What do you think?
Rate this book
Den gule trøje i de høje bjerge
Jørgen Leth har fulgt Tour de France i 40 år, skrevet utallige artikler og rapporteret om det mytologiske løb på tv2, mest kendt er parløbet med Jørn Mader. Den gule trøje i de høje bjerge, der udkom i 1996, er Jørgen Leths personlige beretning om sine toure og sine tour-helte fra Fausto Coppi til Bjarne Riis. Til denne udgave har Jørgen Leth skrevet et nyt forord. Bogen udsendes i forbindelse med at Jørgen Leth genoptager sin berømmede indsats som kommentator af løbet i 2009.
- GenresSports
330 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
4 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Jørgen Leth
59 books35 followersJørgen Leth is a Danish poet and film director who is considered a leading figure in experimental documentary film making. Most notable are his epic documentary A Sunday in Hell (1977) and his surrealistic short film The Perfect Human (1967). He is also a sports commentator for Danish television and is represented by the film production company, Sunset Productions.
Biography
Born on June 14, 1937 in Århus, Denmark, he studied literature and anthropology in Århus and Copenhagen and was a cultural critic (jazz, theatre, film) for leading Danish newspapers from 1959 to 1968. His interest in Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski had a profound influence on his work. He travelled in Africa (1961), South America and India (1966) and Southeast Asia (1970–71). His first book was published in 1962 and he has written 10 volumes of poetry and eight non-fiction books. He made his first film in 1963 and has since made 40 more, many distributed worldwide. His most acclaimed is a 1967 short, The Perfect Human, which also featured in the 2003 film The Five Obstructions made by Leth and Lars von Trier. Leth's sports documentaries bring an epic, almost mythic, dimension to the field, as seen in Stars and Watercarriers (Stjernerne og Vandbærerne) (1973) and A Sunday in Hell (En forårsdag i helvede) (1977).
He has been a creative consultant for the Danish Film Institute (1971–73, 1975–77) as well as chairman of the Institute's board (1977–82). He has also been a professor at the Danish National Film School in Copenhagen, at the State Studiocenter in Oslo and has lectured at UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard and other American universities.
Leth covered the Tour de France for Denmark's TV 2 from 1988 until 2005 as the expert commentator in partnership with journalist Jørn Mader. In 1999, he was appointed Danish honorary consul in Haiti.
He attracted controversy in Denmark after publication of his autobiography Det uperfekte menneske (The Imperfect Man). It included a graphic account of sexual relations with the 17-year-old daughter of his cook in Haiti.[3] This created a media storm in Denmark,[4] partly because of his plan to make a film called Det Erotiske Menneske ("The Erotic Man"), funded by the Danish Film Institute, in collaboration with DR (Danmarks Radio) and Nordisk Film and TV Commission. The controversy upset several groups in Denmark. In October 2005, due to the controversy, he resigned his post as Danish consul in Haiti and was dismissed as commentator with TV2, but was reappointed in 2009. The film Erotic Man, Leth's homage to his sexual encounters with young women in third world countries, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. The film received lacklustre reviews which deemed it "dirty-old-man cinema" and colonialist exploitation.
Leth has had retrospectives at the National Film Theatre, London (1989), in Rouen, France (1990), at the American Film Institute, Washington D.C. (1992), in Mumbai, India (1996), New York (2002), Sao Paulo (2003), Toronto (2004), Florence (2005), Rome (2006), Sao Paulo (2008), Warsaw (2008) and Teheran (2008) and Athens International Film Festival, Athens (2009).
He lived in Jacmel, Haiti from 1991 to 2010 where the Haiti earthquake destroyed his house.
