ABSTRACT
Many of documentary film’s most renowned works take sport as their topic. These productions celebrate sport’s beauty, explore its history, and probe its complex and intimate relationship to society. Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1938) – perhaps the most infamous sports documentary ever made – is a Nazi-funded celebration of the 1936 Berlin summer Olympic Games. Steve James’ Hoop Dreams (1994) interrogates the common myth that basketball provides a realistic means through which young inner-city African American men can improve their economic circumstances. Leon Gast’s Academy Award-winning WhenWeWere Kings (1996) uses the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” (wherein Muhammad Ali beat the younger and heavily favored George Foreman to regain the heavyweight boxing title) to consider the intersections among sport, race, and politics. Though distinct in form and purpose, each of these now canonical documentaries suggests that sport provides a lens through which to illuminate and comment on society’s values, beliefs, and attitudes.
