Untitled Document

Chariots of Fire

Bill Long 11/25/04

My Favorite Line in Film

The American Film Institute is soliciting input these days for the 100 top quotes from U.S. movies. All the standard lines will be suggested, of course, from Bogart's "Here's looking at you, kid," to Jack Nicholson's "The truth? You can't take the truth!" I believe that the line I suggest will not be considered probably because the film is an English-made film with English actors, even though it won the American Academy Award for the Best Picture in the early 1980s. However, to that extent, I will call it a "US Film," because it was widely seen here and we didn't have to use subtitles! The line is from "Chariots of Fire."

The Film

The movie tries to make alive the personalities and dynamics in the lives of British sprinters who ran in the 1924 Paris Summer Olympics. Eric Liddell, the Scotsman, was favored to win the 100 meters but, according to the film, he withdrew from this race in Paris because a heat was run on a Sunday and his strict Presbyterian religious scruples forbade his running on the Sabbath. His English rival, the Jewish runner Harold Abraham, won the 100 meters. But then a British runner withdrew from the 200 meters, leaving a spot for Liddell, who promptly went on to win that race. The dynamics of competition, faith, setback, self- (Liddell) and other-exclusion (Abraham) and victory for those who dedicate themselves to be the best they can be make the movie one of the great moral tales of our time (ignoring the debate over professionalism which is hinted at but not confronted in the movie).

The Line

But before Liddell and company make it to Paris, he is shown in his mission work in Edinburgh, preaching the Gospel to whoever would listen and running like the wind over the heather-covered hills. His sister, who runs the mission with him, is troubled by his increasingly single-minded devotion to running. She "frets" about Eric. Trying to reassure her, he takes her by the arms, looks into her eyes and says, "God made me for China, but God also made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure." The line neatly reflects both a theology of the sovereignty of God, which always characterized Scotch Presbyterianism, as well as a recognition of the delight which God has in humanity's finding its way in the world.

Sovereignty

Liddell doesn't say, "I know I am fast," or "I have a great natural ability to sprint." He says, "God made me fast." Simple as that. Thomas Jefferson may have said that the Creator has endowed the creature with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but Liddell knows that God made him fast. As an old Scottish catechism taught, "God makes, preserves and redeems me." So, God makes us as we are, endowing us with gifts common and unique to live in the world.

One of the more memorable scenes of the film is where Liddell, instead of running on the Sunday morning, preaches at the Scottish Church in Paris. His text is one of the greatest "sovereignty of God" texts in the Bible--Isaiah 40:27-31. In the dramatic sweep of the language the author asks if people have heard of the great works of God and then closes with a peroration unmatched in rhetorical skill in the Bible: "but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (31)." While Liddell recites this passage, the movie cuts away to scenes of the world's greatest athletes falling over hurdles, tripping in the steeplechase, begrimed and bedaubed with dirt, overcome by the sense of their own finitude and limitations. Yet those who wait for the Lord renew their strength. Liddell was renewing his strength that very morning in the pulpit. He had truly learned the secret of what it meant that "God made me fast."

Pleasure

"And when I run, I feel his pleasure." Then we see him running with absolute delight. He begins with head down, eyes focused on the track, legs and arms pumping, breath forcefully expelled. Then, he straightens up, rounds the turn, throws back his head, and breaks into a smile, a smile so deep and broad that one can imagine that as he runs he truly feels the pleasure of God enlivening him, empowering him, leading him to the tape. Of course there is a victory here, which doesn't always happen, even to those who feel the pleasure of God when they are doing their work. But here there happens to be a victory. For one brief moment, the God-given endowment and the opportunity to excel coincide. We freeze that moment in our mind and know that something good and true has been presented to us. Of course it can be deconstructed. Of course it can be ridiculed. But it is my favorite line in film.