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This is not your typical sports film, which I think accounts for some of the negative reactions from viewers who expected a rah-rah, underdog-coming-from-behind-to-win tale. It's a dark and ironic story.Essentially, the movie is a meditation on the "bitch-goddess Success." Redford plays an unlikable character: an overgrown child with no interest in any person or thing other than himself; a taciturn athlete who probably deserves to be called "inarticulate," though it's hard to say, as he clearly has no thoughts to articulate anyway. The dark irony of the film is that he *wins* ... and does so rather more because of, rather than in spite of, his failures as a human being.As Francis Bacon wrote (400 years ago): "Young men worship the 'bitch-goddess success.' We spend most all of our life pursuing her and only a few succeed in catching her. This goddess demands exclusive worship, and thus, other life pursuits are often left, much to our regret in later life. So, too, this exclusive pursuit can leave us morally flabby."The movie is also interesting as a reasonably-accurate depiction of the top level of ski racing as it existed in the late '60s. (Incidentally, he's not a professional -- ski racing and, more importantly, the Olympics were amateur at the time; and the event is Downhill (as in the title), not Super-G, which didn't even exist until 20 years later).
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