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sunday in hell: behind the lens of the greatest cycling film of all time. william fotheringham. yellow jersey press hardback 259pp illus. £16.99

sunday in hell - william fotheringham

the two most successful, fictional cycling movies i can think of would be american flyers and breaking away, both rightly regarded as classics, yet betraying this in a rather anachronistic manner. though the two were written by steve tesich, there's no doubt that riders racing steel bikes is very much at odds with today's formula one technology, epitomised in the shape of monocoque nano fibres. the racing too, suffers from the often melodramatic needs of the movie theatre, rarely matching the likes of sunday's gent-wevelgem. 'breaking away' suffers (if that's the correct word) from the now odd concept of a cycling enthusiast being besotted with italiana, particularly since that country is no longer the heart of the velocipedinal world.

time marches on.

more appealing and often no less iconic, are those that feature live action, real life cycling; often black and white documentaries featuring many of the world's great cyclists such as fausto coppi, eddy merckx and the lads, though probably now viewed on dvd, but rarely anywhere near a cinema. the big screen first saw jorgen leth's stars and watercarriers, a highly rated film of the 1973 giro d'italia, followed a few years later by the same director's idosyncratic view of the 1976 paris-roubaix, a sunday in hell.

if it's a movie that has escaped your attention, you should consider this as an indication of a more than sheltered upbringing, a serious omission from your cycling education and one that ought best be remedied as soon as possible. preferably the household dvd player would fulfil this function, but if all else fails, it is available on youtube. depending on your sense of propriety, it may be best to watch the movie before reading william fotheringham's latest book, a publication which takes its name from the movie and explores the trials and tribulations experienced by director jorgen leth in its making.

i have long been of the opinion that the mechanics of bringing a production to the stage or screen are best left in the care of those involved. learning that the scenery was made of polystyrene, or that the sheriff's office in a western town bears only a front and no back, is almost guaranteed to undermine the faux reality of any production. who knew that darth vader wasn't really luke skywalker's father, but actually bodybuilder, dave prowse?

fotheringham's sunday in hell may well be the exception that proves the rule, since rather than bursting any metaphorical bubbles, its narrative arguably enhances any appreciation of leth's masterpiece. though i've seen the film more than just once or twice, rather than reprise the experience before opening the book's covers, i read it cold turkey, so to speak. should you opt to watch and read simultaneously (not as daft as it sounds), matching pages with scenes is greatly eased by the placing of time stamps adjacent to key paragraphs throughout. but it's the opening paragraph that accurately recreates the experience every cyclist surely appreciates, no matter whether for the first time or the hundredth.

"We start with the sound of a chain, the tick-tick-tick of the links running over the bar that has been thrust into the gap between the drop-outs of the silvery frame..."

if ever there was a guarantee of the quality to follow, will fotheringham has nailed it in the first sentence.

far from the years of second-by-second planning that accompanies even the lowest of budgets, leth had little option but to accept the premise of an unscripted event that had no intention of altering its schedule to accommodate the whims of a danish cinematographer. and had a notional script gone precisely to form, the winner of the 1976 paris-roubaix would have surely been merckx, moser or de vlaeminck, rather than the subsequently ill-fated flandria rider, marc demeyer. that is surely one of the principal differences between fact and fiction?

in the 1970s, paris-roubaix was the property of the newspaper le parisien libéré and under the jurisdiction of félix lévitan, a man who harboured "the power to make or break (Leth's) project...". negotiations were perhaps less strained than lévitan's reputation might have suggested, but it was not the first time he and leth had met. "...the film-maker describes their relationship as 'strange' and 'difficult'. the dane had previously attempted to make a film about the tour de france. but due to its potential cost, this film never saw the light of day.

"He wanted to scare us", says Leth. ..."I've studied your letter. I can tell you this is a very difficult project. Paris-Roubaix is an impossible race to film..."

in the light of lévitan's pronouncement, it's worth recognising, prior to reading fotheringham's narrative, that the 1970s were far from the days of digital anything; there was no recording of footage to extensively searchable hard disks, no lightweight, remote-controlled drones, nor the luxuries of non-linear editing suites. in fact, there was also a conspicuous lack of smartphones, meaning leth had no means of keeping in touch with each of his twenty-seven cameramen once the race was underway. in the light of this 'small' matter, not only does the film seem every bit as immediate today as it did then, but has received its fair share of well-deserved plaudits throughout the past forty plus years, not least for its first use of the recently developed, helicopter-mounted wesscam.

this is surely due in no small part to leth's 'working credo', outlined in a 2002 edition of the danish film institute's film magazine and quoted here by william fotheringham.

"Film is a series of images put together. Not a sequence, not a story, but a series of images, nothing more. The order of the images is less important than the single image."

oddly enough, my own appreciation of leth's sunday in hell has perhaps disfavourably coloured my appreciation of each subsequent year's event, watched live on eurosport. in just over a week's time, along with thousands of others, i'll watch this year's race to roubaix velodrome, probably in the vain hope that it will equal or surpass the event depicted in leth's masterpiece. in advance, i know i'll probably be disappointed; cycle racing has changed dramatically since then and there's unlikely to be an inspiring soundtrack to add a conspicuously absent sense of monochrome atmosphere. (but i'll love it nonetheless).

"Since the early 2000s the vast team buses that criss-cross Europe carrying the stars and watercarriers have parked up in a line outside the the velodrome, air-conditioning motors humming; the riders can shower in peace inside [...] The velodrome is only used now for the finish of Paris-Roubaix. Otherwise, it lies empty..."

jorgen leth may consider himself highly fortunate that the project worked as well as it did. On the road, the contract with 'chance' went Leth's way almost immediately..." though it transpires that not everything went purely the way of chance. with 27 cameras covering a single race in one day, there was the urgent problem concerning chronology.

"So what we did - it was a smart guy among the producers who thought this up - was we got a deal with Longines watches, and every cameraman had to start every shot by shooting (filming) his watch."

fotheringham's narrative reveals many such revelations, none of which are akin to learning that widow twanky is actually a bloke in a dress. in fact, i'd go so far as to suggest that in order that leth's a sunday in hell be viewed in 3d, all future sales of the movie ought to be compulsorily accompanied by a copy of this book. just as the film has stood the test of time, considered a true cinematic masterpiece and revealing new features on each subsequent viewing even after forty years, the book is likely to follow suit.

two of a perfect pair.

wednesday 28 march 2018

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