The Olympics come to Barcelona and Carlos Saura offers us spectacle, a celebration involving those 30-foot-high stilt-puppets for almost half an hour, before we settle down to watch the athletes. When that happens, it becomes peculiar. The athletes are tiny against the backdrop of the stadium and the crowds, almost lost in the flashbulbs from the stands. The music bears little relationship to what we are viewing.
I think of it as more spectacle than celebration of achievement. To me, spectacle is what you do when you have nothing of substance to show, shouting when you have nothing to say. I think the impulse that led to the revival of the Olympics in 1896 were wounded by two World Wars, and then shot dead at Munich in the summer of 1972. Now, all that's left is an empty traditions, athletes looking to excel against a huge backdrop of thousands of attendees, roaring at....
As I write this, Simone Biles just resigned from competition in the Olympics and has kicked off a roar from people decrying her for doing so; she suffers from "the twisties", a condition in which she loses awareness of her body's position. Should she compete, she could cripple herself Should she compete and fail, she risks her team mates probable silver. She already has plenty of Olympic gold. Nonetheless, she is being attacked by people because she somehow "owes" them her performance. It's not her achievement, her brilliance as a gymnast, she's supposed to risk killing herself for their satisfaction. Because now even individual achievement doesn't mean anything.
