{"id":1022,"date":"2020-02-24T17:32:01","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T17:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/?p=1022"},"modified":"2020-11-23T22:44:57","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T22:44:57","slug":"chariots-of-fire-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/?p=1022","title":{"rendered":"Chariots of Fire<\/em> (1981)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Chariots of Fire<\/em> (1981)<\/h1>\n

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If, as I noted elsewhere on this blog, Blazing Saddles<\/em> always makes me laugh, <\/a>then Chariots of Fire<\/em> is the counterpoint – a film that always makes me cry.\u00a0This is an all-too-rare movie about people of faith struggling with their beliefs in the context of their earthly lives. The setting is England in the years after World War I leading up to the 1924 Paris Olympics. “Chariots …<\/em>” is the true story of two young men both driven to excel as runners:<\/p>\n

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Eric Liddell<\/a>, a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries<\/strong>, sees running as part of his gift from God and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath. He holds tenaciously to his beliefs even when the snooty, Anglican powers-that-be who are in charge of the British team scold him for basically putting God before country.<\/p>\n

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Harold Abrahams<\/a>, a Jew and the son of a financier<\/strong>, sees his quest in running as a means to overcome the anti-Semitism and class bias in the country. However, his zeal imperils the relationship with those around him, especially his beloved Sybil (the woman who the real-life Abrahams eventually married).<\/p>\n

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In the case of both young men, their minds and bodies — their faith and their running prowess — cannot be separated. This scene is from the very end of the movie. Abrahams has already won his race and now we see Liddell — in the outer lane — pour it on as friends, family, teammates (including Abrahams), and even the royals cheer him on.<\/p>\n

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Personal connection<\/h4>\n

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T<\/b>he title of the movie\u00a0derives from both a bible verse as well as words in the rousing Anglican hymn “Jerusalem<\/em>“. The hymn is heard at the very end of the movie in a flash forward to the funeral of\u00a0Abrahams in 1978. I have sung “Jerusalem<\/em>” both in concert and at church. It is also a favorite patriotic tune in Britain and is sung in full-throated glory every year at the Proms concerts in London.<\/p>\n

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I find this true story of aspiring English Olympic runners to be the finest depiction ever made of the struggle of reconciling faith with our earthly lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classical-music","category-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Beach-running-scene-from-Chariots-of-Fire.jpg?fit=460%2C276&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1977,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions\/1977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}