The filming of Rome 1960
Capturing the action and emotions of the Olympic Games Rome 1960 for posterity, the Oscar-nominated documentary La Grande Olimpiade (The Grand Olympics) is a skilled and painstaking piece of filmmaking that remains highly regarded today.
Released in 1961, the two-hour feature-length documentary was screened at both the 50th and 60th anniversary celebrations of Rome 1960 in 2010 and 2020 respectively. One modern-day commentator has hailed it as an “outstanding example of Cold War-era state-sponsored filmmaking in Italy” and “the aesthetic and stylistic culmination” of the career of its director, Romolo Marcellini.
That style is evident in the opening scenes, when the camera swoops over St Peter’s Square and flies on to the Colosseum and a packed Stadio Olimpico. Perhaps the most moving scenes of La Grande Olimpiade come when the decathlon gold medallist, Rafer Johnson of the USA, consoles the dejected runner-up, Yang Chuan Kwang of the Republic of China (as Chinese Taipei was then known). And the film is at its most memorable when documenting the finish of the men’s marathon; with darkness having fallen on the Eternal City, torches flicker and crowds line the streets to cheer barefooted Ethiopian runner Bikala Abebe to victory.
Critically acclaimed for its photography, La Grande Olimpiade was nominated for best documentary at the 1962 Academy Awards. In the process, it raised the bar for subsequent Olympic films. The official Tokyo 1964 feature adopted a similarly artistic approach to achieve iconic status, and the Mexico City 1968 film was itself nominated for an Oscar.
The filming of La Grande Olimpiade was a considerable technical feat. Its 35 cameramen used more than 80,000 metres of negative, while many months of preparation and several visits to the competition sites were needed to pinpoint the best positions for the cameras, which were operated according to a detailed timetable calculated down to the last minute. Marcellini and his vast crew of 296 people also conducted a number of experiments to find out the best way of filming night-time events in colour using artificial light.