America loves boxing movies’ triumphalism, but in the end, we’re all TKO
In 1895 and 1896, the first motion pictures drew curious viewers with short snippets of ordinary life: a train pulling into a station, workers leaving a factory, a baby being fed. But by 1897 director Enoch J. Rector was feeding the public’s new cinematic hunger with moving images of legalized mayhem: Bob Fitzsimmons’ defeat of James J. Corbett for the heavyweight championship. Long before George Foreman tasted his first bite of barbecue, boxing movies were attracting bigger gates than boxing matches.
Football, hockey, and auto racing are hazardous activities, but boxing is the only major sport in which success is determined by one’s ability to disable the opponent physically, totally. Questions about whether it is indeed a sport rather than compensated cruelty have led to prohibition at different times in different places. But they also add to boxing’s louche luster, the thrill of thumbing an imaginary pug nose at social propriety. Spectators share the secret, guilty fantasy that the next punch will be a death blow, transforming the festive event into a public execution. Ring of Fire, the recent USA Network documentary about how Emile Griffith pummeled Benny “the Kid” Paret to death on live TV in 1962, offered viewers the frisson of lethal violence even while deploring it.
Football – curt collisions among 22 padded, helmeted men – is a creature of TV, enhanced by chitchat, replays, commercials, halftime hoopla, and outings to the refrigerator and the toilet. Basketball, wealthy hulks bolting up and down between two nets, is cinematic monotony, like bowling, golf, and cricket. Perfect for the rhythms of radio and inspiration for literary treatment by Ring Lardner, Bernard Malamud, Mark Harris, W. P. Kinsella, and Robert Coover, baseball strikes out often on the screen. But boxing is an activity of magnified moments that thrives on closeup. It is the most fundamental of confrontations, one-on-one combat – sans bat, sans racket, sans helmet, sans shirt, sans anything but blood and guts to spew out on the canvas. If you seek elemental truth about a naked human being, look within a movie frame within a boxing ring.
| Boxers I have loved |
On the Waterfront (1954),
dir. Elia Kazan
Terry Malloy “could have been a contender,” but Elia Kazan’s stark drama about corruption and conscience on the New Jersey docks is a winner. Without any actual boxing footage, Brando crafts a compelling portrait of a nobody who, in or out of the ring, yearns to be somebody.
— Steven G. Kellman” news`1`=”Davy Gordon
(Jamie Smith)
Killer’s Kiss (1955),
dir. Stanley Kubrick
Gordon, as per the Kubrickian course, isn’t your typical boxer. Quiet and almost passive, he reserves his exertions for the ring. When Gordon does leap into non-competitive action in the film’s climax, he displays not only brute strength, but the ability to manipulate dress mannequins into weapons.
— Aaron Block” news`2`=”Rod Serling
producer and narrator,
The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)
Serling used to be a boxer before he went into television and several episodes of The Twilight Zone were boxer-oriented. An episode called “Steel,” with Lee Marvin, was about boxing in the future. In “The Big Tall Wish,” a little boy wishes so hard that his boxing hero will do well that his hopes start to take shape. Classic Serling!
— J. Michael Owen” news`3`=”Jake LaMotta
(Robert De Niro)
Raging Bull (1980),
dir. Martin Scorcese
Martin Scorsese crafted grand opera out of what he called “a straight, simple story, almost linear, of a guy attaining something and losing everything, and then redeeming himself.” To impersonate the middleweight champ, De Niro spent a year training with LaMotta. To portray him as chump, he infamously put on 50 pounds. This is the gold standard of cinematic boxing performances.
— Steven G. Kellman” news`4`=”Butch Coolidge
(Bruce Willis)
Pulp Fiction (1994),
dir. Quentin Tarantino
Willis’ Butch is the perfect example of the Quentonian Hero. He’s enough of a boxer to kill his opponent in the ring, but also apparently has the right moves in the sack, can operate a chopper, and wield a sword with deadly accuracy. Like any good Quentonian hero, Butch has the courage to escape from a system that tries to pull him under.
