Obscure Movie Review of the Day: Pumping Iron

This 1976 documentary was fairly entertaining. It's funny now, to watch it in context. The Lou vs. Arnold competition seems quaint in the light of everything that's happened to both of them since them. But just watching the documentary leaves out two of the most important things.

Fortunately, this is the age of DVDs, and both of the important things are addressed in the nifty extra features.

The first one is the historical context of the piece. When you're watching the auditorium full of screaming fans cheering at the competition, it's hard to remember that that bunch of people represented like nearly all the fans of the sport in the whole world. Weightlifting wasn't accepted as a sport then--the guys who did it were either seen as insecure kids who had been beat up a lot, or freakish, self-obsessed monsters.

This film was an attempt to bring that to the masses--almost a propaganda piece.

Which makes the second important thing all the more interesting--that half the "story" in it is a lie. They would make things up on the spot, or shoot extra things, or otherwise attempt to make the film more interesting. Arnold tells stories he heard once, from somebody somewhere, as if they happened to them. They have Lou's father, who never really had any interest in Lou's career, play a sort of Burgess Meredith character, pushing him harder, yelling at him, giving him advice. They say his father retired from the police force to focus full time on his son's career.

All of this is intermixed with true interesting stuff, like Lou's struggle with hearing problems.

When viewed in this light, I think the film is amazing. And it did it's job--you just have to look at how much of your hard earned money you've paid out in gym memberships--whether you go or not--to see that.