hudson's commentary to the 2005 Chariots of Fire DVD
14.Jump up ^ Ramsey, Russell W. A Lady – A Peacemaker. Boston: Branden Publishing Company, 1988.
15.Jump up ^ Murray, Feg. "DID YOU KNOW THAT ...". Los Angeles Times. 24 June 1924. Full headline reads, "Did You Know That Famous Scotch Sprinter Will Not Run In The Olympic 100 Metres Because The Trials Are Run On Sunday".
16.Jump up ^ "Recollections by Sir Arthur Marshall". Content.ericliddell.org. Retrieved 28 April 2009.[dead link]
17.Jump up ^ Arthur Espie Porritt 1900–1994. "Reference to Porritt's modesty". Library.otago.ac.nz. Retrieved 28 April 2009.
18.Jump up ^ The quoted passage is First Samuel 2:30.
19.Jump up ^ Reid, Alasdair. "Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell". The Times. 1 August 2000.
20.Jump up ^ "Britain's 1924 Olympic Champs Live Again in 'Chariots of Fire'—and Run Away with the Oscars". People 17 (18). 10 May 1982. Retrieved 22 August 2009.
21.Jump up ^ Goodell, Gregory. Independent Feature Film Production: A Complete Guide from Concept Through Distribution. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. p. xvii.
22.Jump up ^ Nichols, Peter M. The New York Times Essential Library, Children's Movies: A Critic's Guide to the Best Films Available on Video and DVD. New York: Times Books, 2003. p. 59.
23.^ Jump up to: a b Hugh Hudson in Chariots of Fire – The Reunion (2005 video; featurette on 2005 Chariots of Fire DVD)
24.Jump up ^ Chapman, pp. 274–295.
25.Jump up ^ Ian McKellen, Hugh Hudson, Alan Bates, et al. For Ian Charleson: A Tribute. London: Constable and Company, 1990. pp. 37–39. ISBN 0-09-470250-0
26.Jump up ^ Puttnam interviewed in BBC Radio obituary of Jack Valenti.
27.^ Jump up to: a b Round, Simon. "Interview: Hugh Hudson". The Jewish Chronicle. 10 November 2011.
28.Jump up ^ Ian McKellen, Hugh Hudson, Alan Bates, et al. For Ian Charleson: A Tribute. London: Constable and Company, 1990. pp. xix, 9, 76.
29.Jump up ^ Ben Cross – Bio on Official site
30.^ Jump up to: a b c Wings on Their Heels: The Making of Chariots of Fire. (2005 video; featurette on 2005 DVD).
31.Jump up ^ Chapman, pp. 273–274.
32.^ Jump up to: a b Daily Telegraph newspaper, 21 November 1982
33.Jump up ^ MacNab, Geoffrey. "Everyone Was a Winner when British Talent Met the Olympic Spirit". The Independent. 13 April 2012.
34.Jump up ^ Hubbert, Julie. Celluloid Symphonies: Texts and Contexts in Film Music History. University of California Press, 2011. p. 426.
35.Jump up ^ "L'Enfant", from Opera Sauvage
36.Jump up ^ Vangelis in Chariots of Fire – The Reunion (2005 video; featurette on 2005 Chariots of Fire DVD)
37.Jump up ^ Trivia about Vangelis
38.Jump up ^ Sanderson, Blair. Hubert Parry. AllMusic Guide, reprinted in Answers.com.
39.Jump up ^ Manchel, Frank. Film Study: An Analytical Bibliography. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990. p. 1013
40.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire – St Andrews Scotland: The Movie Location Guide
41.Jump up ^ Tours: St Andrews Gray Line Tours. Describes Grannie Clark’s Wynd, a public right-of-way over the 1st and the 18th of the Old Course, which was where the athletes were filmed running for the final titles shot.
42.^ Jump up to: a b "Chariots of Fire". Where Did They Film That?. Retrieved 18 February 2007.
43.Jump up ^ Bradley, Ian, ed.The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan. Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 576.
44.Jump up ^ London Fireworks 2012 - New Year Live - BBC One
45.Jump up ^ "Let's Make It Great, Britain"
46.Jump up ^ "London 2012: Olympic Park Runners Finish Race". BBC News. 31 March 2012.
47.Jump up ^ "Musicians Set to Fanfare the Flame". Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph. 3 April 2012.
48.Jump up ^ Line the Streets: Celebration Guide. London 2012. p. 4.
49.Jump up ^ "Mr. Bean's 'Chariots Of Fire' Skit At 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony". International Business Times. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
50.Jump up ^ Rees, Jasper. "Chariots of Fire Is Coming!" The Arts Desk. 18 April 2012.
51.Jump up ^ "Cast Announced for Hampstead Theatre's Chariots of Fire; Opens May 9". Broadway World. 2 April 2012.
52.Jump up ^ Girvan, Andrew. "Black Watch's Lowden plays Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire". What's On Stage. 9 March 2012.
53.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire – Hampstead Theatre
54.Jump up ^ Twitter: Chariots Tweeter, 16 April 2012, 18 April 2012.
55.Jump up ^ Rees, Jasper. "Chariots of Fire: The British Are Coming... Again". The Daily Telegraph. 3 May 2012.
56.Jump up ^ Jury, Louise. "Theatre to Run Chariots of Fire with Vangelis Tracks". London Evening Standard. 30 January 2012.
57.Jump up ^ Elkin, Susan. "Running for Glory". The Stage. 2 March 2012.
58.Jump up ^ "Olympic Play Is Victory on Stage". This Is Kent. 10 February 2012.
59.Jump up ^ "Chariots of Fire Returns to UK Cinemas Ahead of the Olympics". British Film Institute. 23 March 2012.
60.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire – Blu-ray
61.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire – 30th Anniversary Limited Edition Blu-ray
62.Jump up ^ Sluss, Justin. "1981 Hugh Hudson Directed Film Chariots of Fire Comes to Blu-ray in July". HighDefDiscNews.com.
63.Jump up ^ Chariots of Fire Blu-ray press release
64.Jump up ^ "This week's new theatre and dance". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 August 2012
65.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Chariots of Fire". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 31 May 2009.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Chariots of Fire
Chariots of Fire at the Internet Movie Database
Chariots of Fire at the TCM Movie Database
Chariots of Fire at AllMovie
Chariots of Fire at Rotten Tomatoes
Critics' Picks: Chariots of Fire retrospective video by A. O. Scott, The New York Times (2008)
4 Speeches from the Movie in Text and Audio from AmericanRhetoric.com
Chariots of Fire review by Roger Ebert
Chariots of Fire review in Variety
Chariots of Fire at the Arts & Faith Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films
The Real Chariots of Fire – 2012 documentary
Chariots of Fire filming locations
Chariots of Fire screenplay, second draft, February 1980
Great Court Run
Chariots of Fire play – Hampstead Theatre


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Exodus (soundtrack)

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Jump to: navigation, search


Exodus

Soundtrack album by Ernest Gold

Released
1961
Label
RCA Victor
Exodus is a soundtrack album by Ernest Gold with the Sinfonia of London from the 1960 film Exodus directed by Otto Preminger.
The main theme from the film ("Theme of Exodus") has been widely remixed and covered by many artists such as Ferrante and Teicher, whose version went No. 2 on the Billboard Singles Chart. Other versions were recorded by Edith Piaf, Mantovani, Bob Fleming (Moacyr Silva´s nickname - his recording is featured on his album, "Mr. Sax"), Peter Nero, Connie Francis, the 1960s British instrumental band The Eagles, and The Duprees, who sang the theme with lyrics written by Pat Boone. Hard rock guitarist Leslie West performed the song with his earliest band The Vagrants and also in subsequent bands. The band The Skatalites recorded a ska-version of the theme, which was covered by Bad Manners on the 1982 album Forging Ahead. Pianist George Greeley recorded a 10 1/2 minute concert version on his 1961 Warner Bros. album Popular Piano Concertos of Famous Film Themes. Other artists included piano player Anthony Burger for the Homecoming titled "I Do Believe", a disco version titled "Exo-Disco" by Huey Lewis & the American Express,[1] a remix by techno-crossover pianist Maksim Mrvica, and it has even been used as the sample for the T.I. song "Bankhead". The original version was used as a theme song for professional wrestler Mr. Perfect, and later a takeoff of the original version would become his longtime theme song. Trey Spruance of the Secret Chiefs 3 rescored the theme for "surf band and orchestra" on the album 2004 Book of Horizons. The Chopsticks (a Hong Kong female duo, made up of Sandra Lang (仙杜拉) & Amina (亞美娜)), covered this as a medley song with "Hava Nagila" on their 1971 LP 《All Of A Sudden》issue. Furthermore, Howard Stern tends to use it for comedic effect when discussing aspects of Jewish life.


Contents  [hide]
1 Track listing
2 Awards and nominations 2.1 Academy Awards
2.2 Grammy Award
3 Soundtrack chart positions
4 References

Track listing[edit]
Side 11."Theme of Exodus"
2."Summer in Cyprus"
3."Escape"
4."Ari"
5."Karen"
6."Valley of Jezreel"
7."Fight For Survival"
Side 21."In Jerusalem"
2."The Brothers"
3."Conspiracy"
4."Prison Break"
5."Dawn"
6."Fight for Peace"
Awards and nominations[edit]
Academy Awards[edit]
##The music score, written by Ernest Gold, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score at the 1960 Oscars.
Grammy Award[edit]
##Ernest Gold won Best Soundtrack Album and Song of the Year at the 1961 Grammy Awards for the soundtrack and theme to Exodus respectively. It is the only instrumental song to ever receive that award to date. Oddly, the first notes of the great dramatic theme are identical to the opening theme of a somewhat obscure orchestral piece by Quincy Porter, New England Episodes, premiered in 1958 in Washington, DC.
##The world premiere of the complete film score with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nic Raine from Tadlow Music received a Sammy Award for Best Newly Recorded Vintage Film Score of 2009.
##Sammy Awards for 2009
Soundtrack chart positions[edit]

Chart (1961)
Peak
 position
Billboard Top LPs — Monaural 1
Billboard Top LPs — Stereo 1
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits. New York: Billboard Books. p. 648. ISBN 0-8230-7677-6. Retrieved 4 March 2011.
Preceded by
Wonderland by Night by Bert Kaempfert Billboard Top LPs — Monaural number-one album
 January 23, 1961 – February 12, 1961 Succeeded by
Calcutta! by Lawrence Welk
Preceded by
String Along by The Kingston Trio Billboard Top LPs — Stereo number-one album
 January 23, 1961 – March 12, 1961
 May 22, 1961 – July 9, 1961 Succeeded by
Calcutta! by Lawrence Welk
  


Categories: Film scores
1961 soundtracks
RCA Victor soundtracks
Ernest Gold (composer) albums




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Exodus (soundtrack)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Exodus

Soundtrack album by Ernest Gold

Released
1961
Label
RCA Victor
Exodus is a soundtrack album by Ernest Gold with the Sinfonia of London from the 1960 film Exodus directed by Otto Preminger.
The main theme from the film ("Theme of Exodus") has been widely remixed and covered by many artists such as Ferrante and Teicher, whose version went No. 2 on the Billboard Singles Chart. Other versions were recorded by Edith Piaf, Mantovani, Bob Fleming (Moacyr Silva´s nickname - his recording is featured on his album, "Mr. Sax"), Peter Nero, Connie Francis, the 1960s British instrumental band The Eagles, and The Duprees, who sang the theme with lyrics written by Pat Boone. Hard rock guitarist Leslie West performed the song with his earliest band The Vagrants and also in subsequent bands. The band The Skatalites recorded a ska-version of the theme, which was covered by Bad Manners on the 1982 album Forging Ahead. Pianist George Greeley recorded a 10 1/2 minute concert version on his 1961 Warner Bros. album Popular Piano Concertos of Famous Film Themes. Other artists included piano player Anthony Burger for the Homecoming titled "I Do Believe", a disco version titled "Exo-Disco" by Huey Lewis & the American Express,[1] a remix by techno-crossover pianist Maksim Mrvica, and it has even been used as the sample for the T.I. song "Bankhead". The original version was used as a theme song for professional wrestler Mr. Perfect, and later a takeoff of the original version would become his longtime theme song. Trey Spruance of the Secret Chiefs 3 rescored the theme for "surf band and orchestra" on the album 2004 Book of Horizons. The Chopsticks (a Hong Kong female duo, made up of Sandra Lang (仙杜拉) & Amina (亞美娜)), covered this as a medley song with "Hava Nagila" on their 1971 LP 《All Of A Sudden》issue. Furthermore, Howard Stern tends to use it for comedic effect when discussing aspects of Jewish life.


Contents  [hide]
1 Track listing
2 Awards and nominations 2.1 Academy Awards
2.2 Grammy Award
3 Soundtrack chart positions
4 References

Track listing[edit]
Side 11."Theme of Exodus"
2."Summer in Cyprus"
3."Escape"
4."Ari"
5."Karen"
6."Valley of Jezreel"
7."Fight For Survival"
Side 21."In Jerusalem"
2."The Brothers"
3."Conspiracy"
4."Prison Break"
5."Dawn"
6."Fight for Peace"
Awards and nominations[edit]
Academy Awards[edit]
##The music score, written by Ernest Gold, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score at the 1960 Oscars.
Grammy Award[edit]
##Ernest Gold won Best Soundtrack Album and Song of the Year at the 1961 Grammy Awards for the soundtrack and theme to Exodus respectively. It is the only instrumental song to ever receive that award to date. Oddly, the first notes of the great dramatic theme are identical to the opening theme of a somewhat obscure orchestral piece by Quincy Porter, New England Episodes, premiered in 1958 in Washington, DC.
##The world premiere of the complete film score with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nic Raine from Tadlow Music received a Sammy Award for Best Newly Recorded Vintage Film Score of 2009.
##Sammy Awards for 2009
Soundtrack chart positions[edit]

Chart (1961)
Peak
 position
Billboard Top LPs — Monaural 1
Billboard Top LPs — Stereo 1
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits. New York: Billboard Books. p. 648. ISBN 0-8230-7677-6. Retrieved 4 March 2011.
Preceded by
Wonderland by Night by Bert Kaempfert Billboard Top LPs — Monaural number-one album
 January 23, 1961 – February 12, 1961 Succeeded by
Calcutta! by Lawrence Welk
Preceded by
String Along by The Kingston Trio Billboard Top LPs — Stereo number-one album
 January 23, 1961 – March 12, 1961
 May 22, 1961 – July 9, 1961 Succeeded by
Calcutta! by Lawrence Welk
  


Categories: Film scores
1961 soundtracks
RCA Victor soundtracks
Ernest Gold (composer) albums




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This page was last modified on 17 March 2015, at 04:18.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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Exodus (Uris novel)

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Unbalanced scales.svg
 The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (September 2014)
Exodus
Exodusuris.jpg
First edition

Author
Leon Uris
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre
Historical fiction
Publisher
Doubleday & Company

Publication date
 1958
Media type
Print (Hardcover)
Pages
626 pages
Exodus is an historical novel by American novelist Leon Uris about the founding of the State of Israel. Published in 1958, it begins with a compressed retelling of the voyages of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus.
Uris covered the Arab–Israeli fighting as a war correspondent in 1956; two years later, Exodus was published by Doubleday. Exodus became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest bestseller in the United States since Gone with the Wind (1936).[citation needed] Uris had sold the film rights in advance.[citation needed]
The story unfolds with the protagonist, Ari Ben Canaan, hatching a plot to transport Jewish refugees from a British detention camp in Cyprus to Palestine. The operation is carried out under the auspices of the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet. The book then goes on to trace the histories of the various main characters and the ties of their personal lives to the birth of the new Jewish state.
Otto Preminger directed a 1960 film based on the novel, featuring Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan. It focuses mainly on the escape from Cyprus and subsequent events in Palestine.
The novel became the biggest US best-seller since Gone with the Wind and initiated a new sympathy for the newly established State of Israel.[1] Edward Said suggested in 2001 that the novel still provides "the main narrative model that dominates American thinking" with respect to the foundation of Israel.[2][3]


Contents  [hide]
1 Main characters 1.1 Ari Ben Canaan
1.2 Katherine "Kitty" Fremont
1.3 Mark Parker
1.4 Bruce Sutherland
1.5 Karen Hansen Clement
1.6 Dov Landau
1.7 Jordana Ben Canaan
1.8 Barak Ben Canaan
1.9 Akiva
1.10 David Ben Ami
2 The origins of Exodus
3 Criticism
4 References in popular culture
5 Further reading
6 References

