Tokyo Olympiad

Director: Kon Ichikawa

1965 / 170min / DCP

A game-changer in the filmed depiction of sport, Ichikawa’s dazzling widescreen document of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo—made with a small army of technicians equipped with dozens of cameras and state-of-the-art telephoto lenses—offers not only a melodious, expressive depiction of world-class athletic competition, but multiple nuanced psychological portraits of its subjects in both victory and defeat. “I have attempted to capture the solemnity of the moment when man defies his limits. And to express the solitude of the man who, to succeed, fights against himself.” —Kon Ichikawa

Part of Art Cinema, Olympiad, and the World