Regards sur le sport : Edgar Morin
Sport is like a point in a hologram that contains within itself the whole of society. Yet it also possesses its own singularity, which lies in the nature of play. Edgar Morin, a sports enthusiast and particularly passionate about football, offers in this filmed interview his sociological perspective on the complexity of sport. By approaching it as a “total social phenomenon,” a concept central to Maussian methodology, he explores the various dimensions of sport in our societies.
| Directors | Benjamin Pichery, Benjamin Pichery |
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The passing of French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin at the age of 104 a few weeks ago has brought his theory of complex thought back into the spotlight. While his propensity to draw on a wide range of epistemological tools—combining the transdisciplinary approach of the social sciences with a more philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the world—is well known, his interest in sport remains largely overlooked.
This film gives full space to Morin's thinking, as he engages in a fascinating conversation with Benjamin Pichery, filmmaker at the French National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (INSEP). Together, they reveal the remarkable richness of sport, which Morin describes as a ""deep and vital reality of our societies."" Structured around a dozen thematic chapters—from the fervour of sporting emotions to education, violence, economics, and identity—the discussion approaches sport, following French sociologist Marcel Mauss, as a ""total social phenomenon."" This singular phenomenon is explored through its many dimensions, whose essential components, according to Morin, include performance and competition, but even more fundamentally ludens: the deeply human impulse to play, irreducible to rationalist reductionism.
The film ultimately raises a broader question: what intellectual perspective should we adopt when approaching sport, a form of popular culture that has so often been dismissed by major thinkers? Against the Marxist critiques that Morin considers insufficient—particularly those of his friend, the sociologist Jean-Marie Brohm, who emphasized sport's alienating function within industrial societies—Morin offers the perspective of someone who has experienced the exhilaration of the stadium firsthand, yet has cultivated enough critical distance to reflect on it without severing his connection to it. This is the legacy Morin leaves us: a mode of complex thought that understands sport both from within and from without, offering a rich and nuanced interpretation that neither condemns nor celebrates, but seeks instead to comprehend.
Mathieu Boivin-Chouinard
Teacher and historian
-
Français
55 mn
Language: Français
- Année 2010
- Pays France
- Durée 55
- Producteur INSEP
- Langue French
- Résumé court Edgar Morin analyzes the various dimensions of sport in our societies.
- Ordre 3
- TLF_Applismb_CA 1
- Date édito CA 2026-07-17
The passing of French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin at the age of 104 a few weeks ago has brought his theory of complex thought back into the spotlight. While his propensity to draw on a wide range of epistemological tools—combining the transdisciplinary approach of the social sciences with a more philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the world—is well known, his interest in sport remains largely overlooked.
This film gives full space to Morin's thinking, as he engages in a fascinating conversation with Benjamin Pichery, filmmaker at the French National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (INSEP). Together, they reveal the remarkable richness of sport, which Morin describes as a ""deep and vital reality of our societies."" Structured around a dozen thematic chapters—from the fervour of sporting emotions to education, violence, economics, and identity—the discussion approaches sport, following French sociologist Marcel Mauss, as a ""total social phenomenon."" This singular phenomenon is explored through its many dimensions, whose essential components, according to Morin, include performance and competition, but even more fundamentally ludens: the deeply human impulse to play, irreducible to rationalist reductionism.
The film ultimately raises a broader question: what intellectual perspective should we adopt when approaching sport, a form of popular culture that has so often been dismissed by major thinkers? Against the Marxist critiques that Morin considers insufficient—particularly those of his friend, the sociologist Jean-Marie Brohm, who emphasized sport's alienating function within industrial societies—Morin offers the perspective of someone who has experienced the exhilaration of the stadium firsthand, yet has cultivated enough critical distance to reflect on it without severing his connection to it. This is the legacy Morin leaves us: a mode of complex thought that understands sport both from within and from without, offering a rich and nuanced interpretation that neither condemns nor celebrates, but seeks instead to comprehend.
Mathieu Boivin-Chouinard
Teacher and historian
-
Français
Duration: 55 minutesLanguage: Français55 mn
- Année 2010
- Pays France
- Durée 55
- Producteur INSEP
- Langue French
- Résumé court Edgar Morin analyzes the various dimensions of sport in our societies.
- Ordre 3
- TLF_Applismb_CA 1
- Date édito CA 2026-07-17
