A song of innocence

...Like Blake's poetry, the film thus commits a grand heresy - this time against orthodox disbelief...

...His closest relationship develops with another of the dispossessed, a half-Italian, half-Arabic trainer named Mossambini, who because of his professional status is not even allowed to attend the Olympics and is exiled to a hotel room when his prote'ge' competes...

...Abrahams's struggle is less religious than sociological...

...Once a political rebel inspired by the French Revolution, Blake here declared his faith in "mental fight" - a struggle to convert the hearts and minds of men rather than to change and overthrow political institutions...

...Certainly there is a touch of self-aggrandizement, and young man's arrogance, about the way Liddell appropriates God's "pleasure" to his own...

...Indeed, he offends the guardians of power with "impolite" methods of proving his running excellence, but persists fiercely, knowing, as Blake said, "Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity...

...But the runners' hearts, not legs, are the film's key "chariots of fire...

...The phrase "chariots of fire" comes from a widely used English hymn, "Jerusalem," sung by the choir at the funeral that frames the main action of the movie...

...It is not sophisticated enough to bow to modern gods like doubt, irony, and non-commitment...

...As Blake wrote, "The road of excess leads to the palaces of wisdom...

...but He also made me fast...

...It lacks the mature cynicism toward loyalty and sincerity that drives the need for belief to the defensive extreme of bunker romanticism...

...Liddell, from a Protestant missionary family, is driven by a fervent sense of vocation both as a preacher and runner and is tortured by conflicts between his two identities...

...Bring me my chariot of fire...

...tom O'Brien (Tom O'Brien teaches English at Fordham University and has contributed to the New York Times Book Review and other journals...

...When leaving the film, I have heard comments such as "How odd...

...it simply demonstrates, as Blake once said, "he whose face gives forth no light shall never become a star...

...But it is innocent of that corrosive liberal tendency to cede any idealism about athletics, religion, or national pride to conservative or reactionary forces...

...But their fierce sincerity, even their oddity, links them with the Romantic poet, an outsider possessed by his own private religious vision...

...Labels such as "odd" and "strange" were once used to describe movies without heroes, without clear story lines, without climaxes - or with ironic, deflated ones...

...In an early Cambridge scene, he explains to a friend the pain of always feeling "a cold reluctance in a handshake" - the pain of knowing that the "corridors of power" are closed to his "tribe...

...But we have matured so much that heroism - like a good marriage - is viewed as odd, or even shocking...

...Yet Liddell demonstrates that the arrogance and danger of self-aggrandizement are inseparable from confidence - even innocence - and self-respect...

...Blake's poem, however, perfectly fits the movie, Chariots of Fire, for the film is as much about private vision, about "mental fight,'' as about Olympic running...

...This was the case again with this year's winner, Chariots of Fire...

...Most Americans might not be familiar with the title's source...

...Defending his decision to sacrifice religious work for running Liddell explains,"God made me a missionary...

...I shall not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land...

...From the moment the opening funeral sequence fades into flashback, we see the sprinters Abrahams and Liddell running in their old white uniforms along a beach to the stirring music of the theme...

...I disagree with those who have found Chariots of Fire bland, saccharine, or sentimental...

...The image is romantic, but metaphorical as well: the runners seem less like humans than a flock of wild swans, or even angels, with feet swift as wings...

...Abrahams's concern to join the establishment and Liddell's stern Protestantism have little in common with Blake...

...or "How strange to see such a movie now...

...I would argue, however, that Chariots of Fire really does possess a quality that many critics and viewers have missed, and I would begin by suggesting that the movie deserved an Oscar that does not yet exist: Best Title...

...But the film is not starry-eyed...

...In Blake's view, only spiritual change could bring a new age of human renewal, a new Jerusalem, whose "Elijah" he aspired to be, taken up by God in clouds of light and glory...

...Later, he almost sings, "When I ran, I can feel His pleasure...

...Skirting a fine line, the film concedes its central characters' egoism, even their childishness at times, but nevertheless celebrates the excellence of their sincerity and strength, and the simple fact of the runners' small claim to glory...

...Abrahams, is driven by need to assert his Jewish identity against Waspy sneers...

...Moreover, their links with Blake explain some of the difficulties that sophisticated audiences have with the toughminded romanticism of Chariots of Fire...

...Abrahams is a pilgrim searching for belonging and power, but his finest moment comes when Mossambini utters "my son, my son" as "God Save the Queen" is played inside the Olympic stadium and one exile realizes the other has won...

...What results is, like Blake's poetry, a toughminded song of innocence...

...The hymn, in turn, derives from William Blake, who ended his epic Milton with the stirring stanzas: Bring me my bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my spear, O clouds unfold...

...Given Blake's heterodoxy as a poet and thinker, it is ironic that his poem has become a conventional hymn in English churches and has been adopted as the campaign song of the Labor Party...

...Insistence on personal vision - almost private communication with God - is arrogant, and with some "true believers" even dangerous...