Every year, on the eve of the Oscar ceremony, I like to re-watch with a former Best Picture winner. Normally, I’ll pick a favorite of mine (as I did last year with The French Connection) but this year I decided on a change of pace, selecting a movie that I haven’t seen and have barely thought about in at least fifteen years. And while there’s no denying that Chariots of Fire made an impact on popular culture, its status as an Oscar-anointed “classic” is much less certain.
What made Chariots of Fire a hit?: Chariots of Fire was the festival favorite of its day, winning accolades at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival and taking home the audience award at Toronto that fall, and it became the word-of-mouth hit of the year. Much of the credit for the film’s success belongs to its story, about two young runners whose competitive drive is rivaled only by their principles. The film’s producer David Puttman supposedly wanted to make a film akin to A Man For All Seasons in which the principle characters are guided by their consciences, and in the stories of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams he found an ideal vehicle for this theme. Chariots of Fire is a straight-laced British production, but it’s also an inspirational sports movie that focuses on characters who are both heroic and relatable.
But let’s not overlook some of the other factors in the film’s success. Consider some of the major world events of the era. Just one year before, the United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics, and it’s possible audiences turned to the cinema to get the Olympic fix they weren’t able to get on their television. In addition, 1981 saw a groundswell in anglophilia following the lavish nuptials of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. And let’s not underestimate the impact of Vangelis’ theme music from the film, which was one of the few instrumental pieces of the day to get regular airplay on top 40 radio.
What happened?: Along with the aforementioned factors, much of the appeal of Chariots of Fire lie in its underdog status. At the 1981 Academy Awards, the film was the night’s unlikely success story, beating out such high-profile nominees as Reds and On Golden Pond for Best Picture. But once the film took home the big prize, it was no longer an outsider, but the establishment’s choice. What’s more, an unassuming film like Chariots often has a difficult time standing up to the scrutiny such a high-profile honor can bring, and it’s easy to imagine moviegoers who first experienced the film after its Oscar win wondering what the fuss was about.
In addition, few (if any) of the people involved with Chariots of Fire capitalized on the film’s success. Leading men and Royal Shakespeare Company alums Ben Cross and Ian Charleson failed to parlay their roles into movie stardom, with Cross finding a steady career onstage and in big-screen character work (usually playing villains), and Charleson succumbing to AIDS in 1990. Director Hugh Hudson found brief success in Hollywood with 1984’s Greystoke, but his star plummeted after the box-office and critical drubbing of 1985’s Revolution. Vangelis’ theme music helped to kick off a decade of often-regrettable synthesizer scores, as well as spawning a host of cheap and easy parodies of the film’s signature scene.
Does Chariots of Fire still work?: In some respects, yes. What distinguishes the film from other inspirational sports movies is its bifurcated structure, with the stories of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams running alongside each other but only occasionally intersecting. By choosing to tell the story this way, Hudson and screenwriter Colin Weiland give the audience two characters to root for, while at the same time setting up an eventual showdown between them. Unfortunately for the film, real life didn’t quite work out this way, and instead of a race in which we feel conflicted about the possible outcome, Chariots of Fire gives both of its heroes a moment of gold medal glory.
Also, while Puttnam succeeded in his goal to make a film about characters driven by conscience, Chariots of Fire often neglects to paint these characters in much depth. Liddell in particular talks about little else besides his Christian convictions, and while Ian Charleson is fine in the part, the character doesn’t quite come alive as he should. Ben Cross’ Abrahams is the more complex of the two roles, an ambitious young man who sees winning as a victory against the anti-Semitism he experiences every day. Abrahams is such an interesting character that he might have carried a film unto himself, something that can’t be said of the film’s conception of Liddell. 
But even in light of the parodies that we’ve seen over the past quarter century, the running scenes still work beautifully. In my experience with sports movies, the most cinematic sports tend to be the ones that have (a) momentum, and (b) simple rules, which would explain why basketball is better-suited to movies than football. In this respect, running may be the most cinematic sport of all, and few of any films capture this better than Chariots of Fire. Hudson does an interesting thing in the running scenes by focusing less on the outcome of the race than on the faces and bodies of the runners, showing in detail their physical and psychological exertions. Chariots of Fire may not be the classic the Academy once decreed it to be, but its racing scenes are every bit as effective now as they were on the film’s release.