American here, and I hope everyone in the UK is enjoying today being a normal workday! Today we're celebrating breaking away from you lot ;)
Anyhow, I'm not much of a football fan, although I did watch the US - Costa Rica match last week and actually enjoyed it. But I AM an amateur film scholar so I found this pretty interesting and thought-provoking. Good article!
A lot of what you said was missing from football films is in the heads of the fans, and to a lesser extent, the players (e.g. they lost last year, city pride, they're "supporters" of their club and it's unthinkable they could ever change allegiance, etc.). The game doesn't really belong to the players; it belongs to the fans. That's why you can't film it.
From a cross-Atlantic perspective, I think you all take the game too seriously and invest too much in it. It's just a game. And I've been around Brits a LOT, and you drink too much.
In a major league baseball game, it's perfectly reasonable to show up wearing the caps and colors of the visitors, sit right in with the home team fans., and just enjoy good-natured joking. I wore my Cubs cap to a game at Dodger Stadium and no one gave me any grief. In fact, in this game the Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta no-hit the Dodgers (in other words, he completely shut them down), and in the last inning the Dodger fans were cheering his achievement.
Here are telltale phrases from your article:
"On the cards: copious drinking"
"The way people actually watch football, the perspective from which they consume it, whether on TV or in the stadium, is routinely ignored by football films, which always try to film at pitch-level, either through an inability or an unwillingness to recreate the conditions of authentic spectatorship."
[do you want to film the game, or the spectators?]
"the context-laden spontaneity of its drama"
"Context" in films usually requires a lot of exposition. That CAN be done on film, but for some reason directors shy away from it.
Hey Albert, thanks for the reading and the comment!
You're right about what's missing from football films, and I suppose that's what I was getting at. What makes football meaningful is simply not translatable to the form of cinema, or television.
When I talk about the perspective, I'm not talking about filming the spectators, I'm talking about recreating the spectacle as it's consumed by the people who love it. There are so many football films that place the camera on the pitch, between an awkwardly stage glut of clumsily moving bodies, following the path of the ball, following it into the top corner when someone scores a stagey goal (as the actor playing the goalkeeper does their best to get out of the way of it)...it removes any sense of spectacle.
I would mirror your cross-Atlantic perspective: you don't take it seriously enough, and you don't drink enough! Haha - on a serious note, the tribalism of football is one of the things that make it so great. Having home and away fans separated is what gives you the glorious sight and sound of tens of thousands of people singing the same anthem, or rising to their feet as one when a team scores. The essence of the game: communal experience. Football fans can absolutely get on with opposition fans - whether that's in the pub, on the streets around the ground, banter in work and so on - but it's quite clearly a better experience in the ground when it's us vs them.
Anyway, long answer, but I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment!
The song "Go Cubs. Go" is by Steve Goodman, a Chicago native and the writer of "City of New Orleans." They play it after every Cubs win.
The Chicago Cubs had not been in a World Series in my FATHER's lifetime, let alone mine. When they finally won, five million people came downtown for the parade. I don't know how they even all got there.
Really lovely piece, Jimbo. As you're painfully aware, I know next to nothing about football. But as every good essay should, this left me wanting more. More context, more debate, and more of whatever strange and beautiful language football people speak when they talk about the "moments."
The stuff about how football is filmed, or rather can't be filmed, was fascinating. The complexity, the chaos, the choreography that never quite cooperates. But as you described it, I couldn't help thinking about epic war movies. That same spontaneity, that same messiness, yet war on screen does work. So what is it about football that makes it so cinematically elusive?
Apart from Bend it Like Beckham, I hadn't heard of any of the films you mentioned - and the only reason The Damned United is on my radar is because I'm a Michael Sheen fan, not because I've seen it (I have not seen it, but will after your article).
But here's my question for you, and I say this as someone who knows embarrassingly little about the game, so take it with a mountain of salt:
Could it be that football, unlike tennis, boxing, and F1, all of which revolve around a singular hero, doesn't translate because it's inherently plural? One person's greatness in football only exists because of what ten others do around them in real time. Even your Messis and Ronaldos can only drag a team so far if the rest can't keep up. So maybe the problem isn't the sport itself but the inability to anchor it in one character's arc without flattening the essence of the game.
The Damned United, from what I've googled is about a coach? Perhaps a manager, I don't know, I didn't spend too long on it as I didn't want to ruin the film for myself. But is that the trick? You go through the manager, not the striker? The view from the dugout might actually make for a better film than the view from the pitch. (I had to Google dugout as well...look at me learn!)
Second thought, and I think you touch on this beautifully, is that maybe football's too tribal and too current. Perhaps even too partisan. Could a Liverpool fan genuinely sit through a City-focused film without immediately switching off? Does the allegiance kill the suspension of disbelief?
