The first training montage
February 17, 2008 1:02 PM Subscribe
What was the first ever training montage in a film?
Wikipedia claims that training montages began in American film, but doesn't pinpoint which film. The first I know of was in Rocky, 1976; but was that really first?
Movie Montage has a bunch of famous training montages, and there's a previous MeFi question on training montages, which are both great, but don't answer the question.
Wikipedia claims that training montages began in American film, but doesn't pinpoint which film. The first I know of was in Rocky, 1976; but was that really first?
Movie Montage has a bunch of famous training montages, and there's a previous MeFi question on training montages, which are both great, but don't answer the question.
I am fairly certain I have seen early silent films showing boxers training for a big match. This was also pretty common in old newsreels which would show before the film - here's Rough Rudy standing in the ring with his trainer, here he is skipping rope, here he is punching the bag.
But if you mean specifically a Rocky-style training sequence with the swelling music where he goes from being, to paraphrase Team America "an amateur to a pro" - then you might be interested in reading up about the history of film montage in general. Wikipedia is a good general reference point. There is even a specific wiki page on the history of the sports training montage.
posted by SassHat at 1:23 PM on February 17, 2008
But if you mean specifically a Rocky-style training sequence with the swelling music where he goes from being, to paraphrase Team America "an amateur to a pro" - then you might be interested in reading up about the history of film montage in general. Wikipedia is a good general reference point. There is even a specific wiki page on the history of the sports training montage.
posted by SassHat at 1:23 PM on February 17, 2008
Best answer: siskin, the wiki page you linked to mentions that there's a montage in the film Knute Rockne: All American, so you may want to look into that to see if it's a sports training montage specifically.
posted by iconomy at 1:40 PM on February 17, 2008
posted by iconomy at 1:40 PM on February 17, 2008
Best answer: Buster Keaton does some sports training in his silent film, "College," although i don't recall offhand if it's a "montage" per se.
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:07 PM on February 17, 2008
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:07 PM on February 17, 2008
Best answer: There is a training montage in "the dirty dozen", which IMDB says was from 1967.
posted by galactain at 1:17 AM on February 18, 2008
posted by galactain at 1:17 AM on February 18, 2008
Well there aer exercising navel officers in Eisenstein's Potemkin. THere tends to be a lot of physical movement in early cinema-- things like men lifting barbels and doing exercises.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 9:20 AM on February 18, 2008
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 9:20 AM on February 18, 2008
Browsing Wikipedia today I ran into this comment, regarding The 36th Chamber of Shaolin: "Not only did the film significantly influence subsequent Hong Kong films, but essentially set the precedent for the classic 'training sequence' in films of every genre"
posted by Paragon at 12:52 AM on March 1, 2008
posted by Paragon at 12:52 AM on March 1, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:02 PM on February 17, 2008