The Museum is open 11:00 – 19:00
Cinema is closed now
The Museum is open 11:00 – 19:00
Cinema is closed now
This Sporting Life
film and lecture
30.10.2026 20:00
Pola Dwurnik will give a talk before the film.
Frank Machin is a miner who wants to escape his job in the mine. Rugby offers him a chance for advancement – thanks to his ambition, strength, and aggression, he quickly becomes a star on the local team and catches the eye of its influential owner. However, his success on the field does not translate to his life off the field. Machin remains a man who cannot cope with his own emotions, relationships, and need for recognition.
Frank Machin is a miner who wants to escape his job in the mine. Rugby offers him a chance for advancement – thanks to his ambition, strength, and aggression, he quickly becomes a star on the local team and catches the eye of its influential owner. However, his success on the field does not translate to his life off the field. Machin remains a man who cannot cope with his own emotions, relationships, and need for recognition.
In *The Sporting Life*, Lindsay Anderson, one of the most important figures in British social cinema, depicts a world in which sports become a means of escape from the working class. However, this upward mobility proves illusory – the change in social status does not solve the protagonist’s problems but reveals new ones.
Adapting the novel by former miner and rugby player David Storey, Anderson creates a poignant portrait of a man torn between ambition and the need for closeness. “The Sporting Life” shows that social advancement can be a source of both pride and frustration, and that crossing one boundary does not necessarily mean finding one’s place.
Adapting the novel by former miner and rugby player David Storey, Anderson creates a poignant portrait of a man torn between ambition and the need for closeness. “The Sporting Life” shows that social advancement can be a source of both pride and frustration, and that crossing one boundary does not necessarily mean finding one’s place.