Biography
Born on June 14, 1937 in Århus, Denmark, he studied literature and anthropology in Århus and Copenhagen and was a cultural critic (jazz, theatre, film) for leading Danish newspapers from 1959 to 1968. His interest in Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski had a profound influence on his work. He travelled in Africa (1961), South America and India (1966) and Southeast Asia (1970–71). His first book was published in 1962 and he has written 10 volumes of poetry and eight non-fiction books. He made his first film in 1963 and has since made 40 more, many distributed worldwide. His most acclaimed is a 1967 short, The Perfect Human, which also featured in the 2003 film The Five Obstructions made by Leth and Lars von Trier. Leth's sports documentaries bring an epic, almost mythic, dimension to the field, as seen in Stars and Watercarriers (Stjernerne og Vandbærerne) (1973) and A Sunday in Hell (En forårsdag i helvede) (1977).
He has been a creative consultant for the Danish Film Institute (1971–73, 1975–77) as well as chairman of the Institute's board (1977–82). He has also been a professor at the Danish National Film School in Copenhagen, at the State Studiocenter in Oslo and has lectured at UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard and other American universities.
Leth covered the Tour de France for Denmark's TV 2 from 1988 until 2005 as the expert commentator in partnership with journalist Jørn Mader. In 1999, he was appointed Danish honorary consul in Haiti.
He attracted controversy in Denmark after publication of his autobiography Det uperfekte menneske (The Imperfect Man). It included a graphic account of sexual relations with the 17-year-old daughter of his cook in Haiti.[3] This created a media storm in Denmark,[4] partly because of his plan to make a film called Det Erotiske Menneske ("The Erotic Man"), funded by the Danish Film Institute, in collaboration with DR (Danmarks Radio) and Nordisk Film and TV Commission. The controversy upset several groups in Denmark. In October 2005, due to the controversy, he resigned his post as Danish consul in Haiti and was dismissed as commentator with TV2, but was reappointed in 2009. The film Erotic Man, Leth's homage to his sexual encounters with young women in third world countries, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. The film received lacklustre reviews which deemed it "dirty-old-man cinema" and colonialist exploitation.
Leth has had retrospectives at the National Film Theatre, London (1989), in Rouen, France (1990), at the American Film Institute, Washington D.C. (1992), in Mumbai, India (1996), New York (2002), Sao Paulo (2003), Toronto (2004), Florence (2005), Rome (2006), Sao Paulo (2008), Warsaw (2008) and Teheran (2008) and Athens International Film Festival, Athens (2009).
He lived in Jacmel, Haiti from 1991 to 2010 where the Haiti earthquake destroyed his house.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 3, 2012
Do you love the Tour de France? If not, this book is not for you.
With that said, let’s talk about it anyway. In this book, he covers specifically the Tour de France but also other events in professional cycling. The book is originally published in 1995 so the amazing year (1996) where the Dane Bjarne Riis won the Tour is not covered, neither is the victories of Marco Pantani, Floyd Landis, Jan Ullrich, Alberto Contador – or Lance Armstrong. Well, except in a brief foreword to the 2009 edition for some of them. And this is my main problem with the book – I started following the Tour in the early 90s so I don’t know that much about the years before and while it is interesting and Leth writes it well, I would have loved to have read more about the riders I knew and know and the races I’ve watched. This is flashbacks to Leth’s personal highlights of the Tour, his thoughts on professional cycling, doping, food in France, working as a film director and a commentator and more. And it’s fascinating.
As I’ve written earlier, Jørgen Leth has a way with words. And even though this is a non-fiction book about a bike race, it’s wonderfully written. And I don’t think the beauty of it’s writing is only because Leth is a poet and has a way with words. It’s also because he writes about what he loves.
Jørgen Leth loves bike racing and he writes about this love, specifically about his love for the Tour de France. He writes about his heroes, how he in particular love the tormented riders, the ones who has a bit more to fight against than just the stages and the mountains. He is drawn to the underdog, the rider who has weak knees, who doesn’t believe in himself, who struggles against inner demons. He loves the riders who can attack and shake everything up. And maybe that is because of his poetic eyes which see the beauty in the struggle, the beauty in the lone rider struggling across the highest mountains pursued by a chasing peloton, the beauty in an attacker cheating the sprinters of their finish.
