Screen Play
This column investigates the representation of sports, games, or athletics on cinema and television and the intersection of active and passive viewership this relationship creates.
The strange metaphysical mingling of ersatz furniture and moments of raw human authenticity on game showsfeels like a rupture. These programs are traversable on-ramps for real people to appear as real people in the big leagues of television.
The soccer highlight video has proliferated. Whether 90 seconds or 10-plus minutes, these little portraits of players are essential for fans who try to keep up with the game in all its inexhaustible intricacies . . . They also have an aesthetic of their own, with their own characteristic music, montage, and mise-en-scène.
One unifying concept ties it all together, Faraut believes, and that is the idea of time and the ability of a good director and a good tennis player to sculpt within it. His ideas are deeply rooted in the theories of Serge Daney.