Main characters[edit]
The main strength of the book is its vivid description of different people and the conflicts in their lives.[citation needed] As in several of Uris' novels, some of the fictional characters are partially based upon one or more historical personages, or act as metaphors for the various peoples who helped to build modern Israel.[citation needed]
Ari Ben Canaan[edit]
Ari Ben Canaan was born and raised on a kibbutz but goes on to become one of the mainstays of the Israeli freedom movement. He is described as six feet and three inches tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, and is very handsome.[citation needed]
His father, Barak Ben Canaan (formerly Jossi Rabinsky, born in the Russian Pale of Settlement), heads the Jewish Agency for Palestine. His uncle Akiva (formerly Yakov Rabinsky) leads the Maccabees, a militant organization (based on the Irgun). The brothers came to Palestine after their father was murdered in a pogrom.
As a young man, Ari was in love with a young woman, Dafna, who was tortured, raped, and murdered by Arabs. Dafna later becomes the namesake of the youth village, Gan Dafna, around which a large part of the story unfolds. As part of the Mossad Aliyah Bet (an organization which organized Jewish immigration to Palestine), Ari is extremely creative in devising techniques to bring Jews from all over the world to Palestine – more than allowed by the British quota. During World War II, he served as an officer in the Jewish Brigade of the British army, and he uses this experience to benefit his activities. This is his main occupation until Israel gains freedom, when he joins the Israeli army and is assigned to the Negev desert. He sees himself as part of a new breed of Jew who will not "turn the other cheek". He is probably based on Moshe Dayan, the Israeli military leader and politician; many parallels can be drawn between Ari and Dayan: both the fictional Ari and the real-life Dayan were trained by the same British General and had similar World War II experiences.[citation needed] Ben Canaan is also reported, however, to be based upon Yehudah Arazi.[citation needed]
Katherine "Kitty" Fremont[edit]
Katherine "Kitty" Fremont is described in the novel as being tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful. An American nurse newly widowed, Kitty meets Ari Ben Canaan in Cyprus. Grieving for her lost husband and the recent death of her daughter from polio, Kitty develops a maternal attachment toward Karen Hansen Clement, a German refugee in a Cyprus displaced persons camp. This attachment and her attraction toward Ben Canaan result in her becoming, initially with reluctance, involved in the freedom struggle. She eventually becomes irritated at Ari's lack of emotion towards violent deaths, but comes to understand and accept his dedication to Israel.
Mark Parker[edit]
Mark Parker is an American journalist and friend of Kitty Fremont's. He is credited as the whistleblower of the Exodus after it left on its voyage to Palestine, as a blackmail against the British.
Bruce Sutherland[edit]
Bruce Sutherland is a British military officer (rank of brigadier) whose mother was Jewish. After a lifetime of soldiering, he is posted to Cyprus, with instructions to maintain security at the detention camps. Like many British aristocrats he has a stifling, formal manner of speech. Internally, he is torn between his sympathies with the Jews he is required to guard and his duties as a British officer; the horrors he witnessed when his battalion liberated Bergen-Belsen is also a factor. He retires from the army at his own request after a mass escape engineered and led by Ari Ben Canaan. Despite this, he moves to Palestine to settle, becomes good friends with Ben Canaan, and acts as a very unofficial military advisor. This facet may be based on the activities of Mickey Marcus,[citation needed] although Marcus himself (under his real-life alias of "Colonel Stone") makes a brief appearance in the book.
Karen Hansen Clement[edit]
Karen Hansen Clement, described as tall, with long brown hair and green eyes, is a German teenager who was brought up for a while by foster parents in Denmark. She was sent there by her family when Hitler rose to power in Germany. Her family was subsequently interned in concentration camps, where her mother and two younger brothers die. Before she is transported to Israel, Karen is placed in a Cypriot refugee camp and is one of the passengers on the Exodus. Karen does meet her father again in Israel, but he is a broken man who is unable to communicate or recognize his daughter; the experience leaves her unnerved and shattered. Despite this, she maintains her gentle and dainty personality. At the end of the novel she is murdered by fedayeen from Gaza.
Dov Landau[edit]
Dov Landau, described as being blond, blue-eyed, small, and young-looking for his age, is an angry teenager who lost his entire family to the Holocaust; he has not merely survived the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and of Auschwitz, but has learned from them to turn circumstances to his advantage. A master forger, he narrowly escapes the gas chamber by displaying his talent to the camp doctor. The doctor is not able to tell the difference between his own signature and the five copies that Dov makes. Dov works as a forger but is then assigned to work as a Sonderkommando, which he barely survives. After the camp is liberated, he ends up in Cyprus and eventually Israel as part of the escape organized by Ari Ben Canaan. He joins the Maccabees (based on the Irgun), a Jewish militant organization that is headed by Barak's brother Akiva. He is driven by a thirst for revenge "that only God or a bullet can stop". He falls in love with Karen and later becomes a Major in the Israeli army. He becomes unofficially engaged to Karen, but after she is murdered by the fedayeen, he forces himself to go on working for Israel, to make her proud of him.
Jordana Ben Canaan[edit]
Jordana Ben Canaan, described as tall, red-haired, and blue-eyed, is Ari's fiery younger sister, a leader of the Palmach (Haganah elite unit), and the lover and fiancée of David Ben Ami. Jordana is typical of the young native-born girls and, initially hostile toward Kitty - believing that American women are no good for anything other than dressing up prettily - changes her opinion when Kitty saves Ari's life and later becomes more identified with Israel's struggle. After the death of David Ben Ami, Jordana sinks into depression but never mentions his name.
Barak Ben Canaan[edit]
Barak Ben Canaan (born Jossi Rabinsky) is 6 feet, 3 inches tall, red-haired, and blue-eyed and the father of Ari Ben-Canaan. He was born in the Russian Pale of Settlement. After their father was murdered in a pogrom, he and his brother Yakov walked overland to Palestine, where they settled. There, he met and married his wife Sarah, and his son Ari and daughter Jordana were born. He became a kibbutz pioneer and eventually head of the Jewish Agency. After his brother Yakov/Akiva joins the Maccabees, he cuts off all contact with Akiva. Near the end of the novel, Barak dies of cancer and was buried next to Akiva.
Akiva[edit]
Akiva (born Yakov Rabinsky), is of medium height, brown-eyed, and dark haired. He is Barak Ben Canaan's brother, a poet, and leader of the radical underground group the "Maccabees". While Akiva bears some resemblance to the real-life Irgun (Etze"l),[citation needed] the character may be inspired by Avraham Stern of Lehi.[citation needed] Near the end of the book, he is shot by the British during the Acre prison break; his brother Barak is later buried next to him.
David Ben Ami[edit]
David Ben Ami is black-haired and brown-eyed, and a close colleague of Ari Ben Canaan, both in the Haganah and later in the IDF. He is also Jordana's lover and a friend of Kitty Freemont's. He was born in Jerusalem, is university educated, and plans to take a doctorate. Steeped in religious and mystical lore, he is also a specialist in Biblical archaeology and warfare. In this regard, his knowledge is valuable in the relief of besieged Jerusalem. He is killed in action after leading a suicide mission to capture the Old City of Jerusalem.
The origins of Exodus[edit]
Numerous sources say that Uris, motivated by an intense interest in Israel, financed his own research for the novel by selling the film rights in advance to MGM and writing articles about the Sinai campaign.[4][5][6] It has also been reported that the book involved two years of research and involved thousands of interviews.[7]
Arthur Stevens relates that the idea for Uris' book came about when Edward Gottlieb, an American public relations man seeking to improve Israel's image in the US, decided to commission a novel about Israel's origin that showed Israel in a good light and hired Uris to write it. According to Stevens, "Uris' novel solidified America's impressions of Israelis as heroes, of Arabs as villains; it did more to popularize Israel with the American public than any other single presentation through the media."[8]
According to Jack Shaheen: "In the 1950s, when Americans were largely apathetic about Israel, the eminent public relations consultant Edward Gottlieb was called on "to create a more sympathetic attitude" toward the newly established state. And so, he sent Leon Uris to Israel to write a novel, which became the bestseller Exodus... Exodus introduced filmgoers to the Arab–Israel conflict, and peopled it with heroic Israelis and sleazy, brutal Arabs, some of whom link up with ex-Nazis. The movie's only "good Arab" becomes a dead Arab."[9]
However further research by Martin Kramer,[10] Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and President-designate of Shalem College, Wexler-Fromer Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the Schusterman Senior Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), reveals these claims as spurious conjectures based on a claim by Gottlieb made to Arthur Stevens, author of The Persuasion Explosion: Your Guide to the Power and Influence of Contemporary Public Relations. "Gottlieb, who at the time headed his own public relations firm, suddenly had a hunch about how to create a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel. He chose a writer and sent him to Israel with instructions to soak in the atmosphere of the country and create a novel about it. The book turned out to be Exodus, by Leon Uris".[11]
Gottlieb's claim was rejected by the account manager for the Israeli account at Gottlieb's second tier PR agency, Charlotte Klein, who said: "1984, of course, is a long time from 1955 and Ed may have met Uris and felt he influenced him. However, there never was money enough on the account for Ed to 'commission' anyone to write a book. I am also pretty sure that Ed would have bragged about meeting and talking to Uris if this happened. He would have asked me to come up with some ideas of what Uris ought to cover. I would have had a meeting of my staff on the Israel account and would have drawn up a plan to include people in Israel for Uris to contact." [12]
Criticism[edit]
The book was first criticised in 1960 by Aziz S. Sahwell of the Arab Information Center for historical inaccuracies and its depiction of Arabs.[13][14]
Robert Fisk wrote in 2014 that it was "a racist, fictional account of the birth of Israel in which Arabs are rarely mentioned without the adjectives “dirty” and “stinking” [and] was one of the best pieces of Socialist-Zionist propaganda that Israel could have sought"[15]
Norman Finkelstein espoused a similar view in his 2008 work Beyond Chutzpah.[16]
References in popular culture[edit]
In Mad Men S1/E6, "Babylon", Don Draper reads the book throughout, and others mention its upcoming film release and bestseller status.
Dr Wladislaw Dering sued Leon Uris for libel because of allegations made against Dering in the novel. This lawsuit inspired the fictionalized account of a lawsuit that formed the basis of Uris' later bestselling novel, QB VII (1970).[17]
Further reading[edit]
Weissbrod, Rachel, "Exodus as a Zionist Melodrama" in: Israel Studies 4.1 (1999) 129–152
Peters, Joan "From Time Immemorial, The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine"
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ God, Guns and Israel: Britain, The First World War And The Jews in the Holy City, Jill Hamilton, p 181: "Two months after the tenth anniversary a novel was published in America that changed the public perception of Israel and the Jews. Exodus by the Jewish US ex-marine Leon Uris became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest best seller in the United States since Gone with the Wind. Both the novel and the subsequent movie thrust Israel into the lives of millions, and with it initiated a new sympathy for the young country."
2.Jump up ^ "Propaganda and war", Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly, 30 August - 5 September 2001, Issue No.549: "The most disturbing thing is that hardly any of the questioned Americans knew anything at all about the Palestinian story, nothing about 1948, nothing at all about Israel's illegal 34-year military occupation. The main narrative model that dominates American thinking still seems to be Leon Uris's 1950 novel Exodus."
3.Jump up ^ This view is shared by other authors such as:
 *Kaplan, Amy (2013), "Zionism as Anticolonialism: The Case of Exodus", American Literary History (Oxford University Press) 25 (4): 870–895, doi:10.1093/alh/ajt042: "Exodus shaped the American memory of Israel’s origins for decades to come, even among generations who never read the book or saw the movie", and
 *Nadel, Ira (2007), "Exodus, or "The Book"", Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen, University of Texas Press, ISBN 9780292717329
4.Jump up ^ Leon Uris, 78, Who Wrote Sweeping Novels Like "Exodus," Dies New York Times – June 25, 2003
5.Jump up ^ Chris Fujiwara (2009). The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger. Faber & Faber. p. 255. ISBN 0-86547-995-X. [1]
6.Jump up ^ Patricia Erens. The Jew in American Cinema. Indiana University Press, 1988. p. 217. ISBN 0-86547-995-X. [2]
7.Jump up ^ Joel Shatzky; Michael Taub (1994). Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press. p. 440. ISBN 0-313-29462-3.
8.Jump up ^ The Persuasion Explosion, Art Stevens, Acropolis Publishers, Washington DC, 1985, ISBN 0874917328 pp 104–5
9.Jump up ^ Reel Bad Arabs, Jack Shaheen, Olive Branch Press 2001, ISBN 1-56656-388-7
10.Jump up ^ http://www.martinkramer.org/
11.Jump up ^ Stevens, Art (June 1985). "The persuasion explosion: Your guide to the power & influence of contemporary public relations". ISBN 9780874917321.
12.Jump up ^ http://hnn.us/articles/exposing-rashid-khalidis-bogus-claim-about-leon-uriss-exodus-israeli-propaganda
13.Jump up ^ Aziz S. Sahwell, Exodus: A Distortion of Truth, Arab Information Center, 1960
14.Jump up ^ Salt, Jeremy (1985), "Fact and Fiction in the Middle Eastern Novels of Leon Uris", Journal of Palestine Studies (University of California Press) 14 (3): 54–63, doi:10.2307/2536952
15.Jump up ^ The Independent, Robert Fisk: If the Nobel Peace Prize can be handed to Obama, why not hand it to the Israeli Defence Force?, 10 August 2014
16.Jump up ^ Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Norman G. Finkelstein, 2008, p2-3, quote: "Putting aside its apologetics for Zionism, the sheer racism of Uris's blockbuster bears recalling. The Arabs, their villages, their homes—to the last, they're "stinking" or engulfed in "overwhelming stench" and "vile odors." Arab men just "lay around" all day "listless"—that is, when they're not hatching "some typical double-dealing scheme which seemed perfectly legitimate to the Arab," or resorting to "the unscrupulous ethics of the Arab ... the fantastic reasoning that condoned every crime short of murder," or "becom[ing] hysterical at the slightest provocation." As for Palestine itself before the Jews worked wonders, it was "worthless desert in the south end and eroded in the middle and swamp up north"; "a land of festering, stagnated swamps and eroded hills and rock-filled fields and unfertile earth caused by a thousand years of Arab and Turkish neglect. ... There was little song or laughter or joy in Arab life. ... In this atmosphere, cunning, treachery, murder, feuds and jealousies became a way of life. The cruel realities that had gone into forming the Arab character puzzled outsiders. Cruelty from brother to brother was common." Truth be told, not much has changed in official Zionist propaganda"
17.Jump up ^ LEHMANN-HAUPT, CHRISTOPHER (June 25, 2003). "Leon Uris, 78, Dies; Wrote Sweeping Novels Like 'Exodus'". New York Times. Retrieved 25 April 2015.