As he puts it: ‘Bike riders ride bicycles. They ride from one place to another. They ride up, and they ride down. The first to arrive at the finish, has won. Along the way, things happen. It’s as simple as that.’ (p. 303 – my translation). And it is as simple as that. But what he then goes on to point out, is, that out of this, people emerge, looking directly out of the pictures, trying to create something extraordinary. And when that happens, Leth is ready to see it and frame it. To spot the moment which steps out of itself to become something durable. Something to remember and look back on.
And that’s exactly what he does – both as a commentator and as a writer. He spots the extraordinary in the ordinary. He sees the beauty in the struggle, he praises the courageous and cheers the fighters. His sharp eyes separates the contenders from the pretenders – but praises the pretenders when they dare, even if they fail. As long as they fail in an epic way. And he frames it all in beautiful words for the rest of us – along with commentating on the landscape, the weather, the geography, all of which add that extra dimension to both the race and extraordinariness of it all.
Such a pity that this book hasn’t been translated.
With that said, let’s talk about it anyway. In this book, he covers specifically the Tour de France but also other events in professional cycling. The book is originally published in 1995 so the amazing year (1996) where the Dane Bjarne Riis won the Tour is not covered, neither is the victories of Marco Pantani, Floyd Landis, Jan Ullrich, Alberto Contador – or Lance Armstrong. Well, except in a brief foreword to the 2009 edition for some of them. And this is my main problem with the book – I started following the Tour in the early 90s so I don’t know that much about the years before and while it is interesting and Leth writes it well, I would have loved to have read more about the riders I knew and know and the races I’ve watched. This is flashbacks to Leth’s personal highlights of the Tour, his thoughts on professional cycling, doping, food in France, working as a film director and a commentator and more. And it’s fascinating.
As I’ve written earlier, Jørgen Leth has a way with words. And even though this is a non-fiction book about a bike race, it’s wonderfully written. And I don’t think the beauty of it’s writing is only because Leth is a poet and has a way with words. It’s also because he writes about what he loves.
Jørgen Leth loves bike racing and he writes about this love, specifically about his love for the Tour de France. He writes about his heroes, how he in particular love the tormented riders, the ones who has a bit more to fight against than just the stages and the mountains. He is drawn to the underdog, the rider who has weak knees, who doesn’t believe in himself, who struggles against inner demons. He loves the riders who can attack and shake everything up. And maybe that is because of his poetic eyes which see the beauty in the struggle, the beauty in the lone rider struggling across the highest mountains pursued by a chasing peloton, the beauty in an attacker cheating the sprinters of their finish.
As he puts it: ‘Bike riders ride bicycles. They ride from one place to another. They ride up, and they ride down. The first to arrive at the finish, has won. Along the way, things happen. It’s as simple as that.’ (p. 303 – my translation). And it is as simple as that. But what he then goes on to point out, is, that out of this, people emerge, looking directly out of the pictures, trying to create something extraordinary. And when that happens, Leth is ready to see it and frame it. To spot the moment which steps out of itself to become something durable. Something to remember and look back on.
And that’s exactly what he does – both as a commentator and as a writer. He spots the extraordinary in the ordinary. He sees the beauty in the struggle, he praises the courageous and cheers the fighters. His sharp eyes separates the contenders from the pretenders – but praises the pretenders when they dare, even if they fail. As long as they fail in an epic way. And he frames it all in beautiful words for the rest of us – along with commentating on the landscape, the weather, the geography, all of which add that extra dimension to both the race and extraordinariness of it all.
Such a pity that this book hasn’t been translated.
October 23, 2016
Velkendte historier fra Tour de France. Det er som om, at sætninger og afsnit er lidt længere end normalt, hvilket giver Leth en lidt anden stemme (redaktør?). Mod slutningen er det et afsnit om kommentatorerne i TdF (1990'erne). Det er ret spændende.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews