The first real thing we see are bits of the routines of two figure skaters (one of which is the eventual winner) just kind of freely stating around, with no tricks. We then cut to them jokingly showing us kids saying they are "future Olympians" and these kids are a million times better than what they just showed us of the real Olympians (they are doing real tricks and one even does a pretty impressive jump). I think this is pretty representative of the whole documentary; they don't understand what is important or how to represent it appropriately. We cut to a hockey game where the title cards kind of give a bit of play-by-play, but it's not shot like a sport; it's hard to see the puck and they don't even keep the camera on the action. It isn't shot like a hockey game, where the action is the focus; it's closer to them trying to document what the area looks like and a hockey game just happens to be taking place. And that was the only hockey we ever see. Really, this feels like the cameramen just wanted to film a shitty, out of focus nature documentary and reluctantly got a few shots of whatever event was going on just to keep their bosses off their backs. The best I can say about The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 is at least it's a sixth as long as the previous Olympic film and it sometimes tries to say something other than "Tristan Redmon (France) winner of the race". I assume the restoration was significantly less on this one because it looks like shit. The previous was also silent and in black and white, but it looked good. Here, the camera had that old-timey super low framerate thing going on (and constant cuts like 4 frames were missing) and they keep using a circular shot that is out of focus. I will give them some credit for the slow motion shots, but when they use them rarely makes sense. There a bits of interesting cinematography, but overall this is just as dull as the previous film, just thankfully much, much shorter although it ends just as abruptly.
The first real thing we see are bits of the routines of two figure skaters (one of which is the eventual winner) just kind of freely stating around, with no tricks. We then cut to them jokingly showing us kids saying they are "future Olympians" and these kids are a million times better than what they just showed us of the real Olympians (they are doing real tricks and one even does a pretty impressive jump). I think this is pretty representative of the whole documentary; they don't understand what is important or how to represent it appropriately. We cut to a hockey game where the title cards kind of give a bit of play-by-play, but it's not shot like a sport; it's hard to see the puck and they don't even keep the camera on the action. It isn't shot like a hockey game, where the action is the focus; it's closer to them trying to document what the area looks like and a hockey game just happens to be taking place. And that was the only hockey we ever see. Really, this feels like the cameramen just wanted to film a shitty, out of focus nature documentary and reluctantly got a few shots of whatever event was going on just to keep their bosses off their backs. The best I can say about The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924 is at least it's a sixth as long as the previous Olympic film and it sometimes tries to say something other than "Tristan Redmon (France) winner of the race". I assume the restoration was significantly less on this one because it looks like shit. The previous was also silent and in black and white, but it looked good. Here, the camera had that old-timey super low framerate thing going on (and constant cuts like 4 frames were missing) and they keep using a circular shot that is out of focus. I will give them some credit for the slow motion shots, but when they use them rarely makes sense. There a bits of interesting cinematography, but overall this is just as dull as the previous film, just thankfully much, much shorter although it ends just as abruptly.
