Sport, Film and National Culture

Seán Crosson, Sean Crosson, Seán Crosson, Sean Crosson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367346522
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000172508
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Sport and film have historically been key components of national cultures and societies. This is the first collection dedicated to examining the intersection of these popular cultural forces within specific national contexts.

Covering films of all types, from Hollywood blockbusters to regional documentaries and newsreels, the book considers how filmic depictions of sport have configured and informed distinctive national cultures, societies and identities. Featuring case studies from 11 national contexts across 6 continents – including North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania – it reveals the common and contrasting approaches that have emerged within sport cinema in differing national contexts.

This is fascinating and important reading for all students and researchers working in film, media, cultural studies or sport, and for broader enthusiasts of both sport and film.

Part I
Sport, cinema and national culture in the USA

Chapter 1
Adapting an ‘American’ football biopic

Knute Rockne: All American

Jesse Schlotterbeck

The enduring appeal of a popular American film

Warner Bros.’ film biography Knute Rockne: All American (1940) remains well regarded and widely seen more than 70 years after its initial release. In particular, following the cue in the title, it has received continued attention as a significant American film. The National Film Preservation Board added Knute Rockne: All American to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1997. In 2005, Rockne’s ‘Gipper’ quote was included in the American Film Institute’s ‘100 Years … 100 Movie Quotes’ CBS broadcast programme and published list. Both of these recognitions were granted not because the film is considered an artistic masterpiece but because of its cultural importance. Read literally, the ‘All-American’ title refers to the NCAA’s selection of athletes to a yearly best-of-the-country team. In the context of a biographical film, however, Warner Bros. is applying this term more broadly, positioning Rockne as an exemplary American subject, not just a top-level football player or coach.

With Pat O’Brien starring as Knute Rockne, Gale Page as his wife, Bonnie, and Ronald Reagan as his star player George Gipp, this Warner Bros. (hereafter WB) film tells the story of the Notre Dame football player turned coach of the 1910s and 1920s from his boyhood to his death, focusing in particular on coaching. The 1940 WB film did not so much make Rockne famous as re-articulate his fame for the current generation. The Notre Dame coach was a well-known public figure during his life, who was perhaps as gifted at promoting himself and his teams as he was at coaching football (Oriard 2001, p. 129). His fame peaked when he died in a plane crash in 1931. According to Oriard, ‘By the end of that year, no fewer than five biographies in addition to Rockne’s own autobiography were published, collectively transforming Rockne from a shrewd and charismatic football coach into the mythic spirit of college football itself’ (2001, p. 130). When the WB film was released in 1940, it had been nine years since that accident. As the most accessible and entertaining distillation of his life, this work unquestionably figures most largely in defining Rockne’s legacy from 1940 to the present day.¹

The film is a tribute to the importance of Rockne himself and, beyond this, to the value of American collegiate football more generally. This chapter examines the way that the film articulates the value of this sport at the time of its release. To do this, I attend to three sources: the film itself, archival materials on the production and promotion of the film from WB studio, and materials in the popular press from the time of the film’s release. Work with this archival material was made possible by a research trip to the WB archive at the University of Southern California and the use of the Media History Digital Library. In particular, I attend to the way both the film and supporting materials (whether private studio documents or promotional materials) aimed to cultivate a sense of American identity and national pride.

In his summary of Michael Billig’s concept of ‘banal nationalism’, Philip Schlesinger includes sports celebrities among a list of cultural figures and practices integral to ‘nation-maintenance’ (2000, p. 24). By the end of his life, Rockne was recognised not just as a leading figure in football but as an exemplar of American values. In a eulogy delivered at Rockne’s 1931 funeral, the Rev. Charles O’Donnell said, ‘when we say simply, he was a great American, we shall go far towards satisfying many, for all of us recognize and love the attributes of the true American character’ (Lindquist 2012, p. 3). Rockne, as scripted, performed and promoted by WB, is presented similarly: as an ideal American man of 1940 – committed to community, family and nation, yet, also, not afraid of competition and conflict. Potentially threatening aspects of football, particularly self-sacrifice and violence, are depicted as inherent and ultimately good parts of this sport and American values more generally defined. In Knute Rockne: All American, the long-term effect of football, arguably its worst characteristic, is singled out for praise as its most valuable characteristic. Through emphasis on Rockne’s speech to the Carnegie Foundation (discussed at length in the following pages), the film values football most for gains realised by its participants later in life. For viewers of Knute Rockne: All American nearly 80 years after its initial release, a critical viewing of this film (and related extra-textual materials) helps set the context for the presumed civilising and educational function of football as a distinctly American institution.