[hide]
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Works by Leon Uris


Novels
Battle Cry (1953) ·
 The Angry Hills (1955) ·
 Exodus (1958) ·
 Mila 18 (1961) ·
 Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin (1963) ·
 Topaz (1967) ·
 QB VII (1970) ·
 Trinity (1976) ·
 The Haj (1984) ·
 Mitla Pass (1988) ·
 Redemption (1995) ·
 A God in Ruins (1999) ·
 O'Hara's Choice (2003)
 

  


Categories: 1958 novels
Books about Zionism
Historical novels
Novels by Leon Uris
American novels adapted into films
Novels set in Israel
Doubleday (publisher) books
Novels set in Cyprus







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Exodus (Uris novel)

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Exodus
Exodusuris.jpg
First edition

Author
Leon Uris
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre
Historical fiction
Publisher
Doubleday & Company

Publication date
 1958
Media type
Print (Hardcover)
Pages
626 pages
Exodus is an historical novel by American novelist Leon Uris about the founding of the State of Israel. Published in 1958, it begins with a compressed retelling of the voyages of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus.
Uris covered the Arab–Israeli fighting as a war correspondent in 1956; two years later, Exodus was published by Doubleday. Exodus became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest bestseller in the United States since Gone with the Wind (1936).[citation needed] Uris had sold the film rights in advance.[citation needed]
The story unfolds with the protagonist, Ari Ben Canaan, hatching a plot to transport Jewish refugees from a British detention camp in Cyprus to Palestine. The operation is carried out under the auspices of the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet. The book then goes on to trace the histories of the various main characters and the ties of their personal lives to the birth of the new Jewish state.
Otto Preminger directed a 1960 film based on the novel, featuring Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan. It focuses mainly on the escape from Cyprus and subsequent events in Palestine.
The novel became the biggest US best-seller since Gone with the Wind and initiated a new sympathy for the newly established State of Israel.[1] Edward Said suggested in 2001 that the novel still provides "the main narrative model that dominates American thinking" with respect to the foundation of Israel.[2][3]


Contents  [hide]
1 Main characters 1.1 Ari Ben Canaan
1.2 Katherine "Kitty" Fremont
1.3 Mark Parker
1.4 Bruce Sutherland
1.5 Karen Hansen Clement
1.6 Dov Landau
1.7 Jordana Ben Canaan
1.8 Barak Ben Canaan
1.9 Akiva
1.10 David Ben Ami
2 The origins of Exodus
3 Criticism
4 References in popular culture
5 Further reading
6 References

Main characters[edit]
The main strength of the book is its vivid description of different people and the conflicts in their lives.[citation needed] As in several of Uris' novels, some of the fictional characters are partially based upon one or more historical personages, or act as metaphors for the various peoples who helped to build modern Israel.[citation needed]
Ari Ben Canaan[edit]
Ari Ben Canaan was born and raised on a kibbutz but goes on to become one of the mainstays of the Israeli freedom movement. He is described as six feet and three inches tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, and is very handsome.[citation needed]
His father, Barak Ben Canaan (formerly Jossi Rabinsky, born in the Russian Pale of Settlement), heads the Jewish Agency for Palestine. His uncle Akiva (formerly Yakov Rabinsky) leads the Maccabees, a militant organization (based on the Irgun). The brothers came to Palestine after their father was murdered in a pogrom.
As a young man, Ari was in love with a young woman, Dafna, who was tortured, raped, and murdered by Arabs. Dafna later becomes the namesake of the youth village, Gan Dafna, around which a large part of the story unfolds. As part of the Mossad Aliyah Bet (an organization which organized Jewish immigration to Palestine), Ari is extremely creative in devising techniques to bring Jews from all over the world to Palestine – more than allowed by the British quota. During World War II, he served as an officer in the Jewish Brigade of the British army, and he uses this experience to benefit his activities. This is his main occupation until Israel gains freedom, when he joins the Israeli army and is assigned to the Negev desert. He sees himself as part of a new breed of Jew who will not "turn the other cheek". He is probably based on Moshe Dayan, the Israeli military leader and politician; many parallels can be drawn between Ari and Dayan: both the fictional Ari and the real-life Dayan were trained by the same British General and had similar World War II experiences.[citation needed] Ben Canaan is also reported, however, to be based upon Yehudah Arazi.[citation needed]
Katherine "Kitty" Fremont[edit]
Katherine "Kitty" Fremont is described in the novel as being tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful. An American nurse newly widowed, Kitty meets Ari Ben Canaan in Cyprus. Grieving for her lost husband and the recent death of her daughter from polio, Kitty develops a maternal attachment toward Karen Hansen Clement, a German refugee in a Cyprus displaced persons camp. This attachment and her attraction toward Ben Canaan result in her becoming, initially with reluctance, involved in the freedom struggle. She eventually becomes irritated at Ari's lack of emotion towards violent deaths, but comes to understand and accept his dedication to Israel.
Mark Parker[edit]
Mark Parker is an American journalist and friend of Kitty Fremont's. He is credited as the whistleblower of the Exodus after it left on its voyage to Palestine, as a blackmail against the British.
Bruce Sutherland[edit]
Bruce Sutherland is a British military officer (rank of brigadier) whose mother was Jewish. After a lifetime of soldiering, he is posted to Cyprus, with instructions to maintain security at the detention camps. Like many British aristocrats he has a stifling, formal manner of speech. Internally, he is torn between his sympathies with the Jews he is required to guard and his duties as a British officer; the horrors he witnessed when his battalion liberated Bergen-Belsen is also a factor. He retires from the army at his own request after a mass escape engineered and led by Ari Ben Canaan. Despite this, he moves to Palestine to settle, becomes good friends with Ben Canaan, and acts as a very unofficial military advisor. This facet may be based on the activities of Mickey Marcus,[citation needed] although Marcus himself (under his real-life alias of "Colonel Stone") makes a brief appearance in the book.
Karen Hansen Clement[edit]
Karen Hansen Clement, described as tall, with long brown hair and green eyes, is a German teenager who was brought up for a while by foster parents in Denmark. She was sent there by her family when Hitler rose to power in Germany. Her family was subsequently interned in concentration camps, where her mother and two younger brothers die. Before she is transported to Israel, Karen is placed in a Cypriot refugee camp and is one of the passengers on the Exodus. Karen does meet her father again in Israel, but he is a broken man who is unable to communicate or recognize his daughter; the experience leaves her unnerved and shattered. Despite this, she maintains her gentle and dainty personality. At the end of the novel she is murdered by fedayeen from Gaza.
Dov Landau[edit]
Dov Landau, described as being blond, blue-eyed, small, and young-looking for his age, is an angry teenager who lost his entire family to the Holocaust; he has not merely survived the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and of Auschwitz, but has learned from them to turn circumstances to his advantage. A master forger, he narrowly escapes the gas chamber by displaying his talent to the camp doctor. The doctor is not able to tell the difference between his own signature and the five copies that Dov makes. Dov works as a forger but is then assigned to work as a Sonderkommando, which he barely survives. After the camp is liberated, he ends up in Cyprus and eventually Israel as part of the escape organized by Ari Ben Canaan. He joins the Maccabees (based on the Irgun), a Jewish militant organization that is headed by Barak's brother Akiva. He is driven by a thirst for revenge "that only God or a bullet can stop". He falls in love with Karen and later becomes a Major in the Israeli army. He becomes unofficially engaged to Karen, but after she is murdered by the fedayeen, he forces himself to go on working for Israel, to make her proud of him.
Jordana Ben Canaan[edit]
Jordana Ben Canaan, described as tall, red-haired, and blue-eyed, is Ari's fiery younger sister, a leader of the Palmach (Haganah elite unit), and the lover and fiancée of David Ben Ami. Jordana is typical of the young native-born girls and, initially hostile toward Kitty - believing that American women are no good for anything other than dressing up prettily - changes her opinion when Kitty saves Ari's life and later becomes more identified with Israel's struggle. After the death of David Ben Ami, Jordana sinks into depression but never mentions his name.
Barak Ben Canaan[edit]
Barak Ben Canaan (born Jossi Rabinsky) is 6 feet, 3 inches tall, red-haired, and blue-eyed and the father of Ari Ben-Canaan. He was born in the Russian Pale of Settlement. After their father was murdered in a pogrom, he and his brother Yakov walked overland to Palestine, where they settled. There, he met and married his wife Sarah, and his son Ari and daughter Jordana were born. He became a kibbutz pioneer and eventually head of the Jewish Agency. After his brother Yakov/Akiva joins the Maccabees, he cuts off all contact with Akiva. Near the end of the novel, Barak dies of cancer and was buried next to Akiva.
Akiva[edit]
Akiva (born Yakov Rabinsky), is of medium height, brown-eyed, and dark haired. He is Barak Ben Canaan's brother, a poet, and leader of the radical underground group the "Maccabees". While Akiva bears some resemblance to the real-life Irgun (Etze"l),[citation needed] the character may be inspired by Avraham Stern of Lehi.[citation needed] Near the end of the book, he is shot by the British during the Acre prison break; his brother Barak is later buried next to him.
David Ben Ami[edit]
David Ben Ami is black-haired and brown-eyed, and a close colleague of Ari Ben Canaan, both in the Haganah and later in the IDF. He is also Jordana's lover and a friend of Kitty Freemont's. He was born in Jerusalem, is university educated, and plans to take a doctorate. Steeped in religious and mystical lore, he is also a specialist in Biblical archaeology and warfare. In this regard, his knowledge is valuable in the relief of besieged Jerusalem. He is killed in action after leading a suicide mission to capture the Old City of Jerusalem.
The origins of Exodus[edit]
