Gabe Polsky (born May 3, 1979) is an American film director, writer, and producer.
One ironic thing is that although (the Soviet Union) was one of the most oppressive systems, with no respect for the individual, it somehow produced the freest hockey on the planet. These guys, when they got on the ice, it was like watching jazz. They could do anything. I find that a paradox. It's interesting because I think the North American style was a lot less free. It was not encouraged to be creative.
I'm American and I wanted my friend and people to see ' Red Army'. I didn't want it to be a film for Russia, although I did show it there and they absolutely loved it.
I don't want to get into being too hockey centered, but I just felt like the late 70's and 80's into the 90's was the right time period to tell the story.
I speak a little bit of Russian.
I've had a lot of coaches in my life, but I've only had a few very good ones. So, I try to take from the best ones and apply those to what I do and think and with anyone I work with in terms of how to motivate people and work with them.
When people do something extraordinarily well, it's self-evident. It could be art. It could be a circus, whatever it is, where people are doing incredible things. It's self-evident. You know that it's beautiful. You know that it's very difficult, but it looks easy.
Sports is like literature. People watch it and if it's beautiful and it's non-violent, whatever messages that you see, people can read into it and say, "Wow! You know what? Whatever they're doing over there, it's extraordinary, and maybe that culture is superior to ours in certain ways. "
I'm writing and putting together my next few things. Even during the Red Army process, I've been writing and developing things, so that now that I'm done and with efforts supporting it throughout this process, I'm armed and ready to go with some things that I'm really passionate about.
There (in the Soviet Union) it was a science. In order to be a coach, you had to study in school.
Anatoli Tarasov, the guy that created the Soviet style of play, was a visionary. He was a creative thinker. He studied ballet and chess and art and read a lot.
When I looked into the story of Soviet hockey and its players, I realized that it has nothing to do with hockey. It was a larger story using hockey as a window into the story of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian people, with friendships and betrayals, paranoia and oppression, and the meaning of sports to people and nations around the world, and how sports was used as a political tool.
If people see North American hockey and they see violence and brutality and it's not so interesting, that sends a message too about your culture.
What I found interesting about Slava Fetisov was that he went through three different generations of Soviet hockey. In the late 70's, he experienced the Miracle on Ice, and then in the 80's became with his teammates the Russian Five, the most dominant team in the history of hockey, and then helped bring down the hockey system when the Soviet Union collapsed and became one of the first players to play in the NHL, and then ultimately came back to Russia.
People think, sports delivers a message. It's not just about winning and losing, although that's important. It's about other things, too. It demonstrates how it can say certain things about your culture and your society.