Is 'Raging Bull' the greatest boxing movie?

Author: Christina Newland

Translator: Issac

Proofreading: Yi Ersan

Source: Criterion (22 July 2022)

What would a movie look like without boxing ?

Think of everything we might have missed: energetic grace and straight-to-the-door brutality, ostentatious machismo and tender brotherhood, clever montages in Raging Bull , and John ·The suffocating despair in Houston 's Fucheng . Shouting " Ali , take him down" and the villain who broke Robert Ryan's hand in the back alley in "The Fleshman".

Raging Bull

on issues of masculinity, violence, exploitation, race and ethics. uppercuts , fakes, and punches delivered by pans, pushes, and jump cuts.

The boxing film, in all its iterations, is closely intertwined with American culture, twentieth-century politics, and evolving filmmaking techniques. Edison invented the first movie projector when the modern sport of boxing was just taking shape in the United States.

In the early decades of the film, bare-handed underground boxing gave way to legal, commercial boxing, and gloves made boxing more pleasing to the eye.

In 1897, one of the longest boxing movie commercials was used between Gentleman Jim and Bob Fitzsimmons A four-reel heavyweight boxing bout — asking viewers to come and witness "two of the greatest new things of the century."

James J. Corbett

As time goes by, this statement becomes biased - neither boxing nor movies are mere novelties.

Long before Errol Flynn played Corbett in Gentleman Jim (1942), Thomas Edison called him "the oldest living movie star".

Gentleman Jim

With the rise of Dadaism, these stories and characters are intertwined with the earliest film censorship in America and the Jim Crow era. period), crippled by anti-communist witch hunts, and accompanied by cinematic innovations such as the innovative use of Steadicam in Rocky (1976).

"Rocky" work photos

This shared history begs the question: who came first, the boxer who turned into a movie star or the movie star who turned into a professional boxer?

Boxers of the early to mid-twentieth century had distinctive physical characteristics—strong, muscular, broad-shouldered, but far less muscular, handsome youth than the systematically trained modern athlete represented—which was in contrast to those in the third and fourth century. The protagonists of the decade are strikingly similar: the lowly centred, fierce-eyed street teens of the past like James Cagney, or the oval-faced, flat-nosed handsome guys like John Garfield. Of course, both are professional boxers.

Boxing and entertainment come together: athletes who have become the epitome of pop culture, films based on real people, and even biopics in which the boxer plays himself.

From Mike Tyson in "The Hangover" (2009), to Muhammad Ali 's various documentaries on air. From Primo Carnella to Max Bell , and even more people have guest starred in movies when they were very popular.

"The Hangover"

Before the name change, Cassius Clay appeared for a few minutes in the subjective shot at the opening of the exciting "A Boxer's Elegy" (1962), punching tirelessly at the camera . Perhaps the most telling story is that heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey — one of the most famous figures of the 1920s — was once asked by his agent to have a nose job in order to face all the publicity footage at work.

"The Boxer's Elegy"

For decades, fictional and non-fiction, the sport's storied history, great characters, and damned contradictions have proven perfect for storytelling. The tropes of boxing movies are all too familiar: leather gloves and ropes, men huddled into defensive positions in black-and-white images on TV, fighters, red-lipped beauties and journalists screaming at the ringside.

Although -- or possibly because -- this type of trope is familiar, it's a topic that's good at relating to other things. Boxing can provide an opportunity for "safe" racial revenge against white power; it can give one a scramble for a place in American high society in a cruel and unforgiving world. So, when director Walter Hill commented on his 2002 film The Ultimate Fighter , "It's actually about boxing, not metaphor."

The Ultimate Fighter

adds On the simple triumphalist end, there are mid-century biopics. The protagonists of these films are almost invariably white. Robert Wise 's "Looking Back at the Shore" (1956) tells Rocky Graziano's unusually optimistic story that ends before Graziano has time to lose again.