There must be a good football story out there, surely? A Pele biopic? A Shakira/Piqué domestic psychodrama? (Right, that's me officially exhausting my entire football knowledge in one sentence.)
I refuse to believe football is unwritable. Or unwatchable in a film. Surely if the game can deliver that much tension, that much catharsis, it can be translated. Even if you leave the on-pitch scenes abstract or minimal.
Anyway, I really liked this. Got me to engage with a topic I'd never given any thought to. I look forward to seeing your name in the credits when Nolan finally caves and attempts Blood Meridian FC with McConaughey and Murphy in the lead.
Hey Cam, thanks for reading, and for such a thoughtful comment! If this piece ends with you being a die-hard footy fan it may be the most persuasive piece of content I've ever written haha.
It's a good point about war movies. There are a lot of similarities between war and team sports, of course. A lot of sports like football and rugby were formalised in public schools as a way of preparing young boys for combat - channelling aggression, instilling discipline, increasing fitness and stamina etc. And both are simultaneously painstakingly choreographed and yet highly unpredictable and chaotic. I think the reason war works better in cinema than football might simply come down to the fact that football has an established perspective we are used to viewing it from, and when a film attempts to shift that perspective - ie by filming from within the field of play - it ironically breaks the sense of immersion and focus that football relies on.
And the plurality of the sport definitely makes it more difficult, particularly when a film chooses to focus on the game itself. There's loads of potential for stories about individual player journeys - Sadio Mane, for example, was banned from playing football by his Dad when he was growing up in Senegal, and had to leave his family at 15 to pursue his dream of playing football. His story is one of setbacks, resilience, failures and eventual success. Perfect for film - but I suspect if a director tried to make this film with too much focus on the actual football, it would diffuse all of that narrative significance and end up feeling hackneyed and inauthentic.
So I think you're right in that the best way to approach this is to leave the game, largely, off-camera. Focus on the individual arc with the supporting framework of the team camaraderie and the constant tension of the pressure to perform. But also focus on establishment the dramatic context - maybe a dual narrative that mirrors a fan's experiencesd with that of a players in the run up to a cup final, for example.
Anyway glad you enjoyed this! I'll make sure to ask Nolan to sneak you into the premiere!
American here, and I hope everyone in the UK is enjoying today being a normal workday! Today we're celebrating breaking away from you lot ;)
Anyhow, I'm not much of a football fan, although I did watch the US - Costa Rica match last week and actually enjoyed it. But I AM an amateur film scholar so I found this pretty interesting and thought-provoking. Good article!
A lot of what you said was missing from football films is in the heads of the fans, and to a lesser extent, the players (e.g. they lost last year, city pride, they're "supporters" of their club and it's unthinkable they could ever change allegiance, etc.). The game doesn't really belong to the players; it belongs to the fans. That's why you can't film it.
From a cross-Atlantic perspective, I think you all take the game too seriously and invest too much in it. It's just a game. And I've been around Brits a LOT, and you drink too much.
In a major league baseball game, it's perfectly reasonable to show up wearing the caps and colors of the visitors, sit right in with the home team fans., and just enjoy good-natured joking. I wore my Cubs cap to a game at Dodger Stadium and no one gave me any grief. In fact, in this game the Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta no-hit the Dodgers (in other words, he completely shut them down), and in the last inning the Dodger fans were cheering his achievement.
Here are telltale phrases from your article:
"On the cards: copious drinking"
"The way people actually watch football, the perspective from which they consume it, whether on TV or in the stadium, is routinely ignored by football films, which always try to film at pitch-level, either through an inability or an unwillingness to recreate the conditions of authentic spectatorship."
[do you want to film the game, or the spectators?]
"the context-laden spontaneity of its drama"
"Context" in films usually requires a lot of exposition. That CAN be done on film, but for some reason directors shy away from it.
Hey Albert, thanks for the reading and the comment!
You're right about what's missing from football films, and I suppose that's what I was getting at. What makes football meaningful is simply not translatable to the form of cinema, or television.
When I talk about the perspective, I'm not talking about filming the spectators, I'm talking about recreating the spectacle as it's consumed by the people who love it. There are so many football films that place the camera on the pitch, between an awkwardly stage glut of clumsily moving bodies, following the path of the ball, following it into the top corner when someone scores a stagey goal (as the actor playing the goalkeeper does their best to get out of the way of it)...it removes any sense of spectacle.
