If You Film It, Will They Come?

Sports is an important subject for film, offering opportunities for the screen exploration and representation of action, drama, character, and so on. This article pursues the question of what the domain of sports offers to film, and which features of sports are selected and highlighted by it. There is a brief examination of the concept of film genre and of whether a sports film genre can be said to exist. Particular attention is given to how the dominant mythologies of sports shape its filmic treatment and how they are related to issues of power and social reproduction (mainly through a preliminary discussion of the “post-American” baseball film). It is thereby hoped to initiate greater dialogue about the relationships between sports, film, culture, social structure, and ideology.