The 1996 Atlanta Olympics has been covered extensively by news media and historical documents alike. Whether that be coverage of amazing athletic feats, of the terrible terrorist attack in Centennial Olympic Park, or of activists’ opposition to the Games in Atlanta, numerous stories and perspectives have been shared through the years.
With “The Games in Black & White,” filmmakers Bob Judson and George Hirthler aim to shine a light on the partnership that brought the Olympic Games to Atlanta in the first place – that between businessman Billy Payne and Civil Rights icon Andrew Young. The film is playing at this year’s Atlanta Film Festival on April 26 at the Rialto Center for the Arts.
“We decided to do a comprehensive look at the bid, the Games, and the legacy in three parts,” Hirthler said. “And we realized right away that the best story of those Games was the untold story of the Billy Payne and Andy Young partnership and the friendship that endures to this day.”
Hirthler has made a career out of the Olympics, serving as an Olympic bid writer for multiple Games (including for Atlanta), and writing a book about the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin, called “The Idealist.” It was through “The Idealist” that Hirthler was able to connect with Judson. The two had known each other since the 1980s, but when the film rights for his novel sold, Hirthler hadn’t spoken with Judson in a few years.
Hirthler called up Judson, a film producer, wanting to brush up on the finer points of film production. But the conversation led to something bigger. The two men founded Atlanta Story Partners in 2019 and decided to make the documentary “The Games in Black & White,” focusing on Payne and Young’s partnership as well as other social issues, such as the ways in which the 1996 Olympics expanded women athletes’ participation in the Games.
Hirthler had a previous relationship with both Young and Payne, so getting the two men on board was not difficult, he said. Once that duo was involved, they helped facilitate other interviews with people connected to the 1996 Games. They held their first interview on Jan. 7, 2020, and were able to fit in about 17 before the COVID-19 pandemic put a pause on production.
“We, as everybody else did, hunkered down, and never put out of our minds that we wanted to do this film,” Judson said. “So when we all emerged from the stupor, we aggressively started up the effort again.”
When all was said and done, the duo held roughly 40 interviews for the documentary, speaking with Atlanta figures like former Mayor Shirley Franklin and Martin Luther King III. Music producer Dallas Austin also contributed to the film, sitting for an interview and releasing an original song for the film called “City too Busy to Hate,” a reference to the city of Atlanta’s slogan during the Civil Rights movement.
“We had a good, solid story we wanted to tell, and it’s a linear story,” Judson said. “You’re going to develop characters and characterizations in these stories, and we selected the cast of characters that would support the story arcs in George’s script.”
The selection of Atlanta for the 1996 Olympic Games came as a bit of a shock. When Payne and Young first teamed up, it seemed like an impossible task. 1996 was the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games, which were first held in Athens, Greece in 1896. Returning to Athens seemed like the natural choice.
Hirthler said they made sure to bring in interviewees who didn’t think Payne and Young would succeed to enforce what exactly they achieved in bringing the Games to Atlanta.
“All of them said, ‘We didn’t think that they could possibly win,’” Hirthler said. “‘Because we didn’t think Andy and Billy would get along.’ Of course, they did.”
The documentary features a heavy focus on the differences between Payne and Young, from their political beliefs to their races. Those differences parallel with the documentary’s focus on the importance of Atlanta’s Civil Rights’ history in winning the big.
“Without our Civil Rights heritage, the Olympic bid would not have been as successful. We might have won, who knows?” Hirthler said. “But Billy and Andy – a white man and a Black man – embodied and were emblematic of Atlanta’s progressive race relation environment.”
