Weeks later, opening ceremony still has an effect

I fired up the DVR and watched the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony for the first time Thursday morning.

Actually, I covered the ceremony live Aug. 8 at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing but that wasn’t the same as watching it.

I knew that as soon as I felt a tear below my eyes.

There was also moisture on my face when I was in the Bird’s Nest.

It was the sweat that would go on to soak my shirt during what would become the most uncomfortable five hours I ever have spent.

The oppressive heat and humidity in the airless stadium were among the reasons why I only got a piece of the picture(s) NBC presented so wonderfully.

It was simply too sweltering to concentrate completely on what was happening in front of me.

And my attention also was distracted by having to feed the ever-hungry stomach of the Internet, a situation which, for better or for worse, has turned most of us into typists rather that observers with time to make sense of what we see. So, as a reader pointed out, I inaccurately described Li Ning’s cauldron lighting jaunt as having mimed walking rather than running, when it was clear after seeing it again that Li was reenacting the global torch run relay as he circled the circumference of the stadium right below its roof.

But I realized about 20 minutes into watching the ceremony in the recorded version that even if I hadn’t been hot and I hadn’t been working, I still would have seen and understood much less than what every TV viewer could.

I have been to 14 Olympics (and 13 opening ceremonies). Never has one been so skillfully directed and choreographed as a TV production than the Beijing ceremony.

The live stadium audience of 91,000 was irrelevant, except to add background noise (claps, cheers, oohs and aahs) to the TV sound track. This was a ceremony brilliantly created for the TV screens of China’s 1.3 billion people and the world’s other 5.3 billion.

NBC did a terrific job of using all its resources – overhead shots, wide shots, close-ups – to make the show compelling, especially the cultural part. And its China analyst, Joshua Cooper Ramo, gave understated and clear explanations of what the segments of the program meant.

(Yes, NBC should have noted he is an employee of Kissinger Associates, as Harper’s and the Albuquerque Journal reported. I had learned that before I watched the telecast and his commentary did not bother me as much as it did the website, undiplomatic.net. I mean, did you expect NBC to spend 3 1/2 hours bashing China for its deplorable human rights record? At least Bob Costas called China’s decision to withdraw a visa from Olympic champion and humanitarian Joey Cheek “outrageous,” which was way more than the spineless U.S. Olympic Committee leadership would do when the Cheek issue arose. Costas and Matt Lauer were mostly silent, which was another thing I enjoyed about the telecast, since both could make you cringe, especially when Costas described the likelihood that a misstep in one mass exercise would lead to “craniums cracking at high speed.” Costas also called Polish swimmer Otylia Jedrzejczak a “national hero” and “big star for Poland” without mentioning she is lucky to be out of jail after her reckless driving led to a 2005 accident that killed her then 19-year-old brother.)

I still have one major bone to pick with NBC. While it pointed out famous athletes in nearly every delegation during the parade of nations (seeing the huge smile on Rafael Nadal’s face was a stunning example of what the Olympians can mean to even the highest-paid professionals), it named only flag bearer Yao Ming among the host country’s 639 athletes (not all of whom marched). Those athletes would win a Games-leading 51 gold (and 100 total) medals, and Yao was the only one NBC could identify? That was tantamount to saying, “Oh, you know, those 1.3 billion Chinese, they are just a faceless horde.”

The irony is the close-ups NBC had of Yao with his parade companion, 9-year-old Sichuan earthquake survivor and rescuer Lin Hao, showed the basketball player’s individual humanity so clearly, giving the world a view of how compassionate one big man could act toward one little boy.

My cheek was moist again.