Making Sense of Sport

It’s hard to ignore sports in our globalized world, both because of their ubiquity and because of the metaphorical representation of dominant values they embody. The recent World Cup is a perfect example of the “sportification” of the world, with soccer at the center of its symbolic universe. Forty-eight teams (64 in 2030, according to a proposal currently under consideration) compete for the coveted trophy in stadiums scattered across North America, with little regard for the climate crisis, as matches are punctuated by hydration breaks (a requirement of television marketing), the tournament is marked by unabashed political interventions, overshadowed by racist protests and allegations of match-fixing. It’s hard not to see this as the embodiment of the political and economic domination of a triumphalist oligarchy that purports to embody some essence of sport—that imperial legacy of Victorian England—which exploits and hijacks popular emotional fervor.

However, by taking a reflective and historical step back, this pause allows us to see that it is not some generic politico-economic essence of sports that has been revealed in this World Cup. Rather, it is a specific, historically constructed configuration—and therefore by no means immutable—that obscures a sports world far richer and more diverse than what FIFA presents to us. By diversifying perspectives through these five films, multiple trajectories emerge—aesthetic, intellectual, and critical—revealing the complexity of the social, political, and cultural dynamics that underpin the phenomenon of sports. Various actors with divergent worldviews and interests struggle to control and define sports, and to ascribe a single, unambiguous meaning to it. Cinema, with its entire audiovisual grammar, contributes to this semiotic struggle.

Public diplomacy institutions such as the National Film Board of Canada contributed to this by turning the spotlight on sporting events. This approach proved particularly fruitful in the years leading up to the Montreal Olympic Games, not only because it foreshadowed their arrival, but also because the filmmakers involved expressed themselves using the tools of direct cinema. While Jean-Claude Labrecque’s official film is rightly recognized for positioning the camera at the athletes’ eye level, several films had already been commissioned as early as the 1960s to capture this sporting energy. Here we present two little-known films—on which Labrecque also collaborated—by two filmmakers who were then just starting out (!); Natation by Gilles Carle and Volleyball by Denys Arcand.

In a rich, filmed discussion with Benjamin Pichery, a director at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP), French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin explores the meanings of sport using the tools of his theory of complex thought in Regards sur le sport: Edgar Morin. Drawing on his memories of both participating in and watching sports, the great thinker—who recently passed away—invites us to reflect on sports from both the inside and the outside, helping us move beyond sometimes simplistic critiques, without, however, ignoring its excesses.

Adopting an innovative perspective, Julien Faraut’s L’Empire de la perfection is a cinematic essay on sports, drawing on archival footage, raw footage from sports events, rock music, and a wide range of references—from cinema to psychology. The film takes as its starting point the work of Gil de Kermadec, a former tennis player who, after producing instructional films for the French Tennis Federation in the 1960s, delivers a previously unseen film that delves into the genius of the tempestuous American John McEnroe, continuing the exploration of the intangible aspects of athletic genius.

Finally, the film Baisanos by filmmakers Andrés and Francisca Khamis Giacoman—a brother and sister from the Palestinian diaspora—explores the significance of the curious entity known as Club Deportivo Palestino, a Chilean first-division soccer team founded in 1920 by Palestinian exiles. Here, sports reveal the full weight of identity and politics they can embody, as the narratives surrounding them can be harnessed for the purposes of resistance and mobilization.