Thank you for your extensive reply! So I’ve seen all but 1 of the films on which you based your statistic (I watched a different version of 2 Half-times in Hell). I guess we differ on definition of “major character”. In most of your list, the character who died was in the protagonist’s past or background, not necessarily even during the film. Or if present, a bit part. So I didn’t think of that as a major character. I did overlook Cool Kids Don’t Cry. United is a Busby Babes storyline. And I forgot another — Will — where the dad dies in the first 10 minutes — to me still not a major character. But yes, small sample size skews statistics. Thanks again for thinking about this!
Hi Stephen, I love your work, thank you for doing this. However, I am curious about your soccer/european football stat that 10% of such films have a major character die. I have reviewed almost 500 soccer movies (half of them documentaries), and of the 250-ish narrative films, I can't recall many major characters dying. The only ones I can think of are the features about the Busby babes. My hobby website is soccermoviemom.com.
Great question! I'd guess that there are three things at play here:
Firstly, we're talking bout a small number of movies, for sure. The subset here consists of fiction feature films that utilise soccer as a plot point and in which a character dies, as identified from the available data.
Secondly, sometimes it's not a sports-related death, but a death that provides the lead(s) with a plot-turning point. This might be a violent end, such as in Green Street when Pete is killed during a fight between rival gangs, or, as in Gracie, their older brother dies in a traffic accident after a game. Sometimes it's less outwardly dramatic but still meaningful, such as in United (2011) where Duncan's death in the hospital affects the coach's decisions, or in Cool Kids Don't Cry when the lead, Akkie, dies of leukaemia. It can be family members that die, such as the dad in Will, or the mother in Land of Storms. There are deaths which are kinda-sports-related, such as in Brother when Daniel witnesses the accidental death of his mother, caused by the goalie of a rival team and sets out for revenge. And without wanting to dwell, there are the true stories, which tell the tales of real-life people. Such as in Captain, based on the life of V. P. Sathyan, a former captain of the Indian national football team, who committed suicide in 2006.
Sometimes it's wider than that, and about the definition of 'a football film'. If you're focusing on films in which we see football teams constantly play games against each other, then you may not choose to include films like Land of Storms in your dataset. I was interested in the sport on screen and drew a pretty wide circle around what to include. In that film, it's about a soccer coach, the death is his mother, so not a sports-related injury to say the least! This means it includes crossovers with other genres. Two Half-Times in Hell is a war film which revolves around a football match organised by Nazi officers between German soldiers and Hungarian labour servicemen during World War II. After the match, the players are executed by the Germans. And then there is a murder mystery in the form of The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, a rival player drops dead on the field, poisoned.
So a whole cornucopia of misery which drives people to greater football glory!
Thank you for your extensive reply! So I’ve seen all but 1 of the films on which you based your statistic (I watched a different version of 2 Half-times in Hell). I guess we differ on definition of “major character”. In most of your list, the character who died was in the protagonist’s past or background, not necessarily even during the film. Or if present, a bit part. So I didn’t think of that as a major character. I did overlook Cool Kids Don’t Cry. United is a Busby Babes storyline. And I forgot another — Will — where the dad dies in the first 10 minutes — to me still not a major character. But yes, small sample size skews statistics. Thanks again for thinking about this!
Hi Stephen, I love your work, thank you for doing this. However, I am curious about your soccer/european football stat that 10% of such films have a major character die. I have reviewed almost 500 soccer movies (half of them documentaries), and of the 250-ish narrative films, I can't recall many major characters dying. The only ones I can think of are the features about the Busby babes. My hobby website is soccermoviemom.com.
oh, there was one slasher/football film that I watched with eyes closed. Everybody died in that one.
Hey MJ
Great question! I'd guess that there are three things at play here:
Firstly, we're talking bout a small number of movies, for sure. The subset here consists of fiction feature films that utilise soccer as a plot point and in which a character dies, as identified from the available data.
Secondly, sometimes it's not a sports-related death, but a death that provides the lead(s) with a plot-turning point. This might be a violent end, such as in Green Street when Pete is killed during a fight between rival gangs, or, as in Gracie, their older brother dies in a traffic accident after a game. Sometimes it's less outwardly dramatic but still meaningful, such as in United (2011) where Duncan's death in the hospital affects the coach's decisions, or in Cool Kids Don't Cry when the lead, Akkie, dies of leukaemia. It can be family members that die, such as the dad in Will, or the mother in Land of Storms. There are deaths which are kinda-sports-related, such as in Brother when Daniel witnesses the accidental death of his mother, caused by the goalie of a rival team and sets out for revenge. And without wanting to dwell, there are the true stories, which tell the tales of real-life people. Such as in Captain, based on the life of V. P. Sathyan, a former captain of the Indian national football team, who committed suicide in 2006.
Sometimes it's wider than that, and about the definition of 'a football film'. If you're focusing on films in which we see football teams constantly play games against each other, then you may not choose to include films like Land of Storms in your dataset. I was interested in the sport on screen and drew a pretty wide circle around what to include. In that film, it's about a soccer coach, the death is his mother, so not a sports-related injury to say the least! This means it includes crossovers with other genres. Two Half-Times in Hell is a war film which revolves around a football match organised by Nazi officers between German soldiers and Hungarian labour servicemen during World War II. After the match, the players are executed by the Germans. And then there is a murder mystery in the form of The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, a rival player drops dead on the field, poisoned.
So a whole cornucopia of misery which drives people to greater football glory!