Editing This Sporting Life

{{Short description|1963 British film by Lindsay Anderson}}
{{other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2016}}
{{EngvarB|date=April 2018}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = This Sporting Life
| image          = Sporting-life-poster.jpg
 
| caption        = Film poster by [[Renato Fratini]]
| director       = [[Lindsay Anderson]]
| screenplay     = [[David Storey]]
| based_on       = {{based on|''[[This Sporting Life (novel)|This Sporting Life]]''<br>by David Storey}}
| producer       = [[Karel Reisz]]
| starring       = [[Richard Harris]]<br>[[Rachel Roberts (actress)|Rachel Roberts]]<br>[[Alan Badel]]<br>[[William Hartnell]]
| cinematography = [[Denys Coop]]
| editing        = [[Peter Taylor (film editor)|Peter Taylor]]
| music          = [[Robert Gerhard|Roberto Gerhard]]
| studio         = [[Independent Artists (company)|Independent Artists]]
| distributor    = [[The Rank Organisation|Rank Organisation]]
| released       = {{Film date|1963|02|07|London, West End|df=yes}}
| runtime        = 134 minutes
| country        = United Kingdom
| language       = English
| budget         = £230,000<ref>Alexander Walker, ''Hollywood, England'', Stein and Day, 1974 p176</ref> or £197,381<ref name="money"/>
}}
'''''This Sporting Life''''' is a 1963 British [[kitchen sink realism|kitchen sink]] [[drama (film and television)|drama film]] directed by [[Lindsay Anderson]]. Based on the [[This Sporting Life (novel)|1960 novel of the same name]] by [[David Storey]], which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award, it recounts the story of a [[rugby league]] footballer in [[Wakefield]], a mining city in [[Yorkshire]], whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, a former professional rugby league footballer, also wrote the screenplay.

The film stars [[Richard Harris]], [[Rachel Roberts (actress)|Rachel Roberts]], [[William Hartnell]], and [[Alan Badel]]. It was Harris's first starring role, and won him the [[Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)|Best Actor Award]] at the [[1963 Cannes Film Festival]].<ref name="festival-cannes.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3115/year/1963.html |title=Festival de Cannes: This Sporting Life |access-date=2009-02-27|work=festival-cannes.com}}</ref> He was also nominated for the [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role]], and the [[BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role]]. For her work in the film, Roberts won her second [[BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role]], and was nominated for the [[Academy Award for Best Actress|Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role]]. The film opened at the [[Odeon Leicester Square]] in London's West End on 7 February 1963.<ref>The Times, 7 February 1963, Page 2</ref>

==Plot== 
Set in the fictional city of City, the film is about Frank Machin, a bitter young [[coal miner]] from the [[West Riding of Yorkshire]]. The first part of the story is told through a series of flashbacks when Frank is anaesthetised in a dentist's chair, having had his front teeth broken in a rugby league match, and recovering at a Christmas party. The second part takes place after he has fully regained his senses, and proceeds without flashbacks.

Following a nightclub altercation, in which Frank takes on the captain of the local rugby league club and punches a couple of other players, he asks a scout for the team to help him get a tryout. Although at first somewhat uncoordinated at the sport, he impresses Gerald Weaver, one of the team's owners, with the spirit and brutality of his playing style during the trial game. He receives a large signing bonus to join the top team as a [[rugby league positions#Loose forward/Lock forward|loose forward (number 13)]] and impresses all with his aggressive forward play. He often punches or elbows the opposing players—and sometimes even those of his own team.

Off the field, Frank is much less successful. His recently-widowed landlady, Mrs Margaret Hammond, a mother of two young children, rebuffs Frank's attempts to court her and treats him rudely and abrasively. She lost her husband in an accident at Weaver's engraving firm, but received little financial compensation, because the death was suspected to be a [[suicide]]. One day, Frank takes Margaret and her children to play in the River Wharfe next to [[Bolton Priory]]. Another time, Margaret gets annoyed when Frank comes home drunk. He desires her sexually and, eventually, grabs her and forces her onto his bed. Her daughter interrupts them, but then she acquiesces and they have sexual relations.

At Weaver's Christmas party, Frank quarrels with Weaver and his predatory wife, whose advances Frank had rejected, much to her chagrin, and it is clear that he has lost Weaver's favour, though Slomer, the team's other owner, still supports him. When he gets home after the party, Margaret agrees to share his bed to keep him warm, as he looks unwell with his swollen face and missing teeth, but, in her grief, she cannot really return his affection, saying she is scared to invest her feelings in one person, as they might go away or die. She sometimes insults him, referring to him as "just a great ape", and, on their first proper date, Frank insults the staff and flaunts protocol at the fancy restaurant to which he takes her. Margaret is embarrassed and leaves, and the scene is witnessed by the Weavers.

Maurice, Frank's friend and teammate, gets married, and Frank and Margaret attend the ceremony. When Frank goes over to congratulate the couple, Margaret walks away. She says she feels ashamed, like a kept woman, especially since Frank bought her a fur coat. He strikes her, and then says he thought she was finally becoming happy. On another occasion, she says that their neighbours think she is a slut and she and the children are not "proper people" because of Frank. They have a row, and Frank goes out drinking with Maurice. He says he wants another job, "something permanent", and believes Margaret needs him, though she does not realise it.

Frank tries to talk to Margaret, but she defends her privacy, saying he knows nothing about Eric, her husband. He says she drove Eric to suicide, and Margaret, outraged, demands that Frank leave and starts throwing his belongings out of his room. Frank says he loves her, but she is furious with him. Eventually, he goes to stay at a cheap boarding house in a bombed-out area, leaving his Jaguar incongruously parked outside.

Intending a reconciliation with Margaret, Frank returns to her house, but a neighbour says she is in hospital. The doctor tells him that Margaret is unconscious, having suffered a [[cerebral haemorrhage|brain haemorrhage]], and that she may not have the strength, or perhaps the will, to survive. Frank sits with her, holding her hand and talking gently. Distracted by a large spider on the wall, when he looks back at Margaret, blood seeps from her mouth, and she dies. In his rage, Frank punches the spider. He does not speak to the children or their minder when he leaves the hospital. Returning to Margaret's house and breaking in by the back door, Frank wanders through the empty space and calls out her name before collapsing in tears.

In the closing scene, Frank is seen on the rugby field, now exhausted and vulnerable to the ravages of time and injury.

==Cast==
{{Castlist|
* [[Richard Harris]] as Frank Machin
* [[Rachel Roberts (actress)|Rachel Roberts]] as Margaret Hammond
* [[Alan Badel]] as Gerald Weaver, an owner of the rugby league team
* [[William Hartnell]] as "Dad" Johnson, a scout for the rugby league team
* [[Colin Blakely]] as Maurice Braithwaite, a rugby league player
* [[Vanda Godsell]] as Anne Weaver, Gerald's wife
* [[Anne Cunningham]] as Judith, Maurice's girlfriend
* [[Jack Watson (actor)|Jack Watson]] as Len Miller, captain of the rugby league team
* [[Arthur Lowe]] as Charles Slomer, an owner of the rugby league team
* Harry Markham as Wade, the coach of the rugby league team
* [[George Sewell]] as Jeff, a rugby league player
* [[Leonard Rossiter]] as Phillips, a sports writer
* [[Katherine Parr (actress)|Katherine Parr]] as Mrs. Farrer, Margaret's neighbor
* Bernadette Benson as Lynda Hammond, Margaret's daughter
* Andrew Nolan as Ian Hammond, Margaret's son
* Peter Duguid as Margaret's doctor
* [[Wallas Eaton]] as a waiter at the restaurant
* Anthony Woodruff as Thomas, the head waiter 
* [[Tom Clegg (actor)|Tom Clegg]] as Gower, a rugby league player
* [[Ken Traill]] as Ken, a trainer for the rugby league team
* [[Frank Windsor]] as the dentist
* Kim Leslie as the singer at the nightclub (uncredited)
* [[Edward Fox (actor)|Edward Fox]] as Bruce, the barman at the restaurant (uncredited)
* Ian Thompson as the Batley Town captain (uncredited){{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}
}}

==Production==
===Background===
''This Sporting Life'' was Anderson's first feature film as director, though he had made numerous short documentaries in the previous fifteen years, and even [[Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film|won an Oscar]] for 1954's ''[[Thursday's Children]]''. The film had first been discussed by [[The Rank Organisation]] as a possible project for [[Joseph Losey]], and then [[Karel Reisz]], who, reluctant to direct another film with a similar setting and theme to ''[[Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (film)|Saturday Night and Sunday Morning]]'' (1960), suggested that Anderson direct it, with himself serving as producer.

===Casting===
Among the film's supporting cast is [[William Hartnell]], who shortly afterwards began his role as [[First Doctor|the first Doctor Who]]; it was his role in ''This Sporting Life'' that brought Hartnell to the attention of ''[[Doctor Who]]''-producer [[Verity Lambert]]. The film also features [[Arthur Lowe]], who would go on to star in ''[[Dad's Army]]'' and appear in four later films directed by Anderson. In addition, [[Edward Fox (actor)|Edward Fox]], [[Anton Rodgers]], and [[Bryan Mosley]] appear as uncredited extras.

===Filming locations===
Many of the scenes in ''This Sporting Life'' were filmed at [[Belle Vue (Wakefield)|Belle Vue]], the home stadium of [[Wakefield Trinity]], and [[Thrum Hall]], the home stadium of [[Halifax R.L.F.C.|Halifax]]. The scene where Frank ([[Richard Harris]]) leaps from a bus to buy a newspaper, and then leaps back onto the bus, was filmed at the top of [[Westgate (Wakefield)|Westgate]], [[Wakefield]]. The location is still instantly recognisable, and has changed little in the decades since. The houses used for filming the outdoor scenes in ''This Sporting Life'' were in Servia Terrace in [[Leeds]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} The riverside location where Frank takes Margaret and her family for an outing in his new car is [[Bolton Priory]] in the [[Yorkshire Dales]].

===Editing===
[[Anthony Sloman]] wrote about the film's editing:
{{blockquote|By 1963 the British New Wave had beached, and [[Peter Taylor (film editor)|Peter Taylor]] edited the superb ''This Sporting Life'', the début feature of the cine-literate director Lindsay Anderson. It is a remarkable study of [[working class]] angst, with a cutting style like no other British feature before it, an ever-underrated achievement by Taylor.<ref name="Sloman">Sloman, Tony (1998). [http://cinescale.20m.com/obit1.html "Obituary: Peter Taylor"], ''The Independent'', 6 January 1998. Online version retrieved 8 April 2008.</ref>}}

Another description of the editing says:
{{blockquote|From the start, Lindsay Anderson and his editor Peter Taylor show a determination to pursue a flashback-based narrative using bold-cut transitions. ... Cut-transitions link these plangent and understated images together in way that seems to demand that their meanings be understood. It is an important restatement of the way that image-driven filmmaking engages the spectator.<ref name="Fairservice">Fairservice, Don (2001). [https://books.google.com/books?id=s-ng9Ez6KgEC ''Film Editing: History, Theory, and Practice: Looking at the Invisible''] (Manchester University Press), p. 316. {{ISBN|0-7190-5777-9}}. Online version retrieved April 13, 2008.</ref>}}

===Direction===
Anderson wrote in his diary on 23 April 1962, after the first month or so of production: "the most striking feature of it all, I suppose, has been the splendour and misery of my work and relationship with Richard". He felt that Harris was acting better than ever before in his career, but feared his feelings for Harris, whose combination of physicality, affection and cruelty fascinated him, meant that he lacked the detachment he needed as a director, continuing: "I ought to be calm and detached with him. Instead I am impulsive, affectionate, infinitely susceptible."<ref>[http://www.is.stir.ac.uk/libraries/collections/anderson/TransRHTSL.php Diary entry, 23 April 1962, on Richard Harris and the making of This Sporting Life (LA 6/1/33)], Anderson Collection, [[University of Stirling]]; Paul Sutton (ed) ''The Diaries of Lindsay Anderson'', 2004, London: Methuen, p75</ref>

==Release==
===Critical reception and box office===
Critical response to the film was favourable. In the United States, the [[Reuters]] news agency described it as being praised unanimously by the critics for New York City publications.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/archive/article/1963-07-18/14/7.html|title=British Film Liked By All N.Y. Critics|work=[[The Times]]|agency=Reuters|date=18 July 1963|access-date=1 July 2018}} {{subscription required}}</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' praised the film's "gutsy vitality", as well as the production of Reisz and the directorial efforts of Anderson, who "brings the keen, observant eye of a documentary man to many vivid episodes without sacrificing the story line".<ref>[https://www.variety.com/review/VE1117795665.html This Sporting Life], excerpt from a 1963 review, [[Variety (magazine)|Variety]], accessed 15 February 2008</ref>

On its initial release, the film was a commercial flop with British audiences and did not recoup its cost.<ref>{{cite news|last=French|first=Philip|author-link=Philip French|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/07/this-sporting-life-review|title=This Sporting Life|work=The Observer|date=7 June 2009|access-date=1 July 2018}}</ref> [[John Davis (British businessman)|John Davis]], the Chairman of [[The Rank Organisation]], announced that the company would not venture further with [[Kitchen sink realism|"kitchen sink"]] film projects, nor would his company make such a "squalid" film again,<ref>Booklet for ''This Sporting Life'', region 2 DVD, Network 2007, unpaginated [p23].</ref> and ''This Sporting Life'' has been seen more generally as ending producers' willingness to back such [[British New Wave]] films.<ref>{{cite web|last=Wickham|first=Phil|url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/440653/index.html|title=This Sporting Life (1963)|work=BFI screenonline|access-date=1 July 2018}}</ref> However, after 13 years, the film had earned a distributor’s gross of £92,612 in the UK and £128,599 from overseas.<ref name="money">Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 191.</ref>

Writing in 1980, [[John Russell Taylor]] thought it a mistake to link ''This Sporting Life'' with the "kitchen sink" films released in the preceding few years, because its "emotionalism" made it "unique", setting it apart from the earlier works:

