True Story?

Rating: Null/10 (19 February 2001)

When I first saw this film in a theater I was captivated by it. It is still an excellent film, whether viewed as an inspiration piece, a period study, a character study or a sports movie. I was so excited by it, I wanted to learn more and did a fair amount of research, including interviewing Jackson Scholz, the American runner who hands Eric Liddel some biblical encouragement just before his final race. A few people have noted some minor discrepancies, such as the fact that Liddel and the coaches knew of the Sunday scheduling of the 100 meters finals weeks and even months ahead of time (making the dramatic interview with the British Olympic Committee a fabrication). I've seen others note that Harold Abrahams was actually quite popular at Cambridge. There are, however some more fundamental untruths here.
One of the key motivational relationships here is Abrahams' love for the woman he eventually married, singer Sybil Gordon. He finds he must separate himself from her to train with Sam Mussabini to gain his goal. The problem? He didn't meet her until after he had retired from running.
Another key relationship is Abrahams friendship with Aubrey Montague. The film depicts them entering Cambridge together, joining clubs etc together. Harold says of Aubrey "You are my most complete man." The problem? Aubrey went to rival Oxford. He even wrote to his mother about an Oxford-Cambridge track meet which Abrahams dominated and from which he was carried victorious by him team mates, "I hoped they'd drop him." (They became friends later in life while serving on amateur athletic boards as I recall.)
The incident with Liddel goes a bit deeper than the bit of poetic license noted above. The incident concerning the refusal run on Sunday did occur, but with a different team (the Americans, of all people)and in a prior Olympics (the Stockholm if memory serves). There is more to the depiction of Liddel that is disturbing. Most of part of the film that concerns him focuses on the conflict between his desire to compete and his sister's concern that this was distracting from his missionary and religious work. Despite the film's crediting her as a consultant, she was quite hurt by the depiction of her and has always insisted she was completely supportive of his running career, as was his entire family. (Scholz also told me that he has refused to see the film because he felt it depicted the Americans as arrogant; this seems to have been based on his script review, which contained scenes which were not in the movie I saw.)
(There are other factual discrepancies, such as the identification of Abrahams as the first man to win the `College Dash.' I didn't find any of these issues to go to the heart of the movie, however. I have written Colin Welland seeking a bibliography of his source material to try to understand why my research is at such odds with his screenplay, but without response.)
I understand the need to vary from the facts at times to make a point. But if you take all of these `facts' away, what is left of the movie? If Welland had wanted to write a movie "based on historical characters" or "based on a true story" I could understand. But one of the first screens asserts that the movie is a "true story," or words to that effect. This was what led me to research the facts. I wish I had never done so, as the movie is beautifully done. It is still one of my favorites, but I cannot watch it with the enthusiasm I once had for it.