The Olympics in Mexico

1969 • 160 minute

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The Mexican former Olympic swimmer Alberto Isaac had turned to filmmaking after spending time as a newspaper cartoonist, a sports correspondent, and even a ceramist. Isaac and his team (which included Paul Leduc, then a neophyte filmmaker, as an assistant director and Oscar-winning cinematographer Walter Lassally as a cameraman) saw the whole event from a wider perspective than might have been expected. This record of the Mexico City Olympic Games would be a celebration not of national achievement (very few national anthems are heard during the film), but of individual heroism. In addition, the filmmakers emphasized the cultural activities staged during the two weeks of the Games, with performers like Van Cliburn, Duke Ellington, and Martha Graham on hand, alongside artists such as Alexander Calder and Norman McLaren.