The Ice King. (12A.)
Directed by James Erskine.
Featuring John Curry, Lorna Brown, Christa Fassi. Narrated by Freddie Fox. 89 mins.
As a child, John Curry wanted to be a dancer but was allowed to be an ice skater because that was a sport. At the 1976 Winter Olympics, his balletic Gold medal routine proved that it really wasn't, as well as disavowing any delusions that this softly spoken sporting hero could be heterosexual. Still, in that bleak Revied era of national sporting disappointment, the nation pursed its lips, mantra each-to-their-own and live-and-let-live, wished him well and eventually voted him Sports Personality of the Year, even though he had already quit the sport to pursue his dream of forming an ice dance company.
After that, he went to America and kind of disappeared from the British public's view, who got to continue their new-found love of ice dancing through the neutered eroticism of Robin Cousins, and Torvill and Dean. Really, Curry only reemerged at the end of the eighties when it was revealed that he was dying of Aids, and even the Daily Mail was a little saddened by the news.
Though director Erskine has specialised in sporting documentaries – One Night In Turin, a football weepie about another failed World Cup campaign, the original version of Battle Of The Sexes, films about cricket and Le Mans – this is not a typical sporting documentary; primarily because the sporting part is got through in the first half hour and the majority of it is about his struggles to make a go of his ice dance company and deal with his personal demons.
The form is conventional (archive footage + interview voiceover) but, as someone who has zero appreciation for ice dancing, it is very moving: at least partly because it is all accompanied by some of the beautiful music ever composed. Though Curry seems far removed from the typical sports documentary subject, his story – overcoming a difficult childhood by devotion to a sport, the period of glory, the decline and despair once their "playing days" are over - is the usual sports narrative. All sporting tales ultimately have unhappy ending, the only variation is the degree of satisfaction with which the protagonists can look back at their lost youth, the chances taken and missed.
Directed by James Erskine.
Featuring John Curry, Lorna Brown, Christa Fassi. Narrated by Freddie Fox. 89 mins.
As a child, John Curry wanted to be a dancer but was allowed to be an ice skater because that was a sport. At the 1976 Winter Olympics, his balletic Gold medal routine proved that it really wasn't, as well as disavowing any delusions that this softly spoken sporting hero could be heterosexual. Still, in that bleak Revied era of national sporting disappointment, the nation pursed its lips, mantra each-to-their-own and live-and-let-live, wished him well and eventually voted him Sports Personality of the Year, even though he had already quit the sport to pursue his dream of forming an ice dance company.
After that, he went to America and kind of disappeared from the British public's view, who got to continue their new-found love of ice dancing through the neutered eroticism of Robin Cousins, and Torvill and Dean. Really, Curry only reemerged at the end of the eighties when it was revealed that he was dying of Aids, and even the Daily Mail was a little saddened by the news.
Though director Erskine has specialised in sporting documentaries – One Night In Turin, a football weepie about another failed World Cup campaign, the original version of Battle Of The Sexes, films about cricket and Le Mans – this is not a typical sporting documentary; primarily because the sporting part is got through in the first half hour and the majority of it is about his struggles to make a go of his ice dance company and deal with his personal demons.
The form is conventional (archive footage + interview voiceover) but, as someone who has zero appreciation for ice dancing, it is very moving: at least partly because it is all accompanied by some of the beautiful music ever composed. Though Curry seems far removed from the typical sports documentary subject, his story – overcoming a difficult childhood by devotion to a sport, the period of glory, the decline and despair once their "playing days" are over - is the usual sports narrative. All sporting tales ultimately have unhappy ending, the only variation is the degree of satisfaction with which the protagonists can look back at their lost youth, the chances taken and missed.