Current perspective and scope of analysis

Currently, American football is in a period of intensified scrutiny, as indicated by media coverage across numerous formats – journalism, book publication, television coverage, radio and feature film production. Books such as League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth (2013) by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru and Concussion (2015) by Jeanne Marie Laskas have led the way, followed by a PBS Frontline episode ‘League of Denial’ (2013), Concussion (2015) starring Will Smith, and the Malcolm Gladwell podcast episode ‘Burden of Proof’ (2018). These works, all part of a recent wave of critical media on football, agree that the sport results, inevitably, in serious health problems for many players. Yet, even with recent calls from respected public figures like Malcom Gladwell to boycott or eliminate collegiate football, it is nearly impossible to imagine the United States without football as a central part of popular culture.

Significant changes to the rules, protective equipment and health-management of players have been made already, but this process of reform needs to continue, and to err on the side of caution. This argument has been advanced thoroughly and effectively in the books mentioned in the previous paragraph. Yet, my purpose here is not primarily to take a stake in this debate. Instead, I aim to capture a moment in time that helps us understand how we came to the present. At the time of the film’s production and reception, as we will see, the ideological constellation of Americanism, masculinity and violent sport was mutually supporting. They were treated, then, more as cultural givens than as sites of contestation. My work here helps take us back to a time in football’s evolution when the benefits of the sport were understood to clearly outweigh the costs.

Biographical film as a genre

To better understand Knute Rockne: All American as a genre film, we would do well to consider another genre in addition to the sports film: the biopic. Aaron Baker (2003, p. 10) makes the important observation that ‘films about sports history’ are nearly always biopics. In his survey of the biopic as a genre, George Custen (1992, p. 33) emphasises the instructional function of biopics as ‘agents of socialization … [that] were assumed to be capable of actually teaching something’. In the Hollywood studio era, WB distinguished itself as the foremost producer in this genre.² In the press release, ‘Facts about the Men Who Are Making “The Life of Knute Rockne”’, the author situates this film among a series of WB biopics:

Under [Jack Warner’s] production guidance, Warner Bros. studio has continued to blaze the trail for other companies to follow.… It was the first to bring Shakespeare to the screen. It was also the first to film the biographies of great men./In the biographical pictures, ‘The Life of Knute Rockne’ takes its place with such illustrious predecessors as ‘The Life of Emile Zola,’ ‘The Story of Louis Pasteur,’ ‘Juarez,’ and ‘Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet.’/Alert, progressive, keenly conscious of the idealistic and spiritual mission of the screen, Mr. Warner is a leader who is to his studio what Knute Rockne was to his Notre Dame football team.

(Rice n.d. b, pp. 1–2)

As articulated here, the studio characterises the production of biographical films as a contribution to an ‘idealistic and spiritual mission of the screen’. The pressure to emphasise the educational function of sport was likely stronger with the Rockne film than with earlier WB biopics, given the more obvious social or artistic contributions of the other figures mentioned: a novelist, a politician and two scientists. The foreword text of the film itself emphasises its intent to teach: ‘The life of Knute Rockne is its own dedication to the Youth of America, and to the finest ideals of courage, character and sportsmanship for all the world./Knute Rockne was a great and vital force in molding the spirit of modern America through the millions of young men and boys who loved and respected him, and who today are living by the high standards that he taught.’ With this framing text, WB positions Knute Rockne: All American to be read as more than simply an entertaining film. It intends to actively disseminate the ideals that Rockne taught in his lifetime. These advertisements encourage this overlapping interpretation – to combine the work of Rockne himself with the work of the film. An original promotional poster, still featured by WB on its web page dedicated to this film, reads ‘HE TAUGHT HIS TEAMS TO WIN … AND AMERICA THE WAY TO LIVE’ and ‘A PICTURE AS GREAT AS ITS HERO!’ Here, winning, Americanism and sportsmanship are associated as qualities of the heroic individual depicted and the film itself.

Rockne’s oratorical defence of the educational value of football

Given that Rockne is well remembered for his ability to inspire through speech, the film is more didactic than the average biopic in presenting its intended lessons. The film’s screenwriter, Robert Buckner, highlighted one scene in particular – in which Rockne defends the value of football to the Carnegie Foundation – as the most important of the film:

It is a very dramatic scene and I know it will play well./The dialogue which I put into Rockne’s mouth in this scene is taken entirely from his own statements, but at various times in his life.… It is probably the most dramatic single scene in the entire screenplay, which is why I am so anxious for it to be retained.

(Sperber 2002, p. 607)

In this scene, Rockne speaks at length on the value of football as an educational tool. He argues:

To limit a college education to books, classrooms, and laboratories is to give to education too narrow a meaning for modern times.… The most dangerous thing in American life today is we’re getting soft – inside and out. We’re losing that forceful heritage of mind and body that was once our most precious possession. We, these men and I, have spent our lives trying to work out that flaccid philosophy, work it out of our boys’ minds and bodies. We believe that the finest work of man is building the character of man. We’ve tried to build courage and initiative and tolerance and persistence, without which the most educated brain of man is not worth very much.

The coach concludes his testimony by arguing that the greatest gains of collegiate football are most visible many years after graduation. He suggests that we should resolve ‘not to grade anyone’s contribution to the national intelligence until all the results are in … until after 5 or 10 years of graduation when his record and character are not hung on the wall like a diploma but inside the man himself’. Rockne leaves the hearing to rousing applause after delivering this line. Notably, earlier in his testimony, the coach deflected a question about the potential excessive violence of football – ‘Couldn’t football be replaced by some other game, by something less violent?’ – with a simple joke about hockey and the inadvisability of giving Irishmen clubs.³ The coach’s rhetoric uses masculine metaphors to make a case for his purpose in disciplining and training young men. Rockne contends that ‘American life’ is ‘getting soft’; we are no longer ‘forceful’ but ‘flaccid’. The tough qualities of Rockne’s speech ascribe a military-like function to the practice of football. Interestingly, in the speech to the Carnegie Foundation in the film, the coach makes this connection himself – not in terms of military preparedness but in terms of diverting an instinct of ‘combat’ away from actual war or revolution: ‘Games such as football are more than merely helpful to boys. They are an absolute necessity to the nation’s best interests.’ He continues, ‘Every red-blooded young man in any country is filled with what we might call the natural spirit of combat. In many parts of Europe, and elsewhere in the world, this spirit manifests itself in continuous wars and revolutions. We have tried to make competitive sport serve as a safer outlet for this spirit of combat.’ Thus, the script, using Rockne’s words, pitches American football as an effective pressure valve for young men.

In ‘Baseball and American Exceptionalism’, Frances Cogliano writes, ‘As it has evolved and been expressed by scholars (both advocates and critics) in the twentieth century, American exceptionalism can be summarised as the view that ‘the United States avoided the class conflicts, revolutionary upheaval, and authoritarian governments of “Europe” and presented the world an example of others to emulate’ (Cogliano 2004, p. 147). Cogliano continues, noting that ‘[t]he history of sport in America seems to embody the concept of American exceptionalism. The sports which predominate in the other English-speaking countries’, such as ‘football [soccer], cricket, and rugby’, have little place in the United States (2004, p. 147). Baseball and, to a greater extent, American football are regarded as distinctly American sports.

In Rockne’s speech to the Carnegie Foundation, as depicted in the film, the benefit of a cathartic, physical outlet is positioned as especially useful in maintaining the role of the United States as a more peaceful nation than ‘many parts of Europe, and elsewhere in the world’. As can be seen here, careful efforts were made to have Rockne provide a moderate ideal. If football is inherently competitive and violent, it is so within reason, and with larger aims beyond winning. As presented in the film, the training of young men to be responsible American citizens – contributors to their eventual professions, families and communities – is the ideal purpose of participation in sport.⁴

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Sport, film and national culture: an introduction
• Part I Sport, cinema and national culture in the USA
• Part II The European experience
• Part III Beyond Hollywood and Europe
• Index