Atlanta 1996 Film Premiers – Required Viewing for Olympic Dreamers
By Ed Hula
As the 30th anniversary of the Centennial Olympic Games approaches, a new documentary portrays Atlanta as a city that seized the opportunity to make the Olympics count for decades to come.
The Games in Black-and-White is a retelling of the seemingly improbable quest from Atlanta to win the ‘96 Olympics and the remarkable impact they had on the city.
The documentary world premier was April 26, the first film in the 49th Atlanta Film Festival, . The screening was held at the Rialto Theater, a restored movie house with an art deco facade just blocks from Centennial Olympic Park, the crown jewel left from the Olympics.
The film is the culmination of five years of work by producer George Hirthler, known for writing the text for Atlanta’s winning bid for the ‘96 Games some three decades ago. Since then he’s helped a number of cities around the globe hoping to win the Olympics as well. Along the way, Hirthler began a long communion with the history and philosophy of the founder of the modern Olympics Pierre de Coubertin. Hirthler says de Coubertin’s writings inspired both the Atlanta bid book as well as those for subsequent bids from other cities. He’s also written The Idealist, a historical novel based on the life of the French Baron. Seasoned film maker Bob Judson is co-producer.
The Games in Black and White is built upon the relationship that developed between Billy Payne, the Atlanta real estate lawyer who came up with the dream of the Olympics in the Deep South, and Andrew Young, then mayor of Atlanta. Young took a meeting with Payne, who turned the skeptical mayor into enthusiastic booster.
Hirthler says he wanted to portray the alliance between Payne and Young “as the most successful Black and White partnership in the American South in the civil rights era”. Both men attended the premier and spoke at the event, which was one of the few times they’ve been seen together in public in recent years. Young is 93; Payne is 77.
The first third of the 100-minute documentary covers the final year of Atlanta’s campaigning from 1989 to 1990. It offers a level of detail that shows how complex Olympic bidding had become with key leaders of the bid crisscrossing the globe to meet with IOC members.
The film progresses to the next stage for Atlanta: implementing the plans promised the IOC. Among them an Olympic stadium challenged by neighborhood opposition. Former Fulton County Commissioner Martin Luther King III discusses his role casting the deciding vote to approve construction of the $240 million project.
Billy Payne’s vision to create Centennial Olympic Park is recounted as the first major inner-city park built in the United States for generations. Included is the tragedy of the bombing midway through the Olympics that killed one woman and injured more than 100 spectators. Two days later the park would reopen with Payne noting in the film that some “preaching” would be needed for the brief ceremony. The Reverend Andrew Young was the only possible choice, said Payne, who served as CEO the entirety of the Atlanta Olympics journey.
The cast of personalities included in the documentary number into the dozens. Among those speaking are people who managed to use the Olympics as an opportunity to build businesses in Atlanta that thrive today. Almost one-third of the 40+ interviews are with former staff of Atlanta ‘96. Nearly all experienced the Games firsthand. Some are still in the game.
Terrence Burns who was the manager of Delta Airlines Olympic sponsorship, now consults with clients around the globe on Olympics related issues. Doug Arnot, now the venue chief for LA28, began his Olympic journey in Atlanta as the head og the ticketing program. Since then has been involved with several organizing committees. Also with a prominent place in the film is Janet Evans, the four-time gold medalist who retired after the Atlanta Olympics. She is now chief of athletes for LA 28. Evans will be remembered as the next-to-last runner in the 1996 Olympic torch relay. She lit the final torch held by Mohammed Ali; it is a scene that will live forever in Olympic lore.
Curiously, two important figures in the Olympic world are outliers of sorts among the cast in the film. Unlike the other personages appearing in the production, neither current U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland or Casey Wasserman, LA28 chairman, experienced the Atlanta Olympics firsthand. Both were university students at the time – Hirshland in North Carolina, Wasserman in California. They were just teenagers when Atlanta won the bid in 1990. Talk about a generation gap!
No voice is heard from the IOC, which had some lingering sour opinions about Atlanta, such as the bombing, transport issues and over-commercialization. Hirthler says the digs have been heard before. He says he wanted to focus on the long-lasting effects the Olympics had on Atlanta – and that no other city has done better.
While it brings together a large corps of people telling the story of how it happened, the narrative of the relationship between Payne and Young seems less important as the timeline of the documentary advances. How did they collaborate to solve controversies (and there were a few) leading up to the Games? The hierarchy of Atlanta 96 placed Young as co chair of the Atlanta Olympics Board of Directors supervising the work of Payne and colleagues. Was there ever any tension? Questions perhaps for the next Hirthler film to answer, which he says in the works.
The Games in Black and White is a one-of-a-kind amongst Olympic documentaries, which tend to focus on the field of play and accomplishments of the athletes. Unfortunately there seem to be fewer films of any sort relating to the Olympics outside the productions of Olympic Broadcasting Services, the IOC-owned company responsible for the raw video from the Games. For independent producers the cost of using video from the IOC archives can be prohibitive. Hirthler says he spent the past year obtaining all the agreements needed for video and photography used in the film.
Moving the film into wider distribution is the next step. A screening is being planned for Savannah which hosted the sailing events in 1996, The film will air on Georgia Public Broadcasting in July. Delta Airlines is slated to include the production in its in-flight entertainment offerings from September to the end of the year. About 1,000 cinema buffs helped fill the Atlanta audience at the landmark downtown theater. Sadly, it is the film’s only big screen appearance for now.
Whether big screen or smart phone, The Games in Black and White should be on the playlist of anyone courting Olympic dreams. Hirthler shows how Atlanta got the job done from start to finish.
Ed Hula covered the Atlanta Olympics from the bid to their conclusion and beyond.