So begins the 1981 Oscar-winning film “Chariots of Fire,” introducing a group of British athletes as they train for the Olympic Games . The runners — whose T-shirts and shorts are muddied with sand and sea — splash through shallow water towards the Scottish coastal town of St. Andrews, which slowly appears as a series of spires and rooftops on the horizon.
The scene is embedded in cinema history, memorably capturing the quiet beauty of striding across a deserted beach. The simple joy of running will become a central theme of the film, even though the athletes’ faces are now a mixture of hardship, happiness and gritty determination. “What’s beautiful about athletics as opposed to almost any other sport is its lack of complexity,” David Puttnam, the producer of “Chariots of Fire,” tells CNN Sport .
“You’re throwing something, you’re jumping over something or you’re running. It’s a quintessence, really, of human effort.” It’s perhaps for this reason that the film, more than four decades after its release, remains as popular and relatable as ever.
Based on the lives and gold-medal-winning performances of sprinters Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams ahead of the 1924 Paris Olympics, “Chariots of Fire” won four Oscars — including Best Picture. It has been ranked among the greatest British films of all time, and was a favorite of former and current US presidents Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden . As the Olympics return to Paris this year, public view.