May 18, 2012
Miracle
In my mind, possibly the best sports movie of all time is Miracle, a movie about the 1980 U.S. Olympic team. The movie tells this team's story in an exciting and action packed fashion. The team was a huge underdog entering the tournament, having lost to multiple other countries by a wide margin and even some college teams in the U.S. Entering the tournament , the huge favorite was the Soviet Union who had won the olympics the past 4 times or 16 years. No one gave the U.S. a shot at winning more than a few games in the tournament, let alone taking the mighty Soviet's down. Just a few days before the tournament began the U.S. played the Soviet Union in a scrimmage and got demolished 10 -1. Remarkably, the United States stunned everyone and won the gold medal in the tournament, defeating the Soviet's 4-3 in the semifinals on their way to the championship. The movie does a fantastic job of using camera and sound to accurately portray the games and the intensity of the games. During the games the camera is constantly tracking and panning as the players skate up and down the ice, and they utilize very short duration shots to make it seem as if the players are moving at a hundred miles per hour. They also utilize suspenseful background music to make the games more exciting and suspenseful, especially in the game against the soviets. There is also a lot of sound used to mimick the sounds one would hear on the ice, such as the slaps of sticks on the ice, and the sound of skates carving into the ice. Overall, the film does a masterful job of using camera and sound to make the games seen unbelievably realistic.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
this movie is by far the best sport movie ever made in my mind. My favorite part in this movie is where they Tie to a B team in europe and coach Brooks makes the whole team skate sprints till they turn the power off by the rink manager. This sence that you watch they actually had to do it wasnt acting they really had to skate that much to get that tired. Also during this movie they have really good camara angles to show the emotion on there face while they are playing hockey. Thats got to be hard to get that good of a shot when the players are flying down the ice playing hockey. And if you ever have watched this movie i think that the kurt russel made this movie because he played herb brooks really good he really drove his players to become the best team in the world.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Miracle is definatley one of the best sports movies of all time. I also agree with Jason and Dan, that the camera angles and shot durations make the hockey players appear as if the game they are playing in is super intense and that they are skating really fast. I think the camera angles make the players seem way more athletic then they actually are beucase they probably didn't actually use olympic hockey players to film the movie. My favorite scene in Miracle is Herb Brooks inspirational speech in the locker room. The beginning of the scene shows the USA hockey team sitting in the locker room, completely silent and a lot of them with their heads down in their hands, appearing very frustrated. Herb Brooks, the coach of the team, enters the locker room and stands in the middle of the room. There is a long shot of him surrounded by the team sitting on the benches against the walls of the locker room. He starts the speech by saying "Great moments are born from great opprotunities". As Herb Brooks continues his speech, the team begins to look up at him and the camera goes down to a low angle to make him look powerful. As the speech goes on, the players start to smile and have looks of hopefullness on their faces. The patriotic music in the backround builds as they enter the ice together. I think this scene is really inspirational and is definatley memorable!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMiracle, the feature film chronicling the events leading up to the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team win against the Soviet Union and subsequent gold medal, is actually about transformation rather than a miracle.
ReplyDeleteSeveral transitions are portrayed throughout the film. One of the most noticeable changes is that the team starts off as twenty or so players who tried out for the team had no chance of even placing at the Lake Placid games, or so they thought seven months prior. However, as history shows, the team was victorious and took home the gold. In the beginning of the film Bob Fleming a council member of the of the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States, which decides the Olympic Team, even stated that "we all know that [the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team] is a long shot for a medal.
"Additionally, the team actually becomes a team in every way, as a opposed to the group of individual players it had been composed of. This change is shown a couple of ways throughout the film. In the film there is a hockey drill montage. In between the drills, the coach asks what team the men play for. In the beginning they answer with their respective college hockey teams but partway through the movie they realize that they have become part of a team; team U.S.A. This realization is also shown by the fact that the team members no longer fight with each other and hold grudges over past events, but instead think of themselves as a family.
Finally, my favorite transition one can see in the film is the one that happens to player Mike Eruzione. During tryouts the advisory board actually says "the kid doesn't have a shot in hell of making this team." Clearly they were wrong. Rizzo continues to develop throughout the months of training and is even the first one to realize that he is part of the Olympic Team and not a part of his alma mater's team. Then he completes his transition by being named captain of the team. I'd say he went a long way from nearly making the cut.