Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
by Christopher Bell
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Christian Boeving, Christopher Bell, Floyd Landis, Mark Bell, Mike BellDirector: Christopher Bell
Brand: Magnolia Films
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-09-30
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Model: 10140
Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Product features:
- In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. We reward speed, size and above all else: winning at sport, at business and at war. Metaphorically we are a nation on steroids. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs?From the producers of Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 comes a new film
Movie Reviews of Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
Movie Review: Steroid Use as a Cultural Side Effect - A Very Personal Story
Summary: 5 Stars
As director Christopher Bell narrates in the closing moments of his superb documentary BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER, America likes winners and heroes, those who finish first because they are the biggest, strongest, or fastest. So despite all the alleged side-effects of anabolic steroids (Bell smartly declines to take sides on this question), he nevertheless concludes that steroids are not the problem, they are simply a side-effect of being American.
BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER is decidedly not an exploration of pop culture. Yes, the movie includes multiple references to Arnold Schwarzenegger in his iron-pumping, Mr. Universe days, along with Sylvester Stallone and Hulk Hogan and even the Fifties-era Charles Atlas comic book ads with their 98-pound, sunken-chested weakling getting sand kicked in his face at the beach. Their purpose in the film is not to glorify pop culture but to demonstrate how the bulked-up male body image was transmitted to adolescent and even pre-pubescent boys of Chris Bell's generation. Now, of course, it's The Hulk in the movies or Usain Bolt in the Olympics or just the lure of the eight-figure professional sports salary.
The beauty of Bell's film is it's crushing personal impact on his own life and that of his two brothers, Mark (the older) and Mike (the younger), along with their parents. Pudgy kids growing up in Poughkeepsie (NY) with a mother who equated food with love, the three boys suffered the early indignities and name-calling from their schoolmates until they discovered body-building. They began with home wrestling, mimicking what they saw on television and graduating first to a Hulk Hogan set of weights. High school weightlifting and football graduated to collegiate level and, at least for Mike and Mark, entry into the professional wrestling and power-lifting worlds. Along the way, they also entered the world of steroid use. Chris, the most successful weightlifter of the three at high school age, found himself morally repulsed by steroids despite his brothers' use; he opens his own gym rather than follow their competitive pursuits.
This difference between his own attitude and that of his brothers creates the spark that leads Chris into this examination of steroids and sports. Along the way, Bell talks to doctors and congressmen, athletes (including sprinters Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis and cyclist Floyd Landis), cattle ranchers (who parade before him a bull that is doubtless one of the most horrific, genetically-engineered animal mutations imaginable), the publisher of a body-building magazine, and Don Hooton, whose high-school-aged son Taylor committed suicide after he stopped using steroids. Bell goes to fair lengths to present both sides of the "steroids question," both in medical terms as well as what it means in terms of fair competition. Medically, he leaves the impression that questions of danger (brain cancer, `roid rage, etc.) are unresolved, and he remains equally ambiguous regarding the ethical questions surrounding the use of chemical enhancers in sports.
These are not, however, Chris Bell's true concerns; his movie is far more human than that. In the example of his own two brothers, Bell confronts us with the question of male body image and their respective addictions - not to the steroids, but to their physique. One cannot escape the notion that both are endlessly chasing a chimera, reaching for an Olympian god goal that can never be met even as their wives/girlfriends stand helplessly by, watching their obsessions. Bell's parents are equally unable to explain the obsession. However, when he catches them on camera breathlessly celebrating one of their son's power lifting triumphs, Bell has really captured the essence of the question - we can even sacrifice our own children as long as they can be winners, no matter the cost.
Chris Bell cleverly sets off his own family's steroid issues against the greater societal questions in the same matter, a stylistic approach that gives the movie depth and context as well as an almost uncomfortable (but very effective) intimacy. Never in the movie is this so clearly portrayed as in the riveting moments when Chris, while interviewing his mother, informs her that her sons' first steroid supplier was their uncle, her brother. Mr. Bell may not be able to provide many answers, but he is surely asking an awful lot of the right questions.
Summary of Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. We reward speed, size and above all else: winning ? at sport, at business and at war. Metaphorically we are a nation on steroids. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs?From the producers of Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 comes a new film that unflinchingly explores our win-at-all-cost culture through the lens of a personal journey. Blending comedy and pathos, BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER* is a collision of pop culture and first-person narrative, with a diverse cast including US Congressmen, professional athletes, medical experts and everyday gym rats.
At its heart, this is the story of director Christopher Bell and his two brothers, who grew up idolizing muscular giants like Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and who went on to become members of the steroid-subculture in an effort to realize their American dream. When you discover that your heroes have all broken the rules, do you follow the rules, or do you follow your heroes?
Pop culture junkies tend to think of Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as entertainment figures. In Poughkeepsie, NY, back in the 1980s, filmmaker Christopher Bell and his brothers viewed them as heroes and became bodybuilders. Like the Hulkster, Mike and Mark Bell even turned to professional wrestling. Chris, a former staffer at Venice's famous Gold's Gym, doesn't use anabolic steroids--he did try them once--but his heroes have and his brothers do, leading him to look deeper at this increasingly common practice. While Bell explores the health costs of juicing, he's mostly concerned with the moral consequences involved in the use of performance-enhancing substances. Though he refrains from judgment, he stopped taking steroids because it felt dishonest. Naturally, his burly brothers feel otherwise. Aside from his family, Bell speaks with doctors, lawyers, congressmen, gym rats, and professional athletes, like Olympic sprinters Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis and Tour de France cyclist Floyd Landis. He also includes footage of José Canseco, Barry Bonds, and Mark McGwire testifying during the federal grand jury and congressional hearings on steroid use in the major leagues (prompted by the publication of Canseco's Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big). For the most part, Bell doesn't leave any stone unturned and the personal nature of his entertaining and enlightening inquiry elevates Bigger, Stronger, Faster, i.e. The Side Effects of Being American, above your average exposé. Recommended to athletes, sports fans, health nuts, and of course, pop culture junkies. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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