MJOLNIR AT THE MOVIES EPISODE 23: CHARIOTS OF FIRE

The Mjolnir at the Movies trio look at the Academy Award winning film Chariots of Fire, perhaps most famous for its musical score by Vangelis. Superficially, the film seems to be a triumph-against-anti-Semitism vehicle for Zionist propaganda; but is it really? Is the portrayal of Harold Abrahams at all flattering? And is not the moral of the story that British society was simply too liberal, and in being so, allowed itself to be transformed by people like Abrahams? We take a look at the tension between the bourgeois ethos and the aristocratic ethos and how mercantilism transformed the world of sport. By breaking the moral codes of amateurism, Abrahams might have won gold at the 1924 Olympics, but did Britain?