Biography Dox

Scenes from a black-and-white instructional film about tennis. The commentary explains that the players erroneously assumed that their demonstrations corresponded to the actual movements made in a match. This observation and Jean-Luc Godard’s statement that “Movies lie, not sports” taken from an interview with the L’Équipe sports magazine form the starting points for a study on the body and movement, on tennis and the cinema as reflected in analogue technology. It begins with a visit to the national sports archive, where celluloid treasures lie buried – 16 mm films about the performances of John McEnroe, a left-hander, at the Roland Garros Stadium. John McEnroe played against his notorious temper tantrums and covered them up at the same time.