Pumping Iron (1977)

Directed by George Butler, Robert Fiore. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno

With skin stretched tight over bulging muscle, the bodies are inhuman in size, at once fascinating and grotesque. Pumping Iron is credited with launching bodybuilding into the American mainstream — 40 years later, the physiques on display are still shocking.

Directors George Butler and Robert Fiore filmed the documentary in the lead up to at the 1975 Mr Universe amateur bodybuilding contest and the Mr Olympia competition for professionals. Arnold Schwarzenegger is reigning Mr Olympia and while not yet a household name, clearly his star is on the rise. He’s filmed at a magazine photoshoot, smiling as the photographer positions bikini-clad models at his feet. He visits a prison and flexes his muscles for the inmates. “He has a beautiful body,” one says, in awe.

His challenger for the title Lou Ferrigno is an entirely different sort of character. Where a gap-toothed Schwarzenegger is charming and ruthless, the younger man is quiet, dour and determined. Trained by his former policeman father Matty in Brooklyn, New York, hearing-impaired Ferrigno is determined to defeat bodybuilding’s poster boy in Schwarzenegger’s last ever Mr Olympia competition.

Part of Pumping Iron’s appeal is as a snapshot of a young Schwarzenegger in his element as king of the bodybuilding world, before he starred in blockbuster films or became governor of California. Fairly candid interviews offer an insight into his family life, why he took up the sport and some of the vanity and arrogance that helped keep him on top.

But Pumping Iron also fulfils one of the essential demands of documentary cinema, to take its audience into a different world and make them care about it. While perhaps a little slower in pace than viewers more used to modern documentaries might expect, the film is beautifully shot and its characters are clearly and cleverly drawn.