Why do you think a lot of North American sports teams who look at these players as benchmarks and examples haven’t adopted some of these principles?
Gabe Polsky: They are now, kind of. The NHL’s starting to, but these [Soviet] guys were 40 years ahead of everybody. Now, in the last 10 years, [the league is] starting to apply all these old Soviet techniques. It took a while, though. Now, with globalization, people will look for any way to get an edge.
Does the Russian national team today go by the same philosophy?
Gabe Polsky: I think that there is this sort of leftover ideology, training and skill development. But it’s not as strong as it used to be. It’s a very diffused version, like a weaker version of what they had [30 years ago]. There’s no collective training. You’re training the individual, not the team. They train these individuals to go become stars in the NHL but they’re not great together [as a team], you know?
But, it’s that idea of teamwork seems so ingrained to American and Canadian sports. It’s a prominent thing to enforce in a team game.
Gabe Polsky: It’s interesting. In North America, it’s always about how, “There’s no ‘I’ in team.” Inherently in sports, there’s this sort of Communist idea that we’re all equal is there. In team sports, you need that in order to win championships. But… the difference philosophically is the creativity. Here, it’s more about winning together. But it’s never about taking the game to a whole other level.
How did Werner Herzog come onboard to the project?
Gabe Polsky: I had worked with him on Bad Lieutenant, a film I was a producer on. I maintained a relationship with him. When I was almost done with the movie, I screened it for him and he reacted very positively. I talked through it and I had maybe one more cut, but he was just incredibly encouraging about the project. Ultimately, I decided that having him involved could help elevate the project, based on my experience in the past. Not having that kind of credibility sometimes can hurt. I was honored to have him involved as well, and he said he felt honored to be involved too.
How did he steer the project and what advice did he give you?
Gabe Polsky: He was just incredibly positive about it. As a filmmaker, you might be a little reluctant. You might not think that you’re quite there yet or you’re a little insecure about it. He was very reassuring about the quality of the film. He was guiding me afterward… which festival should I take it? Who should I speak to? He leads by example. He’s just overall an inspiring guy. He’s not a guy that sits down and says, “Gabe, here’s what you got to do: one, two, three, four.” I just watch him and you get it. He makes the most challenging movies and he just keeps going every day.
The sports documentary is such a prolific genre. Were there any that you watched as inspiration?
Gabe Polsky: No. I’ve watched quite a bit of them, but from the very beginning, I didn’t want this to be in the sports documentary genre. I don’t like that. I don’t like being a part of 30 For 30 or HBO Sports. I’m not talking down on them. They have their thing and they do some good docs. But I wanted this thing to feel like something else. This movie wasn’t just for sports people. I knew that [the sports documentary] has a very limited audience. As soon as you say ‘hockey movie,’ you’re done. It’s more about the people and their relationships. I just wanted to make a timeless movie.
That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank Gabe very much for his time. Be sure to check out Red Army when it hits theatres in January 2015.