Back to the Shore

Raoul Walsh The adventurous old school 'Gentleman Jim' stars Errol Flynn as Gentleman Jim Corbett, Bob Dylan fans may learn from him Heard this name in the song "Hurricane". (The film also holds the distinction of being said to be Mike Tyson's favorite.) These films examine the masculinity of the protagonist, growing from a ghetto boxer to a modern-day gladiator, and see an optimistic path to upward mobility.

However, there are complexities and physical persecutions that go unacknowledged in these romanticized stories.

filmmakers also often shy away from triumphant glory, using the ring as a microcosm of some of the most violent inequities in capitalism. That’s the crux of many of the noirier boxing films of the period: the sport provided access to the cash-strapped, immigrants and working class, while also often exploiting their bodies as throwaways.

Mark Robson's "Take the Title" (1949), written by Carl Foreman, who was blacklisted by the Commission on Un-American Activities , tells the story of a man who will die at all costs in order to reach the top. The story of the champion in the ring, played by the ruthless, shovel-faced Kirk Douglas .

"Win the Championship"

is based on bad luckIn Primo Carnella's true story of The Uncrowned (1956, also directed by Robson), a moron lets thugs run his every duel and ends up covered in wounds and nothing. .

"The Uncrowned King"

In "The Fleshman" (1949), the control of the sport makes it impossible for workers to maintain their dignity and their lives.

"The Fleshman"

These films capture what Joyce Carroll Oates later said in her 1992 essay "The Cruelest Sport": A boxer is "in a In the antitrust-controlled monopoly , workers with meager pay, no unions, no benefits.”

Generally speaking, the makers of these films rarely oppose boxing; they mostly focus on the microcosm of class and exploitation. However, another unscreened ending of "Uncrowned King" explicitly had the protagonist advocate for an outright ban on the sport, a scene that was eventually removed and replaced with a more moderate call for reform.

"The Boxer's Elegy" screenwriter Rod Selling (former Army boxer) and producer of "Blind Time" interviews some able-bodied, homeless ex-boxers in real life Hand, which also looks like a full-blown condemnation of boxing.

"The Boxer's Elegy"

From the beginning, people have been against the sport and its screen image - because of its self-evident risk of brain damage and death, and also because it is always associated with organised crime hook up. As early as 1912, the film critic Frederick Talbot said contemptuously: "Of course a movie would be more meaningful, more profitable, and more interesting than a record of professional boxing."

Sometimes, The films don't seem to decide whether boxing is a metaphor for a chronic social ailment or a scourge of its own, ultimately scapegoating it and ignoring its contradictions. Perhaps the most appropriate response to such moralizing is to be skeptical.

As Uncrowned screenwriter Bud Schulberg put it in his adaptation of the film: "I accuse my friend Mark Robson of hating for hatred's sake without taking the time and Seeking trouble in art, like Dostoevsky trouble, first learning to love what he would destroy." Often, it's this ambivalence that Schulberg advocates , which makes this boxing film such a rich text: calling for a ban is hard to reconcile with such a subtle grey area.

The Uncrowned King

It is in this paradox that many great boxing films must exist, and fans of these films must learn to meet them. This difficult paradox is most effectively captured in the ESPN documentary "Fighting Ring: The Emile Griffith Story" (2005), directed by Dan Clores and Ron Berger. It tells the story of two professional welterweight fighters in the early 1960s, Benny Parrett and Emile Griffith, who both grew up in poor and combative environments in the Caribbean.

In 1962, they had their third title fight at Madison Square Garden . Griffith is an out-of-the-closet bisexual who struggles to keep silent about his sexuality under cultural and professional pressure; Parrett whispers in Griffith's ear before the fight begins Homophobic words. Uncontrolled rage, or something like that, gave Griffith the power to bring down Paret that night, but neither of them realized it would end in Paret's death.