— Aaron Block” news`5`=”Rubin “Hurricane” Carter
(Denzel Washington)
The Hurricane (1999),
dir. Norman Jewison
Carter, who was wrongfully convicted of three murders and spent nearly 20 years in prison before being exonerated, proves his merit in how he handles himself and respects others. He’s determined: Once he lures you in, there’s no turning back until he’s got what he wants. He’s inspirational: It’s not only about himself; it’s about changing other’s perceptions.
By Kiko Martinez” //expand or shorten this list of messages as desired var fadescheme=1 //set 0 to fade bgcolor from (white to black), 1 for (black to white) var hex=(fadescheme==0)? 255 : 0 var startcolor=(fadescheme==0)? “rgb(255,255,255)” : “rgb(0,0,0)” var endcolor=(fadescheme==0)? “rgb(0,0,0)” : “rgb(255,255,255)” var frame=20; var ie=document.all var ns6=document.getElementById var ns4=document.layers i=0 tickerobject=ie? subtickertape: ns6? document.getElementById(“subtickertape”) : document.tickertape.document function regenerate(){ window.location.reload() } function regenerate2(){ if (document.layers) setTimeout(“window.onresize=regenerate”,450) } function bgcolorfade() { // 20 frames fading process if(frame>0) { hex=(fadescheme==0)? hex-12 : hex+12 // increase or decrease color value depd on fadescheme tickerobject.style.backgroundColor=”rgb(“+hex+”,”+hex+”,”+hex+”)”; // Set color value. frame–; setTimeout(“bgcolorfade()”,20); } else{ tickerobject.style.backgroundColor=endcolor; frame=20; hex=(fadescheme==0)? 255 : 0 } } function updatecontent(){ if (ie||ns6) bgcolorfade() if (ns4){ tickerobject.subtickertape.document.write(‘‘+news`i`+’‘) tickerobject.subtickertape.document.close() } else tickerobject.innerHTML=news`i` if (i
Boxing movies come in two varieties, victory and defeat. The original 1976 Rocky, itself the triumph of unheralded Sylvester Stallone over an industry wary of his acting and his script, is the quintessential upbeat boxing flick. With images of Stallone sprinting up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art accompanied by “Gonna Fly Now” burned into one’s brain, it is easy to forget that Rocky actually loses his match against champ Apollo Creed. Yet it is only a technical defeat. After lasting 15 brutal rounds, Rocky merely loses on points, while winning universal respect and the love of Adrian. It is the story of an underdog who holds his own at Westminster, and it is the recipe not only for Rocky’s moronic sequels but also for other movies that aim to win the hearts of audiences. See Hoosiers (basketball), The Replacements (football), Mystery, Alaska (hockey), and Breaking Away (bicycle racing) for examples of how Hollywood, emissary of triumphalist culture, has repackaged the formula.
Seabiscuit is another, and it would be accurate to describe the current boxing movie Cinderella Man as the story of a bipedal Seabiscuit. We are back in the Depression and another tattered also-ran, James J. Braddock, overcomes destitution to achieve improbable victory over the formidable Max Baer and fulfill the hopes of millions whom circumstances have knocked down though not out. Damon Runyon dubbed scrappy Braddock “Cinderella Man,” but so is every desperate immigrant – Irish, Italian, Jewish, Puerto Rican – or African American who has ever used his fists to lift himself, at least temporarily, out of misery a Cinderella Man.
Cinderella Man concludes in jubilation, with Braddock proclaimed champion. However, he was knocked out the first time he defended his title, in 1937. Had Ron Howard ended with a freeze of Braddock smashed off his feet by Joe Louis in the eighth round, he would have had a different, darker film. Million Dollar Baby appears to be a female Rocky, until Maggie Fitzgerald is abruptly crippled. The greatest boxing film, Raging Bull, begins and ends with bloated, pathetic Jake LaMotta reflecting on what was and what might have been. “I could have been a contender,” laments Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. “I could’ve been somebody!” Fat City, Body and Soul, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and other brooding boxing films illustrate how tenuous is the boundary between champ and chump. Reminding us that any victory is momentary, they are a meditation on mortality. No matter how many rounds we last, we never stand a chance. •
This article appears in Jun 1-7, 2005.