Olympic Opening Ceremony

[TheGreenKnight]

Watching the opening ceremony. AIBU in finding it boringly grim. Especially when compared to London 2012.

Sorry, RosieChardonnay

A glass or two of chardonnay 😃

You could say that for a lot of things. I always think that when I see royal events in London.
But I am the type of person who would rather stay home with a glass of sauvignon blanc on most occasions!

When I think of the 2012 opening ceremony the only thing I really remember was James Bond and The Queen. I still remember gasping when she turned around at her desk and we realised it was really her. I've just watched it again on YouTube and it was amazing, even better than I remembered.

I suspect the same will happen with Paris. I'll remember the outstanding performance by Celine Dion that made me cry, the amazing ballon with the flame. And no doubt the blue man.

Highlight moments in both which will be great memories.

So they decided to mock the Last Supper

God had the last laugh there, though 🌂🌂🌂🦆💨🌧💦

Like God saved Donald Trump

I think people are remembering the highlights of 2012 and comparing to the full show last night.
Both were great.

I've never much got parades tbh for these reasons.

This parade in particular? It was just the athletes. The actual show bits were in scattered locations so no one there could see more than one unless on a screen.

There weren't performances going up the river so everyone could enjoy. That didn't make sense to me.

The runway scene was strictly for the TV cameras. The torch running had huge segments of totally deserted squares.

I think it was missed opportunities and didn't really live up to the brief of going to the people in the way it should.

Each to thir own!

Ha

The translation was fantastic! Andrew Cotter did brilliantly.

I also wondered about what happened to all the poor wet pianos and stringed instruments, drum kits etc afterwards. It was such a long soaking. I was worried about performers getting electrocuted by live instrumentation the whole time. Or slipping while dancing on wet surfaces.

I think also there’s a French culture of live ‘spectacles’ in front of a live audience that we don’t have here in the UK. We do big live sport events outdoors and stadium gigs but we don’t usually have the climate for the visua/ theatrical arts or live reenactment performed outdoors at scale which is a French tourist attraction.
I also forgot that the troupe of dancers at height up on the ‘building site’ were amazing.
I didn’t understand the narrative context women swaying on high ‘stalks’ as part of a narrative, but it was a technical feat followed by impressive high wire performance.

I think any resemblance to the Last Supper (and Italian painting by da Vinci on show in Milan) was completely coonicidental. There was a horizontal catwalk on a bridge that for staging needed to at times have seated figures to clear the catwalk for individuals to use as a stage. Obviously all the outfits would be varied colourful and obviously the highest headdress would go in the middle for visual composition. The LS is a very nuanced painting and the same references weren’t there to say it was deliberate. I think that’s just social media shit stirring tbh.

I hope the closing ceremony will refer back and add more context to the opener for international audiences. I’d love to see the masked parkour figure running away over the rooftops with the flame again, it was really intriguing.

Oh and I forgot how crass the Louis Vuitton and the Minions sections were. I didn’t think product placement would have been allowed anywhere near the Olympics.

I woke up in the night thinking about the ceremony and it’s on my mind again so it obviously impressed me a lot.

I recall the solo male ballet artist dancing on a small square rooftop at height, and the solo female vocalist in the white dress with red and blue to make other elements of the French flag on the arched roof, were both technically amazing and all the more so given the atrocious weather. They were both fabulous.

I loved the high concept in the majority of the the vignettes so I think overall it succeeded as a show, but think it fell down a lot on pacing, meaning the overall emphasis fell in some awkward ways. Advert breaks doesn’t explain it.

At times it felt as though it lacked sophistication in the consideration of the inevitable tension between showcasing any Olympic host’s local values vs highlighting the inclusive but somewhat politically neutral Olympic values. Olympics values are perhaps less individualistic and do not tend to challenge local politics or laws even when they are unjust. (This is my impression, I don’t know my Olympic Games history so that may be unfair)

eg you can compete as a lesbian or gay athlete nobody cares. Afghanistan or Iran or loads of other countries can compete while they actively oppress women and that’s not challenged. Israel and Palestine are at war and both sent teams. The Olympics theme of inclusivity for displaced people and refugees is excellent and they did well to highlight the increase in global displacement but there is a neutrality or lack of comment on the causes of it which has to rest with governments globally. It feels like very subtle judgements are needed to get a balance which perhaps didn’t quite work. Ideally it should be making us feel like getting off our arses and being a bit political and in that sense maybe this one worked just only in some discrete areas of politics.

Thank you! So many people think this was the organisers trying to depraved little children, whole noisy of our was just tongue in cheek fun and cultural references people who never heard of the likes of Truffaut would not get.

I watched the entire ceremony and thought it was amazing.

If you look at this thread here only, nothing self depreciating, just loads of people tapping themselves on the shoulder any how amazing London 2012 was. But if life me you are a foreigner, then large chucks of it has zero meaning not significance, and like lots of Brits didn't get cultural references of parisian segments, most abroad didn't get obscure references to the Archers among others.

Yeah London 2012 had the shipping forecast FfS, like global viewers in saudi would get that

And the Last Supper was most definitely deluberate. Da Vinci was a guest if the French court under the Medicis.

I think it dragged a bit because the weather was so awful it slowed everything down so they had to pad the catwalk and dancing bit in the middle.

It's perfectly understandable that the ceremony should have national and cultural references from the host country, even if, globally, most viewers don't get it. I'm still not quite sure of the French reference for a scene featuring people about to indulge in a threesome though.

It's Jules et Jim, as I said upthread. Hugely influential new wave cinema.

The solo dancer was Guillaume Diop, who is a danseur étoile at the Paris Opera. He is amazing.

Totally agree, to summarise it as a “pile of shit” is utterly ridiculous and simply untrue ..

Why not have a look at these You Tube ceremonies from French speaking channels to see the highlights and you will see some amazing elements:

Ummm….not really. Leonardo came to France in the last years of his life as a guest of Francois 1, ( bringing Mona Lisa with him). The Medici ( in the shape of the Queen consort) in France were considerably later. Leonardo had little to do with the Medici in Italy, he served his apprenticeship there, but his working life was mainly in Milan.

Yeah, I was freestyling on my phone and didn't fact check, my bad. But there is a da Vinci-France connection.

I must admit I didn’t understand the Last Supper reference as I thought the Da Vinci painting is in Milan not Paris?

Or was it meant to represent “great art” in general?

But I didn’t watch the coverage as a whole.

2012: "Haha! Silly Brits celebrating a public healthcare system and it's workers, how bizzarre"

2020: "Oh wait..."