Numerous sources say that Uris, motivated by an intense interest in Israel, financed his own research for the novel by selling the film rights in advance to MGM and writing articles about the Sinai campaign.[4][5][6] It has also been reported that the book involved two years of research and involved thousands of interviews.[7]
Arthur Stevens relates that the idea for Uris' book came about when Edward Gottlieb, an American public relations man seeking to improve Israel's image in the US, decided to commission a novel about Israel's origin that showed Israel in a good light and hired Uris to write it. According to Stevens, "Uris' novel solidified America's impressions of Israelis as heroes, of Arabs as villains; it did more to popularize Israel with the American public than any other single presentation through the media."[8]
According to Jack Shaheen: "In the 1950s, when Americans were largely apathetic about Israel, the eminent public relations consultant Edward Gottlieb was called on "to create a more sympathetic attitude" toward the newly established state. And so, he sent Leon Uris to Israel to write a novel, which became the bestseller Exodus... Exodus introduced filmgoers to the Arab–Israel conflict, and peopled it with heroic Israelis and sleazy, brutal Arabs, some of whom link up with ex-Nazis. The movie's only "good Arab" becomes a dead Arab."[9]
However further research by Martin Kramer,[10] Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and President-designate of Shalem College, Wexler-Fromer Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the Schusterman Senior Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), reveals these claims as spurious conjectures based on a claim by Gottlieb made to Arthur Stevens, author of The Persuasion Explosion: Your Guide to the Power and Influence of Contemporary Public Relations. "Gottlieb, who at the time headed his own public relations firm, suddenly had a hunch about how to create a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel. He chose a writer and sent him to Israel with instructions to soak in the atmosphere of the country and create a novel about it. The book turned out to be Exodus, by Leon Uris".[11]
Gottlieb's claim was rejected by the account manager for the Israeli account at Gottlieb's second tier PR agency, Charlotte Klein, who said: "1984, of course, is a long time from 1955 and Ed may have met Uris and felt he influenced him. However, there never was money enough on the account for Ed to 'commission' anyone to write a book. I am also pretty sure that Ed would have bragged about meeting and talking to Uris if this happened. He would have asked me to come up with some ideas of what Uris ought to cover. I would have had a meeting of my staff on the Israel account and would have drawn up a plan to include people in Israel for Uris to contact." [12]
Criticism[edit]
The book was first criticised in 1960 by Aziz S. Sahwell of the Arab Information Center for historical inaccuracies and its depiction of Arabs.[13][14]
Robert Fisk wrote in 2014 that it was "a racist, fictional account of the birth of Israel in which Arabs are rarely mentioned without the adjectives “dirty” and “stinking” [and] was one of the best pieces of Socialist-Zionist propaganda that Israel could have sought"[15]
Norman Finkelstein espoused a similar view in his 2008 work Beyond Chutzpah.[16]
References in popular culture[edit]
In Mad Men S1/E6, "Babylon", Don Draper reads the book throughout, and others mention its upcoming film release and bestseller status.
Dr Wladislaw Dering sued Leon Uris for libel because of allegations made against Dering in the novel. This lawsuit inspired the fictionalized account of a lawsuit that formed the basis of Uris' later bestselling novel, QB VII (1970).[17]
Further reading[edit]
Weissbrod, Rachel, "Exodus as a Zionist Melodrama" in: Israel Studies 4.1 (1999) 129–152
Peters, Joan "From Time Immemorial, The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine"
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ God, Guns and Israel: Britain, The First World War And The Jews in the Holy City, Jill Hamilton, p 181: "Two months after the tenth anniversary a novel was published in America that changed the public perception of Israel and the Jews. Exodus by the Jewish US ex-marine Leon Uris became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest best seller in the United States since Gone with the Wind. Both the novel and the subsequent movie thrust Israel into the lives of millions, and with it initiated a new sympathy for the young country."
2.Jump up ^ "Propaganda and war", Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly, 30 August - 5 September 2001, Issue No.549: "The most disturbing thing is that hardly any of the questioned Americans knew anything at all about the Palestinian story, nothing about 1948, nothing at all about Israel's illegal 34-year military occupation. The main narrative model that dominates American thinking still seems to be Leon Uris's 1950 novel Exodus."
3.Jump up ^ This view is shared by other authors such as:
 *Kaplan, Amy (2013), "Zionism as Anticolonialism: The Case of Exodus", American Literary History (Oxford University Press) 25 (4): 870–895, doi:10.1093/alh/ajt042: "Exodus shaped the American memory of Israel’s origins for decades to come, even among generations who never read the book or saw the movie", and
 *Nadel, Ira (2007), "Exodus, or "The Book"", Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen, University of Texas Press, ISBN 9780292717329
4.Jump up ^ Leon Uris, 78, Who Wrote Sweeping Novels Like "Exodus," Dies New York Times – June 25, 2003
5.Jump up ^ Chris Fujiwara (2009). The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger. Faber & Faber. p. 255. ISBN 0-86547-995-X. [1]
6.Jump up ^ Patricia Erens. The Jew in American Cinema. Indiana University Press, 1988. p. 217. ISBN 0-86547-995-X. [2]
7.Jump up ^ Joel Shatzky; Michael Taub (1994). Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press. p. 440. ISBN 0-313-29462-3.
8.Jump up ^ The Persuasion Explosion, Art Stevens, Acropolis Publishers, Washington DC, 1985, ISBN 0874917328 pp 104–5
9.Jump up ^ Reel Bad Arabs, Jack Shaheen, Olive Branch Press 2001, ISBN 1-56656-388-7
10.Jump up ^ http://www.martinkramer.org/
11.Jump up ^ Stevens, Art (June 1985). "The persuasion explosion: Your guide to the power & influence of contemporary public relations". ISBN 9780874917321.
12.Jump up ^ http://hnn.us/articles/exposing-rashid-khalidis-bogus-claim-about-leon-uriss-exodus-israeli-propaganda
13.Jump up ^ Aziz S. Sahwell, Exodus: A Distortion of Truth, Arab Information Center, 1960
14.Jump up ^ Salt, Jeremy (1985), "Fact and Fiction in the Middle Eastern Novels of Leon Uris", Journal of Palestine Studies (University of California Press) 14 (3): 54–63, doi:10.2307/2536952
15.Jump up ^ The Independent, Robert Fisk: If the Nobel Peace Prize can be handed to Obama, why not hand it to the Israeli Defence Force?, 10 August 2014
16.Jump up ^ Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Norman G. Finkelstein, 2008, p2-3, quote: "Putting aside its apologetics for Zionism, the sheer racism of Uris's blockbuster bears recalling. The Arabs, their villages, their homes—to the last, they're "stinking" or engulfed in "overwhelming stench" and "vile odors." Arab men just "lay around" all day "listless"—that is, when they're not hatching "some typical double-dealing scheme which seemed perfectly legitimate to the Arab," or resorting to "the unscrupulous ethics of the Arab ... the fantastic reasoning that condoned every crime short of murder," or "becom[ing] hysterical at the slightest provocation." As for Palestine itself before the Jews worked wonders, it was "worthless desert in the south end and eroded in the middle and swamp up north"; "a land of festering, stagnated swamps and eroded hills and rock-filled fields and unfertile earth caused by a thousand years of Arab and Turkish neglect. ... There was little song or laughter or joy in Arab life. ... In this atmosphere, cunning, treachery, murder, feuds and jealousies became a way of life. The cruel realities that had gone into forming the Arab character puzzled outsiders. Cruelty from brother to brother was common." Truth be told, not much has changed in official Zionist propaganda"
17.Jump up ^ LEHMANN-HAUPT, CHRISTOPHER (June 25, 2003). "Leon Uris, 78, Dies; Wrote Sweeping Novels Like 'Exodus'". New York Times. Retrieved 25 April 2015.


