This Sporting Life

This Sporting Life

1963. Great Britain. Directed by Lindsay Anderson. With Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, Alan Bladel, Colin Blakely. Alongside colleagues Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson, Anderson was one the key figures in the British realist movement who had also been a film critic in his twenties (à la the French New Wave directors). This Sporting Life, his first feature after several award-winning documentaries, was one of the grittiest and most powerful films about athletes ever made. Later in his career, Anderson moved away from realism and wound up somewhat emulating the romanticism of his hero, John Ford, about whom he wrote a major book. 129 min.