Pelé, the bicycle kick that made the history of cinema

Black and white images from distant Sweden, then others in color, rather faded (painful, for us Italians, those of the Mexico ’70 World Cup) miraculously shown on the football fields. The art of what with Maradona is considered the greatest footballer of all time, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pele’, is immortalized on ancient and shabby films. Of his over a thousand goals there are relatively few images that remain, most of which come from the three World Cups that he played and won (1958, 1962 and 1970). To certify his unrivaled class there are the testimonies of those who had the good fortune to see him play (for his entire career in Brazil and then, for two years, in the Cosmos of New York) and videos, some amateurish, shot on Brazilian fields where, with Santos dispensed magic and gave football lessons to their opponents. Curiously, therefore, perhaps the most famous image of Pele’s footballer – in addition to the goal with a ‘sombrero’ against Sweden in 1958 – is the one immortalized by John Huston in a 1981 film, ‘Escape to Victory’, where the Brazilian champion, obviously nicknamed ‘o Rei at home, plays alongside Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Max Von Sidow. Pele plays an American prisoner of war in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Together with his fellow prisoners, he agrees to challenge a team supported by the German government and designs a daring escape plan to be implemented in the interval between the first and second half of the match. Despite the dramatic situation (in the field against the Germans there are also Jews specially brought in from the concentration camps for this match) the group gets caught up in the desire for revenge and the desire to beat the Nazis on the ball field, so they return in the field. The highlight of the film, which remains etched in the memory, where reality and fiction merge, is the bicycle kick with which Pele’ (aka Captain Luis Fernandez) deserves the standing ovation in the stadium and the applause of an unlikely Nazi officer (Max von Sydow), unable to contain the enthusiasm for that play. (AGI)Cau (Continued)

= Pele’: the reverse that made the history of cinema (2)=

(AGI) – Rome, Dec. 29 – Cinema in recent years has begun to tell the story of sports champions with biopics or ‘auteur’ documentaries. And of course Pele’ couldn’t be missing. To celebrate the most famous footballer of all time Jeff and Michael Zimbalist made a biopic in 2016, an American production that examines the beginnings of the legend simply titled ‘Pele’: Birth of a Legend’. Leonardo Carvalho and Kevin de Paula interpret the champion at the age of 9 and 17, when he was nicknamed ‘Dico’ before assuming the nickname that made him immortal, retracing the genesis of his sporting career which coincides with the birth of the Brazilian national identity that followed the ‘tragedy’ of the defeat against Uruguay at the Maracana stadium at their home World Cup in 1950. After 1977, the year in which he retired from football with a FIFA-certified tally of 1,281 goals in 1,363 games, Pele’ participated in some films in his homeland, including the dramatic ‘Os Trombadinhas’ by Anselmo Duarte of 1979, of which he was also the author of the script. After the success of the film ‘Escape to Victory’, in 1983 he returned to work with John Hustn, this time only actor, in the film ‘A Minor Miracle’ which never arrived in Italy. In 1986 he wrote and starred in the comedy ‘Os Trapalhoes eo Rei do Futebol’, while the following year he returned to the USA to play himself in ‘Hotshot’, the story of a soccer player who turns to ‘o Rei to become the improve. His last appearance as an actor dates back to 1989, in the Brazilian film ‘Solidao, Uma Linda Historia de Amor’. In order of time, the latest film dedicated to the champion is ‘Pele’: the King of Soccer’, a documentary by David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas.