Vive le Tour
Encyclopedia
Vive le Tour is a 1962
French
documentary
by filmmaker Louis Malle
. It chronicles the Tour de France
and focuses on issues such as providing food for the racers, dealing with injuries and doping
. The New York Times describes the film as containing "ebullience, whimsy, jet black humor, awe and unspeakable tragedy" and as "a worshipful documentary of a sport made by a man who knew it intimately and loved it." Vive le Tour won the Leipzig DOK Festival Golden Dove award in 1966.
The 18 minute film is available on DVD
from the Criterion Collection
as part of their Eclipse series and is available in its entirety on YouTube
or Vimeo
.
2:00
From the peloton, we don’t see the crowd, either. The riders tell themselves, “I’ll see my mom, I’ll see my wife, I’ll see my aunt,” and then they don’t see anything at all.
But they hear it though – they hear the crowd. Because the crowd makes a fantastic noise, even in the peloton.
The guys on motorbikes are part of the family. The riders know them as well as they know their competitors.
They are part of the peloton. They pass through the peloton as if they were riders. They have their place.
3:00
They understand all the riders’ behavior, and so they are absolutely not in danger.
When they arrive at the feed zone, each rider knows exactly where his man is: It’s either at the beginning on the left or at the end on the right. And you must certainly not miss the musette. If you miss the musette, it’s the fringale and the fringale, that’s 20 minutes lost at the finish line – sometimes even an hour.
Obviously you can always find a friend who grabbed two musettes, but it’s never a sure thing.
In the musette it’s always pretty much the same thing: It’s a meal based on fruit, rice, and sugar.
4:50
This is one of the most important moments in the Tour de France: the hunt for the drink. They enter a bistro, they shove everyone. They don’t go so far as to steal but they beg. They take whatever – red wine, champagne, beer, even water, when you don’t find better. Generally what they should be taking is water…
And then they leave, very often without paying. It should be noted also that at the end of the Tour de France the director receives quite a few bills.
Sometimes they lose up to two or three minutes, so they have to chase for 20km to come back afterwards, but they have an excuse. They sweat so much that it’s been calculated that in a hot stage of the Tour de France, a rider can lose up to 4 kilos - that means 4 liters of sweat. So you have to drink, you have to drink.
You have to drink or you have to drench yourself.
But drenching yourself is dangerous too; first because you can catch a cold, … and then if you wet your feet then they crack in the sun and they’re too small.
6:30
The ones that drink the least are the champions (team leaders). You can say they’re lucky because they are entitled to cool drinks and drinks chosen for them by their water carriers. That’s why those are the ones who at the end of the stage are fresh, available, ready to attack.
The stage finishes in the Tour de France are something unimaginable. Even the riders are surprised by the speeds they reach. It finishes at 60kph. The last hour is 60 per hour.
7:30 (rider comments, some inaudible, some w/ strange accents)
“… it’s too bad about that breakaway – I would have been able to go…”
“… my thighs hurt because I’m badly seated on the bike so I take these positions that hurt my thighs…”
“… we weren’t going more than anyone else…”
“… my rear end hurt so much…”
8:30 (journalist comments)
“… Anquetil
-issimo…”
(English) “… doping or not doping – that is the question…”
“… I repeat: the eagle has overtaken the angel of the mountains…”
“Bahamontes
– phenomenal”
9:00
The crashes always come when you least expect it. And very often it’s when the peloton is moving very slowly. Because the peloton falls asleep, the reflexes fall asleep – everyone in the peloton is asleep and then POOF everyone falls.
And then the peloton collapses like a house of cards. One rider, a second one, then there are 30 on the ground. And sometimes it’s serious.
“that’s probably the day that Rik van Looy
was the most afraid of his entire life.” … “and still Van Looy, he didn’t wait.”
10:30
There’s nothing uglier than crashes in the Tour de France. It’s not so much the pain – they know how to suffer through that – but the person who falls, he doesn’t sleep. And the person who doesn’t sleep will have to abandon after two or three days.
“We now have to talk about doping
. Doping in cycling jargon is called la charge. And the charge poisons this profession. Now, behind each abandon is a layer of doubt.”
“This rider told us that he ate contaminated fish. And this day, more than 10 men will abandon, and each one will say that they ate contaminated fish.”
“Doping, contrary to what we believe, does not give the rider new strength ¬– it simply suppresses the pain. The doped athlete no longer knows the limits of his strength. He’s nothing more than a pedaling machine.”
12:00
What’s terrible is that once they see the bike they have to get back on. “Don’t abandon” and then “hop”…
14:00
Without mountains there would be no Tour de France. it’s in the mountains where the peloton cracks – it’s there where everyone gets scattered.
15:00
You can say that in the Tour de France the little pushing doesn’t play a large role. The last ones are pushed, but for the first 15 the race is totally by the book, they are never pushed. Absolutely not. The last ones are pitied, so they are pushed.
And the spectators end up more tired than the riders.
We don’t realize either the differences in temperature and pressure that a rider undergoes in just one mountain stage. They go from an altitude of 200m to 2,000m, back down to 250m and climb again to 2,800m. It’s terrible.
Podium: 1. Jacques Anquetil
(Fra.) 2. Jef Planckaert
(Bel.) 3. Raymond Poulidor
(Fra.)
1962 in film
The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
French
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...
documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
by filmmaker Louis Malle
Louis Malle
Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...
. It chronicles the Tour de France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...
and focuses on issues such as providing food for the racers, dealing with injuries and doping
Doping (sport)
The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport is commonly referred to by the term "doping", particularly by those organizations that regulate competitions. The use of performance enhancing drugs is mostly done to improve athletic performance. This is why many sports ban the use of performance...
. The New York Times describes the film as containing "ebullience, whimsy, jet black humor, awe and unspeakable tragedy" and as "a worshipful documentary of a sport made by a man who knew it intimately and loved it." Vive le Tour won the Leipzig DOK Festival Golden Dove award in 1966.
The 18 minute film is available on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
from the Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...
as part of their Eclipse series and is available in its entirety on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
or Vimeo
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. It was founded by Zach Klein and Jake Lodwick in November 2004...
.
Transcript
Translated by Greg Emerson Bocquet, November 4 20112:00
From the peloton, we don’t see the crowd, either. The riders tell themselves, “I’ll see my mom, I’ll see my wife, I’ll see my aunt,” and then they don’t see anything at all.
But they hear it though – they hear the crowd. Because the crowd makes a fantastic noise, even in the peloton.
The guys on motorbikes are part of the family. The riders know them as well as they know their competitors.
They are part of the peloton. They pass through the peloton as if they were riders. They have their place.
3:00
They understand all the riders’ behavior, and so they are absolutely not in danger.
When they arrive at the feed zone, each rider knows exactly where his man is: It’s either at the beginning on the left or at the end on the right. And you must certainly not miss the musette. If you miss the musette, it’s the fringale and the fringale, that’s 20 minutes lost at the finish line – sometimes even an hour.
Obviously you can always find a friend who grabbed two musettes, but it’s never a sure thing.
In the musette it’s always pretty much the same thing: It’s a meal based on fruit, rice, and sugar.
4:50
This is one of the most important moments in the Tour de France: the hunt for the drink. They enter a bistro, they shove everyone. They don’t go so far as to steal but they beg. They take whatever – red wine, champagne, beer, even water, when you don’t find better. Generally what they should be taking is water…
And then they leave, very often without paying. It should be noted also that at the end of the Tour de France the director receives quite a few bills.
Sometimes they lose up to two or three minutes, so they have to chase for 20km to come back afterwards, but they have an excuse. They sweat so much that it’s been calculated that in a hot stage of the Tour de France, a rider can lose up to 4 kilos - that means 4 liters of sweat. So you have to drink, you have to drink.
You have to drink or you have to drench yourself.
But drenching yourself is dangerous too; first because you can catch a cold, … and then if you wet your feet then they crack in the sun and they’re too small.