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Works by Leon Uris


Novels
Battle Cry (1953) ·
 The Angry Hills (1955) ·
 Exodus (1958) ·
 Mila 18 (1961) ·
 Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin (1963) ·
 Topaz (1967) ·
 QB VII (1970) ·
 Trinity (1976) ·
 The Haj (1984) ·
 Mitla Pass (1988) ·
 Redemption (1995) ·
 A God in Ruins (1999) ·
 O'Hara's Choice (2003)
 

  


Categories: 1958 novels
Books about Zionism
Historical novels
Novels by Leon Uris
American novels adapted into films
Novels set in Israel
Doubleday (publisher) books
Novels set in Cyprus







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Exodus (1960 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Exodus
Exodus poster.jpg
Theatrical release film poster by Saul Bass

Directed by
Otto Preminger
Produced by
Otto Preminger
Written by
Dalton Trumbo
Based on
Exodus
 by Leon Uris
Starring
Paul Newman
Eva Marie Saint
Ralph Richardson
Peter Lawford
Sal Mineo
Jill Haworth
Lee J. Cobb
John Derek
Music by
Ernest Gold
Cinematography
Sam Leavitt, ASC
Edited by
Louis R. Loeffler
Distributed by
United Artists
MGM (DVD)

Release dates

December 16, 1960


Running time
 208 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$4.5 million[1]
Box office
$8,700,000 (US/ Canada)[2]
 $20 million (worldwide)[1]
Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus, by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo. The film features an ensemble cast, and its celebrated soundtrack music was written by Ernest Gold.
Widely characterized as a "Zionist epic",[3][4][5][6] the film has been identified by many commentators as having been enormously influential in stimulating Zionism and support for Israel in the United States.[7][8][9] Although the Preminger film softened the anti-British and anti-Arab sentiment of the novel, the film remains controversial for its depiction of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and for what some scholars perceive to be its lasting impact on American views of the regional turmoil.[10][11] It would also be famous for the hiring by Preminger of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted for being a Communist: he was hired and was later sought for other scripts by other studios.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Cast
3 Awards and nominations
4 Soundtrack
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Plot summary[edit]
The film is based on the events that happened on the ship Exodus in 1947 as well as events dealing with the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
Nurse Katherine "Kitty" Fremont (Eva Marie Saint) is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews - Holocaust survivors - are being held by the British, who won't let them go to Palestine. They anxiously wait for the day they will be liberated. Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman), a Hagannah rebel who previously was a captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship and smuggles 611 Jewish inmates out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military authorities. When the British find out that the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade it. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camp's doctor dies, and Ari threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees. The British relent and allow the Exodus safe passage.
Meanwhile, Kitty has grown very fond of Karen Hansen (Jill Haworth), a young Danish-Jewish girl searching for her father, from whom she was separated during the war. She has taken up the Zionist cause, much to the chagrin of Kitty, who had hoped to take young Karen to America so that she can begin a new life there.
During this time, opposition to the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states is heating up, and Karen's young beau Dov Landau (Sal Mineo) proclaims his desire to join the Irgun, a radical Zionist underground network. Dov goes to an Irgun address, only to get caught in a police trap. After he is freed, he is contacted by members of the Irgun and is interviewed by Ari Ben Canaan's uncle Akiva (David Opatoshu). Before swearing Dov in, Akiva forces the boy to confess that he was a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz and that he was raped by Nazis. Due to his activities, Akiva has been disowned by Ari's father, Barak (Lee J. Cobb), who heads the mainstream Jewish Agency trying to create a Jewish state through political and diplomatic means. He fears that the Irgun will damage his efforts, especially since the British have put a price on Akiva's head.
Karen has gone to live at Gan Dafna, a fictional Jewish kibbutz near Mount Tabor at which Ari was raised.[12] Kitty and Ari have fallen in love but Kitty pulls back, feeling like an outsider after meeting Ari's family and learning of his previous love interest, Dafna, a young woman tortured and murdered by Arabs, who is the namesake of the Gan Dafna kibbutz. Leaving Kitty, Ari promises to help find Karen's father, who is eventually found ill in hospital in Jerusalem and does not recognize Karen.
When Dov Landau successfully bombs the King David Hotel in an act of terrorism, leading to dozens of fatalities, Akiva is arrested, imprisoned in Acre fortress, and sentenced to hang. Seeking to save Akiva's life, as well as to free the Haganah and Irgun fighters imprisoned by the British, Ari organizes an escape plan for the prisoners.
Dov, who had managed to elude the arresting soldiers, turns himself in so that he can use his knowledge of explosives to facilitate the Acre Prison break. All goes according to plan; hundreds of prisoners, including Akiva, manage to escape. Akiva is fatally shot by British soldiers while evading a roadblock set up to catch the escaped prisoners. Ari is also badly wounded. He makes his way to Abu Yesha, an Arab village near Gan Dafna, where his lifelong friend, Taha, (John Derek) is the mukhtar. Kitty is brought there and treats his wound and Ari and Kitty's romance is rekindled.
An independent Israel is now in plain view, but Arab nationals commanded by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, plot to attack Gan Dafna and kill its villagers. Ari receives prior warning of this attack from Taha, and he manages to get the younger children of the town out in a mass overnight escape. Karen, ecstatic over the prospect of a new nation, finds Dov (who was out on patrol outside the town) and proclaims her love for him; Dov assures her that they will marry someday. As Karen returns to Gan Dafna, she is ambushed and killed by a gang of Arab militiamen. Dov discovers her lifeless body the following morning. That same day, the body of Taha is found hanging in his village, killed by Arab extremists with a Star of David symbol carved on his body. Karen and Taha are buried together in one grave. At the Jewish burial ceremony, Ari swears on their bodies that someday, Jews and Arabs will live together and share the land in peace, not only in death but also in life. The movie then ends with Ari, Kitty, and a Palmach contingent entering trucks and heading toward battle.
Cast[edit]
##Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan
##Eva Marie Saint as Kitty Fremont
##Ralph Richardson as Gen. Sutherland
##Peter Lawford as Maj. Caldwell
##Lee J. Cobb as Barak Ben Canaan
##Sal Mineo as Dov Landau
##John Derek as Taha
##Hugh Griffith as Mandria
##Gregory Ratoff as Lakavitch
##Felix Aylmer as Dr. Lieberman
##David Opatoshu as Akiva Ben-Canaan
##Jill Haworth as Karen Hansen Clement
##Marius Goring as Von Storch
##Alexandra Stewart - Jordana Ben Canaan
##Michael Wager as David
##Martin Benson - Mordekai
##Paul Stevens - Reuben
##Victor Maddern as Sergeant
##George Maharis as Yoav
##Esther Ofarim as Mrs. Hirschberg
Awards and nominations[edit]
Academy Awards
Composer Ernest Gold won the Academy Award for Best Original Score at the 1960 Oscars.
The film was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Sal Mineo) and for Best Cinematography (Sam Leavitt).
Golden Globe
Sal Mineo won the Best Supporting Actor Award
Grammy Award
Ernest Gold won Best Soundtrack Album and Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards of 1961 for the soundtrack and theme to Exodus respectively. It is the only instrumental song ever to receive that award to date.
Cannes Film Festival
The film was screened at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the competition for the Golden Palm.[13]
Soundtrack[edit]
Main article: Exodus (soundtrack)
The main theme from the film has been widely remixed and covered by many artists. A version by Ferrante & Teicher went all the way to number 2 on the Billboard Singles Chart. Another notable version was recorded by jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris. Other versions were recorded by Mantovani, Peter Nero, Connie Francis, Davy Graham reinvented the main theme on his 1963 album "The Guitar Player", the 1960s British instrumental band The Eagles, and The Duprees, who sang the theme with lyrics written by Pat Boone. Other artists include Gospel pianist Anthony Burger (in the Gaither Vocal Band's "I Do Believe"), singer Edith Piaf (who sang French lyrics) and classical pianist Maksim Mrvica. Trey Spruance of the Secret Chiefs 3 re-scored the theme for "surf band and orchestra" on the album 2004 Book of Horizons. Howard Stern uses it for comedic effect when discussing aspects of Jewish life. A portion of the theme was covered live by 70's Southern Rock band Black Oak Arkansas, whose 3 lead guitarists used eBows to play the theme in harmony, embedded into a cover of the Buddy Holly song "Not Fade Away".[14] Different samples of the Exodus theme have been used in several hip-hop songs, including Ice-T´s song "Ice's Exodus" from the album The Seventh Deadly Sin, Nas's song "You're Da Man" from the album Stillmatic, and T.I.'s song "Bankhead" from the album King. A portion of the main title was included in a montage arranged by composer John Williams and performed at the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony. The artist Nina Paley used the entire theme song to satirical effect in her animated short, titled after the lyrics, "This Land is Mine" (2012).[15] Although not in an official film soundtrack, Chopin's Nocturne was played while General Sutherland and Kitty Fremont discussed the future of Jews and Palestine.[16]
See also[edit]
##SS Exodus
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company The Changed the Film Industry, Uni of Wisconsin Press, 1987 p 133
2.Jump up ^ "All-time top film grossers", Variety January 8, 1964 p 37. Please note this figure is rentals accruing to film distributors not total money earned at the box office..
3.Jump up ^ Identity politics on the Israeli Screen. Yosefa Loshitzky page 2
4.Jump up ^ A new Jewry?: America since the Second World War. Peter Medding page 77
5.Jump up ^ Cinema and the Shoah: an art confronts the tragedy of the twentieth century. Jean-Michel Frodon, Anna Harrison. page 175
6.Jump up ^ Envisioning Israel: the changing ideals and images of North American Jews. Allôn Gal. page 297
7.Jump up ^ Said, Edward. Propaganda and War.
8.Jump up ^ Omer Bartov. The "Jew" in cinema. page 189
9.Jump up ^ Roland Boer. Political myth: on the use and abuse of Biblical themes. 2009, page 152. See also Weissbrod 1989
10.Jump up ^ Ira Nadel. Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller. 2010, page 116
11.Jump up ^ Roland Boer. Political myth: on the use and abuse of Biblical themes. 2009, page 152
12.Jump up ^ An actual kibbutz named Dafna is located near the present Lebanese border.
13.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Exodus". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-22.
14.Jump up ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkJKP3KQ93c#t=329
15.Jump up ^ Paley, Nina. "This Land is Mine". Retrieved October 4, 2012.
16.Jump up ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053804/soundtrack
External links[edit]
##Exodus at the Internet Movie Database
##Exodus at AllMovie
##Exodus at the TCM Movie Database


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Otto Preminger


Die große Liebe (1931) ·
 Under Your Spell (1936) ·
 Danger – Love at Work (1937) ·
 Kidnapped (1938) ·
 Margin for Error (1943) ·
 In the Meantime, Darling (1944) ·
 Laura (1944) ·
 A Royal Scandal (1945) ·
 Fallen Angel (1945) ·
 Centennial Summer (1946) ·
 Forever Amber (1947) ·
 Daisy Kenyon (1947) ·
 The Fan (1949) ·
 Whirlpool (1949) ·
 Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) ·
 The 13th Letter (1951) ·
 Angel Face (1952) ·
 The Moon Is Blue (1953) / Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach (1954) ·
 River of No Return (1954) ·
 Carmen Jones (1954) ·
 The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) ·
 The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) ·
 Saint Joan (1957) ·
 Bonjour tristesse (1958) ·
 Porgy and Bess (1959) ·
 Anatomy of a Murder (1959) ·
 Exodus (1960) ·
 Advise & Consent (1962) ·
 The Cardinal (1963) ·
 In Harm's Way (1965) ·
 Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) ·
 Hurry Sundown (1967) ·
 Skidoo (1968) ·
 Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) ·
 Such Good Friends (1971) ·
 Rosebud (1975) ·
 The Human Factor (1979)
 

  


Categories: 1960 films
English-language films
American films
1960s drama films
American war films
American epic films
Films about the Israel Defense Forces
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Otto Preminger
Films shot in Cyprus
Films set in 1947
Films set in 1948
Screenplays by Dalton Trumbo
United Artists films
War epic films
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films set in Israel





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Exodus (1960 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Exodus
Exodus poster.jpg
Theatrical release film poster by Saul Bass

Directed by
Otto Preminger
Produced by
Otto Preminger
Written by
Dalton Trumbo
Based on
Exodus
 by Leon Uris
Starring
Paul Newman
Eva Marie Saint
Ralph Richardson
Peter Lawford
Sal Mineo
Jill Haworth
Lee J. Cobb
John Derek
Music by
Ernest Gold
Cinematography
Sam Leavitt, ASC
Edited by
Louis R. Loeffler
Distributed by
United Artists
MGM (DVD)