I would mirror your cross-Atlantic perspective: you don't take it seriously enough, and you don't drink enough! Haha - on a serious note, the tribalism of football is one of the things that make it so great. Having home and away fans separated is what gives you the glorious sight and sound of tens of thousands of people singing the same anthem, or rising to their feet as one when a team scores. The essence of the game: communal experience. Football fans can absolutely get on with opposition fans - whether that's in the pub, on the streets around the ground, banter in work and so on - but it's quite clearly a better experience in the ground when it's us vs them.
Anyway, long answer, but I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment!
You want tribal? I'll give you tribal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLAiHX5RHic
The song "Go Cubs. Go" is by Steve Goodman, a Chicago native and the writer of "City of New Orleans." They play it after every Cubs win.
The Chicago Cubs had not been in a World Series in my FATHER's lifetime, let alone mine. When they finally won, five million people came downtown for the parade. I don't know how they even all got there.
Really lovely piece, Jimbo. As you're painfully aware, I know next to nothing about football. But as every good essay should, this left me wanting more. More context, more debate, and more of whatever strange and beautiful language football people speak when they talk about the "moments."
The stuff about how football is filmed, or rather can't be filmed, was fascinating. The complexity, the chaos, the choreography that never quite cooperates. But as you described it, I couldn't help thinking about epic war movies. That same spontaneity, that same messiness, yet war on screen does work. So what is it about football that makes it so cinematically elusive?
Apart from Bend it Like Beckham, I hadn't heard of any of the films you mentioned - and the only reason The Damned United is on my radar is because I'm a Michael Sheen fan, not because I've seen it (I have not seen it, but will after your article).
But here's my question for you, and I say this as someone who knows embarrassingly little about the game, so take it with a mountain of salt:
Could it be that football, unlike tennis, boxing, and F1, all of which revolve around a singular hero, doesn't translate because it's inherently plural? One person's greatness in football only exists because of what ten others do around them in real time. Even your Messis and Ronaldos can only drag a team so far if the rest can't keep up. So maybe the problem isn't the sport itself but the inability to anchor it in one character's arc without flattening the essence of the game.
The Damned United, from what I've googled is about a coach? Perhaps a manager, I don't know, I didn't spend too long on it as I didn't want to ruin the film for myself. But is that the trick? You go through the manager, not the striker? The view from the dugout might actually make for a better film than the view from the pitch. (I had to Google dugout as well...look at me learn!)
Second thought, and I think you touch on this beautifully, is that maybe football's too tribal and too current. Perhaps even too partisan. Could a Liverpool fan genuinely sit through a City-focused film without immediately switching off? Does the allegiance kill the suspension of disbelief?
There must be a good football story out there, surely? A Pele biopic? A Shakira/Piqué domestic psychodrama? (Right, that's me officially exhausting my entire football knowledge in one sentence.)
I refuse to believe football is unwritable. Or unwatchable in a film. Surely if the game can deliver that much tension, that much catharsis, it can be translated. Even if you leave the on-pitch scenes abstract or minimal.
Anyway, I really liked this. Got me to engage with a topic I'd never given any thought to. I look forward to seeing your name in the credits when Nolan finally caves and attempts Blood Meridian FC with McConaughey and Murphy in the lead.
Hey Cam, thanks for reading, and for such a thoughtful comment! If this piece ends with you being a die-hard footy fan it may be the most persuasive piece of content I've ever written haha.
It's a good point about war movies. There are a lot of similarities between war and team sports, of course. A lot of sports like football and rugby were formalised in public schools as a way of preparing young boys for combat - channelling aggression, instilling discipline, increasing fitness and stamina etc. And both are simultaneously painstakingly choreographed and yet highly unpredictable and chaotic. I think the reason war works better in cinema than football might simply come down to the fact that football has an established perspective we are used to viewing it from, and when a film attempts to shift that perspective - ie by filming from within the field of play - it ironically breaks the sense of immersion and focus that football relies on.
And the plurality of the sport definitely makes it more difficult, particularly when a film chooses to focus on the game itself. There's loads of potential for stories about individual player journeys - Sadio Mane, for example, was banned from playing football by his Dad when he was growing up in Senegal, and had to leave his family at 15 to pursue his dream of playing football. His story is one of setbacks, resilience, failures and eventual success. Perfect for film - but I suspect if a director tried to make this film with too much focus on the actual football, it would diffuse all of that narrative significance and end up feeling hackneyed and inauthentic.
So I think you're right in that the best way to approach this is to leave the game, largely, off-camera. Focus on the individual arc with the supporting framework of the team camaraderie and the constant tension of the pressure to perform. But also focus on establishment the dramatic context - maybe a dual narrative that mirrors a fan's experiencesd with that of a players in the run up to a cup final, for example.
Anyway glad you enjoyed this! I'll make sure to ask Nolan to sneak you into the premiere!