6:30
The ones that drink the least are the champions (team leaders). You can say they’re lucky because they are entitled to cool drinks and drinks chosen for them by their water carriers. That’s why those are the ones who at the end of the stage are fresh, available, ready to attack.
The stage finishes in the Tour de France are something unimaginable. Even the riders are surprised by the speeds they reach. It finishes at 60kph. The last hour is 60 per hour.
7:30 (rider comments, some inaudible, some w/ strange accents)
“… it’s too bad about that breakaway – I would have been able to go…”
“… my thighs hurt because I’m badly seated on the bike so I take these positions that hurt my thighs…”
“… we weren’t going more than anyone else…”
“… my rear end hurt so much…”
8:30 (journalist comments)
“… Anquetil
Jacques Anquetil
Jacques Anquetil was a French road racing cyclist and the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times, in 1957 and from 1961 to 1964...
-issimo…”
(English) “… doping or not doping – that is the question…”
“… I repeat: the eagle has overtaken the angel of the mountains…”
“Bahamontes
Federico Bahamontes
Federico Martín Bahamontes is a Spanish former professional road racing cyclist.-Biography:Bahamontes was born in Santo Domingo-Caudilla , of Cuban descent. His family was devastated during the Spanish civil war and Bahamontes' father, Julián, took the family to Madrid as refugees...
– phenomenal”
9:00
The crashes always come when you least expect it. And very often it’s when the peloton is moving very slowly. Because the peloton falls asleep, the reflexes fall asleep – everyone in the peloton is asleep and then POOF everyone falls.
And then the peloton collapses like a house of cards. One rider, a second one, then there are 30 on the ground. And sometimes it’s serious.
“that’s probably the day that Rik van Looy
Rik Van Looy
Henri van Looy is a Belgian former professional cyclist of the post-war period, nicknamed the King of the Classics or Emperor of Herentals...
was the most afraid of his entire life.” … “and still Van Looy, he didn’t wait.”
10:30
There’s nothing uglier than crashes in the Tour de France. It’s not so much the pain – they know how to suffer through that – but the person who falls, he doesn’t sleep. And the person who doesn’t sleep will have to abandon after two or three days.
“We now have to talk about doping
Doping (sport)
The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport is commonly referred to by the term "doping", particularly by those organizations that regulate competitions. The use of performance enhancing drugs is mostly done to improve athletic performance. This is why many sports ban the use of performance...
. Doping in cycling jargon is called la charge. And the charge poisons this profession. Now, behind each abandon is a layer of doubt.”
“This rider told us that he ate contaminated fish. And this day, more than 10 men will abandon, and each one will say that they ate contaminated fish.”
“Doping, contrary to what we believe, does not give the rider new strength ¬– it simply suppresses the pain. The doped athlete no longer knows the limits of his strength. He’s nothing more than a pedaling machine.”
12:00
What’s terrible is that once they see the bike they have to get back on. “Don’t abandon” and then “hop”…
14:00
Without mountains there would be no Tour de France. it’s in the mountains where the peloton cracks – it’s there where everyone gets scattered.
15:00
You can say that in the Tour de France the little pushing doesn’t play a large role. The last ones are pushed, but for the first 15 the race is totally by the book, they are never pushed. Absolutely not. The last ones are pitied, so they are pushed.
And the spectators end up more tired than the riders.
We don’t realize either the differences in temperature and pressure that a rider undergoes in just one mountain stage. They go from an altitude of 200m to 2,000m, back down to 250m and climb again to 2,800m. It’s terrible.
Podium: 1. Jacques Anquetil
Jacques Anquetil
Jacques Anquetil was a French road racing cyclist and the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times, in 1957 and from 1961 to 1964...
(Fra.) 2. Jef Planckaert
Jef Planckaert
Joseph "Jef" Planckaert was a Belgian racing cyclist. He is seen as one of the best Belgian cyclists of the 50's and 60's of the twentieth century....
(Bel.) 3. Raymond Poulidor
Raymond Poulidor
Raymond Poulidor , is a former professional bicycle racer. He was known as the eternal second, because he finished the Tour de France in second place three times, and in third place five times, including his final Tour at the age of 40...
(Fra.)