Release dates

December 16, 1960


Running time
 208 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$4.5 million[1]
Box office
$8,700,000 (US/ Canada)[2]
 $20 million (worldwide)[1]
Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus, by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo. The film features an ensemble cast, and its celebrated soundtrack music was written by Ernest Gold.
Widely characterized as a "Zionist epic",[3][4][5][6] the film has been identified by many commentators as having been enormously influential in stimulating Zionism and support for Israel in the United States.[7][8][9] Although the Preminger film softened the anti-British and anti-Arab sentiment of the novel, the film remains controversial for its depiction of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and for what some scholars perceive to be its lasting impact on American views of the regional turmoil.[10][11] It would also be famous for the hiring by Preminger of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted for being a Communist: he was hired and was later sought for other scripts by other studios.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Cast
3 Awards and nominations
4 Soundtrack
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Plot summary[edit]
The film is based on the events that happened on the ship Exodus in 1947 as well as events dealing with the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
Nurse Katherine "Kitty" Fremont (Eva Marie Saint) is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews - Holocaust survivors - are being held by the British, who won't let them go to Palestine. They anxiously wait for the day they will be liberated. Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman), a Hagannah rebel who previously was a captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship and smuggles 611 Jewish inmates out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military authorities. When the British find out that the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade it. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camp's doctor dies, and Ari threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees. The British relent and allow the Exodus safe passage.
Meanwhile, Kitty has grown very fond of Karen Hansen (Jill Haworth), a young Danish-Jewish girl searching for her father, from whom she was separated during the war. She has taken up the Zionist cause, much to the chagrin of Kitty, who had hoped to take young Karen to America so that she can begin a new life there.
During this time, opposition to the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states is heating up, and Karen's young beau Dov Landau (Sal Mineo) proclaims his desire to join the Irgun, a radical Zionist underground network. Dov goes to an Irgun address, only to get caught in a police trap. After he is freed, he is contacted by members of the Irgun and is interviewed by Ari Ben Canaan's uncle Akiva (David Opatoshu). Before swearing Dov in, Akiva forces the boy to confess that he was a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz and that he was raped by Nazis. Due to his activities, Akiva has been disowned by Ari's father, Barak (Lee J. Cobb), who heads the mainstream Jewish Agency trying to create a Jewish state through political and diplomatic means. He fears that the Irgun will damage his efforts, especially since the British have put a price on Akiva's head.
Karen has gone to live at Gan Dafna, a fictional Jewish kibbutz near Mount Tabor at which Ari was raised.[12] Kitty and Ari have fallen in love but Kitty pulls back, feeling like an outsider after meeting Ari's family and learning of his previous love interest, Dafna, a young woman tortured and murdered by Arabs, who is the namesake of the Gan Dafna kibbutz. Leaving Kitty, Ari promises to help find Karen's father, who is eventually found ill in hospital in Jerusalem and does not recognize Karen.
When Dov Landau successfully bombs the King David Hotel in an act of terrorism, leading to dozens of fatalities, Akiva is arrested, imprisoned in Acre fortress, and sentenced to hang. Seeking to save Akiva's life, as well as to free the Haganah and Irgun fighters imprisoned by the British, Ari organizes an escape plan for the prisoners.
Dov, who had managed to elude the arresting soldiers, turns himself in so that he can use his knowledge of explosives to facilitate the Acre Prison break. All goes according to plan; hundreds of prisoners, including Akiva, manage to escape. Akiva is fatally shot by British soldiers while evading a roadblock set up to catch the escaped prisoners. Ari is also badly wounded. He makes his way to Abu Yesha, an Arab village near Gan Dafna, where his lifelong friend, Taha, (John Derek) is the mukhtar. Kitty is brought there and treats his wound and Ari and Kitty's romance is rekindled.
An independent Israel is now in plain view, but Arab nationals commanded by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, plot to attack Gan Dafna and kill its villagers. Ari receives prior warning of this attack from Taha, and he manages to get the younger children of the town out in a mass overnight escape. Karen, ecstatic over the prospect of a new nation, finds Dov (who was out on patrol outside the town) and proclaims her love for him; Dov assures her that they will marry someday. As Karen returns to Gan Dafna, she is ambushed and killed by a gang of Arab militiamen. Dov discovers her lifeless body the following morning. That same day, the body of Taha is found hanging in his village, killed by Arab extremists with a Star of David symbol carved on his body. Karen and Taha are buried together in one grave. At the Jewish burial ceremony, Ari swears on their bodies that someday, Jews and Arabs will live together and share the land in peace, not only in death but also in life. The movie then ends with Ari, Kitty, and a Palmach contingent entering trucks and heading toward battle.
Cast[edit]
##Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan
##Eva Marie Saint as Kitty Fremont
##Ralph Richardson as Gen. Sutherland
##Peter Lawford as Maj. Caldwell
##Lee J. Cobb as Barak Ben Canaan
##Sal Mineo as Dov Landau
##John Derek as Taha
##Hugh Griffith as Mandria
##Gregory Ratoff as Lakavitch
##Felix Aylmer as Dr. Lieberman
##David Opatoshu as Akiva Ben-Canaan
##Jill Haworth as Karen Hansen Clement
##Marius Goring as Von Storch
##Alexandra Stewart - Jordana Ben Canaan
##Michael Wager as David
##Martin Benson - Mordekai
##Paul Stevens - Reuben
##Victor Maddern as Sergeant
##George Maharis as Yoav
##Esther Ofarim as Mrs. Hirschberg
Awards and nominations[edit]
Academy Awards
Composer Ernest Gold won the Academy Award for Best Original Score at the 1960 Oscars.
The film was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Sal Mineo) and for Best Cinematography (Sam Leavitt).
Golden Globe
Sal Mineo won the Best Supporting Actor Award
Grammy Award
Ernest Gold won Best Soundtrack Album and Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards of 1961 for the soundtrack and theme to Exodus respectively. It is the only instrumental song ever to receive that award to date.
Cannes Film Festival
The film was screened at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the competition for the Golden Palm.[13]
Soundtrack[edit]
Main article: Exodus (soundtrack)
The main theme from the film has been widely remixed and covered by many artists. A version by Ferrante & Teicher went all the way to number 2 on the Billboard Singles Chart. Another notable version was recorded by jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris. Other versions were recorded by Mantovani, Peter Nero, Connie Francis, Davy Graham reinvented the main theme on his 1963 album "The Guitar Player", the 1960s British instrumental band The Eagles, and The Duprees, who sang the theme with lyrics written by Pat Boone. Other artists include Gospel pianist Anthony Burger (in the Gaither Vocal Band's "I Do Believe"), singer Edith Piaf (who sang French lyrics) and classical pianist Maksim Mrvica. Trey Spruance of the Secret Chiefs 3 re-scored the theme for "surf band and orchestra" on the album 2004 Book of Horizons. Howard Stern uses it for comedic effect when discussing aspects of Jewish life. A portion of the theme was covered live by 70's Southern Rock band Black Oak Arkansas, whose 3 lead guitarists used eBows to play the theme in harmony, embedded into a cover of the Buddy Holly song "Not Fade Away".[14] Different samples of the Exodus theme have been used in several hip-hop songs, including Ice-T´s song "Ice's Exodus" from the album The Seventh Deadly Sin, Nas's song "You're Da Man" from the album Stillmatic, and T.I.'s song "Bankhead" from the album King. A portion of the main title was included in a montage arranged by composer John Williams and performed at the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony. The artist Nina Paley used the entire theme song to satirical effect in her animated short, titled after the lyrics, "This Land is Mine" (2012).[15] Although not in an official film soundtrack, Chopin's Nocturne was played while General Sutherland and Kitty Fremont discussed the future of Jews and Palestine.[16]
See also[edit]
##SS Exodus
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company The Changed the Film Industry, Uni of Wisconsin Press, 1987 p 133
2.Jump up ^ "All-time top film grossers", Variety January 8, 1964 p 37. Please note this figure is rentals accruing to film distributors not total money earned at the box office..
3.Jump up ^ Identity politics on the Israeli Screen. Yosefa Loshitzky page 2
4.Jump up ^ A new Jewry?: America since the Second World War. Peter Medding page 77
5.Jump up ^ Cinema and the Shoah: an art confronts the tragedy of the twentieth century. Jean-Michel Frodon, Anna Harrison. page 175
6.Jump up ^ Envisioning Israel: the changing ideals and images of North American Jews. Allôn Gal. page 297
7.Jump up ^ Said, Edward. Propaganda and War.
8.Jump up ^ Omer Bartov. The "Jew" in cinema. page 189
9.Jump up ^ Roland Boer. Political myth: on the use and abuse of Biblical themes. 2009, page 152. See also Weissbrod 1989
10.Jump up ^ Ira Nadel. Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller. 2010, page 116
11.Jump up ^ Roland Boer. Political myth: on the use and abuse of Biblical themes. 2009, page 152
12.Jump up ^ An actual kibbutz named Dafna is located near the present Lebanese border.
13.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Exodus". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-22.
14.Jump up ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkJKP3KQ93c#t=329
15.Jump up ^ Paley, Nina. "This Land is Mine". Retrieved October 4, 2012.
16.Jump up ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053804/soundtrack
External links[edit]
##Exodus at the Internet Movie Database
##Exodus at AllMovie
##Exodus at the TCM Movie Database


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Films directed by Otto Preminger


Die große Liebe (1931) ·
 Under Your Spell (1936) ·
 Danger – Love at Work (1937) ·
 Kidnapped (1938) ·
 Margin for Error (1943) ·
 In the Meantime, Darling (1944) ·
 Laura (1944) ·
 A Royal Scandal (1945) ·
 Fallen Angel (1945) ·
 Centennial Summer (1946) ·
 Forever Amber (1947) ·
 Daisy Kenyon (1947) ·
 The Fan (1949) ·
 Whirlpool (1949) ·
 Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) ·
 The 13th Letter (1951) ·
 Angel Face (1952) ·
 The Moon Is Blue (1953) / Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach (1954) ·
 River of No Return (1954) ·
 Carmen Jones (1954) ·
 The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) ·
 The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) ·
 Saint Joan (1957) ·
 Bonjour tristesse (1958) ·
 Porgy and Bess (1959) ·
 Anatomy of a Murder (1959) ·
 Exodus (1960) ·
 Advise & Consent (1962) ·
 The Cardinal (1963) ·
 In Harm's Way (1965) ·
 Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) ·
 Hurry Sundown (1967) ·
 Skidoo (1968) ·
 Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) ·
 Such Good Friends (1971) ·
 Rosebud (1975) ·
 The Human Factor (1979)
 

  


Categories: 1960 films
English-language films
American films
1960s drama films
American war films
American epic films
Films about the Israel Defense Forces
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Otto Preminger
Films shot in Cyprus
Films set in 1947
Films set in 1948
Screenplays by Dalton Trumbo
United Artists films
War epic films
Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award
Films set in Israel





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