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London Olympics 2012 opens with dazzling ceremony
- Published_at:2012-07-28
- Category:Sports
- Channel:WorldNews365
- tags: london 2012, olympics opening ceremony, london olympics opening, olympic games 2012, olympics 2012, amithab in london olympics, india in olympics, london olympics 2012, london 2012 olympics, london olympics, 2012 london olympics, 2012 olympics london, pokemon theme song, usa vs france, olympics running, london 2012 commercial, sports bloopers, london olympics swimming
- description: LONDON - I've always been conflicted about the Olympic opening ceremony, torn because I'm entranced by the arrival of the athletes, their prideful march into the Olympic arena, but completely dismissive of overwrought pageantry, stuffed unnecessarily with symbolism and mushy sentiment, most of which I cannot identify, much less comprehend. The sheer joy on the faces of some of the world's most famous men and women is something we all understand. Even the ones who've already won enough championships and tournaments to last a lifetime look as happy as they did at 7 or 8 years old, when it first dawned on them they could do special things on a field or court and derive so much pleasure from it. The parade of nations, no matter how many times you've seen it, is so thoroughly hopeful. Over the next two-plus weeks, it's the last time when there are no losers, no tears, no disappointment and all that work effort has gone for naught. It's not as triumphant a moment as standing there and having a medal draped around one's neck, but the parade is more inclusive and ideal. Of course, it took a while to get to the athletes, like 85 minutes. It's an evening they have to share. If I ran the Olympics, regardless of where they were held, the opening ceremony would be capped at 90 minutes. There would be a flyover (go ahead, I dare you to find someone who doesn't like a flyover), the march of the athletes into the stadium, some contained artsy presentation that accurately reflects the host country's primary passion (in England's case, it could be a reading of Shakespeare, a mini-concert by the Stones, David Beckham bending it or a James Bond car chase; I'd take the latter), then the lighting of the torch. That's it. Cue the band, get everybody home safely and start the damn Games already. But I don't run the Olympics, so there was a 50-minute "prologue" leading into the four-hour opening ceremony, which became, according to the British papers, the largest broadcast moment this country has ever experienced. As always at these events, I sat trying to figure out what certain things were, like these puffy white things that "soared" in midair and looked to an American who spends too much time at ballparks like cotton candy. My seatmate, a Briton, said, "Clouds. They're clouds. Do we really need to remind people coming to Britain that it rains all the time? Are we going to have every stereotype?" Just then -- I'm not kidding, I swear -- it started to rain. The opening ceremony is always stunningly choreographed, seven years of work produced with proud patriotism by the most brilliant designers and musicians and dancers and singers and technical support personnel a country can call on. You think the athletes are the only ones performing in this stadium? Stuff coming out of the ground and whizzing overhead, and suddenly the entire stadium -- or at least the people who recognize a particularly somber anthem -- is standing to honor the war dead, which means more to Great Britain than Americans are likely to realize. The Olympics Games, meaning the sporting competition, are for the world. The opening ceremony is for the host nation, really. These ceremonies are always built around themes the rest of us couldn't possibly know without a simultaneous tutorial. The parade, for instance, included trade unionists who fought for workers' rights here, suffragettes who fought for women's voting rights. There were tributes to the children's hospital and "Chariots of Fire" and "Mary Poppins," and I get it. Whether we're talking about Barcelona or Athens or Beijing or London, the host of the Olympics gets to start the biggest sporting extravaganza in the world by popping its jersey and doing an end zone dance to say, "Look at what I can do." For those of us who've never been in the presence of the queen, being in the same stadium as her Friday was absolutely cool. But seriously, how do you do four hours of anything in England and not include Elton John? If I could pick three Britons to have dinner with, Elton John is on my short list, right behind Victoria Pendleton, the Olympic cyclist. An entire tribute to the history of British pop music, right down to an East London rapper, and no mention of Elton John? Maybe he's been disowned because he lives in Atlanta now? David Bowie, but no Elton John? Annie Lennox, but no Elton John? Isn't he Sir Elton John? Did he offend her royal highness or something? I'm not asking for a medley by Sir Elton, but the man can't get a mention? The man who rewrote "Candle in The Wind" for Princess Diana gets shut out? That, boys and girls, is intentional. That's akin to having a tribute to pop music in the U.S. and leaving out, say, Elvis. There's no time for Elton, but there's five minutes for a choreographed dramatization of life and death using -- and I'm quoting here from a script given to the media -- "such powerful images of mortality as dust and the setting sun"? It's "Olympics: The Musical."
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| 2012-07-31 | 6,080 | 5 | 4 |
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| 2012-08-01 | 6,798 | 5 | 5 |
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