{{blockquote|...every scene in the film is charged with the passion of what is not said and done, as well as what is...Though real enough and believable enough, this kind of ''amour fou'' is remote indeed from what the staid middle class cinema would generally consider as realism."<ref>John Russell Taylor "Lindsay Anderson and Free Cinema", in [[Richard Roud]] (ed) ''Cinema: A Critical Dictionary, Volume One'', 1980, London: Secker & Warburg, p76-82, 79</ref>}}

===Awards and nominations===
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Award
! Category
! Nominee(s)
! Result
|-
| rowspan="2"| [[36th Academy Awards|Academy Awards]]<ref name="Oscars1964">{{Cite web|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1964 |title=The 36th Academy Awards (1964) Nominees and Winners |access-date=May 4, 2015 |work=oscars.org |date=5 October 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502002917/http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1964 |archive-date=May 2, 2015}}</ref>
| [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]]
| [[Richard Harris]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Academy Award for Best Actress|Best Actress]]
| [[Rachel Roberts (actress)|Rachel Roberts]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| rowspan="5"| [[17th British Academy Film Awards|British Academy Film Awards]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://awards.bafta.org/award/1964/film |title=BAFTA Awards: Film in 1964 |website=[[BAFTA]] |year=1964 |access-date=16 September 2016 |ref={{harvid|BAFTA|1964}}}}</ref>
| colspan="2"| [[BAFTA Award for Best Film|Best Film from any Source]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| colspan="2"| [[BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film|Best British Film]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role|Best British Actor]]
| Richard Harris
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role|Best British Actress]]
| Rachel Roberts
| {{won}}
|-
| [[BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay|Best British Screenplay]]
| [[David Storey]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| [[1963 Cannes Film Festival|Cannes Film Festival]]<ref name="cinemafr">{{cite web|url=http://www.cinema-francais.fr/cannes/cannes_1963.htm |title=16ème Festival International du Film - Cannes |work=cinema-francais.fr |language=fr |access-date=6 June 2017}}</ref>
| [[Palme d'Or]]
| [[Lindsay Anderson]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]]
| Richard Harris
| {{won}}
|-
| rowspan="2"| [[21st Golden Globe Awards|Golden Globe Awards]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.goldenglobes.com/film/sporting-life |title=This Sporting Life – Golden Globes |website=[[HFPA]] |access-date=July 5, 2021 |ref={{harvid|HFPA|1964}}}}</ref>
| colspan="2"| [[Golden Globe Award for Best English-Language Foreign Film|Best Foreign Film – English-Language]]
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama|Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama]]
| Rachel Roberts
| {{nom}}
|-
| [[National Board of Review Awards 1963|National Board of Review Awards]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://nationalboardofreview.org/award-years/1963/ |title=1963 Award Winners |website=[[National Board of Review]] |access-date=July 5, 2021}}</ref>
| colspan="2"| [[National Board of Review: Top Ten Films|Top Ten Films]]
| {{draw|5th Place}}
|-
| [[1963 New York Film Critics Circle Awards|New York Film Critics Circle Awards]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mubi.com/awards-and-festivals/nyfccas?year=1963 |title=1963 New York Film Critics Circle Awards |website=[[Mubi (streaming service)|Mubi]] |access-date=July 5, 2021}}</ref>
| [[New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]]
| Richard Harris
| {{draw|3rd Place}}
|-
| [[Valladolid International Film Festival]]
| Golden Spike
| Lindsay Anderson
| {{won}}
|}

===Home media===
On 22 January 2008, the film was released as a Region 1 DVD by [[The Criterion Collection]].

==See also==
* [[BFI Top 100 British films]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|0057578}}
* {{TCMDb title|id=92996}}
* {{rotten-tomatoes|this_sporting_life}}
* {{Screenonline title|440653}}
* [https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/626-this-sporting-life-the-lonely-heart ''This Sporting Life: The Lonely Heart''] an essay by Neil Sinyard at the [[Criterion Collection]]

{{Lindsay Anderson}}

[[Category:1963 films]]
[[Category:1960s sports drama films]]
[[Category:British black-and-white films]]
[[Category:British sports drama films]]
[[Category:Films based on British novels]]
[[Category:Films shot in Wakefield]]
[[Category:Films shot in West Yorkshire]]
[[Category:Films set in Wakefield]]
[[Category:Films set in Yorkshire]]
[[Category:Films directed by Lindsay Anderson]]
[[Category:Rugby league films]]
[[Category:Films about social realism]]
[[Category:Wakefield]]
[[Category:1963 directorial debut films]]
[[Category:1963 drama films]]
[[Category:Compositions by Robert Gerhard]]
[[Category:1960s English-language films]]
[[Category:1960s British films]]
[[Category:English-language sports drama films]]