"Passion Fist"The Field chronicles the events of the ensuing decades, culminating in a scene in which an elderly Griffith reconciles with the family of the man he accidentally killed. The heartbreaking question of how boxing exploits masculinity and socially sanctioned male violence - and whether it confirms these things, or just provides a stage for its existing sophistication - is less about the An indictment of the sport, rather a thorough examination of its extremes.

The Ring of Passion: The Emile Griffith Story

While boxing films are sceptical about labor exploitation, it rarely touches on race. Historically, the absence of black characters in boxing movies is notable, at least for the most part - despite the Jack Johnson backlash and Sonny Liston's ferocity injected into the sport vitality.

With a few pre-1960 exceptions (Canadali's standout role in "The Invincible" was one of them), Hollywood glorified a sport that was increasingly dominated by black fighters. In Joe Louis 's eleven years as a heavyweight, not a single boxing movie made by a major studio featured a black person. When the narrative poem "The Fleshman" written by Joseph Muncul March was brought to the screen, the black hero was replaced with a white hero, although other elements of the film about the fighting game showed a disconnect realism.

March pointed out that Hollywood " sidesteps the whole basic problem of discriminating against blacks ... Hollywood's attitude towards blacks in films is often determined by the box office factor: they are afraid of losing money in the segregated South." Combining forces—including the civil rights movement, the birth of real cinema, and the revolution of Muhammad Ali who single-handedly started—race took center stage on the movement’s screens.

In the subsequent wave of movies, Ali showed extraordinary appeal and heroic spirit, and his charisma is no less than that of most movie stars. The best films about Ali don't shy away from the fact that he was a longtime civil rights activist, member of the Nation of Islam, and conscientiously opposed to the Vietnam War, but His catchphrase has never been more exciting than The King of Fighters (1996), filmed before his 1974 duel with George Foreman in Kinshasa.

"The King of Fighters"

The so-called "Battle of the Jungle" is the focus of the world's media, and Ali did not waste time, proclaiming himself to be the hero of the people of Zaire, although he knew in private that the pressure was huge, he won The chances are nowhere near as great as he pretends.

Heroism is more important to Mike Tyson, who has amazing strength and an almost insane breath of rage. In 1993, boxer Tyson was sentenced to prison for rape, Barbara Cople filmed this 1993 documentary "Falling Champion: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson" for The necessary corrections were provided by his numerous defenders, who spent years helping to restore Tyson's reputation to the public.

"The Fallen Champion: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson"

However, Cople also maintains deep empathy for Tyson's difficult upbringing, seeing him as more than just a symbol of exploitation, But a complex, vulnerable, and often frightening person.

Copley put these two facts together without trying to influence the course of events, including often conflicting opinions from Tyson's former coach, friend and Tyson's victim Desiree Washington. Sometimes, some of the themes of this documentary are even classLike a Hollywood novel: The unscrupulous Don King plays the dark pusher, and Tyson's ex-wife Robin Givens plays the femme fatale.

Despite the complex psychology of "The Fallen Champion," at the end of the day, Cople was more interested in exploring how Tyson's actions affected American society, from the white public's schadenfreude over his downfall to the black women's support group Discuss how their voices are muted in conversation.

Martin Scorsese is a master of deep machismo anti-heroes who claimed to know nothing about boxing when he started filming Raging Bull (1980), only to be caught by Robert De Niro entangled before agreeing to tell Jack LaMotta story.

​​"Raging Bull"

While LaMotta is a middleweight world champion, in "Raging Bull," the victory is ultimately hollow: it's about the male ego, domestic violence, and broken brotherhood Movie, like it's a movie about any sport. The film was partly inspired by Lucino Visconti's The Roco Brothers (1960), another boxing epic about brotherhood and betrayal.

Roco Brothers

LaMotta's violence is more destructive outside the ring than inside, especially when he uses the ring to purify his bestial rage. (“He’s not charming anymore,” someone complained on the ringside for roughing up an opponent his wife thought was handsome.) His love for his wife Vicky ( Kathy Moratti) Sexual jealousy seems to be the source of this wild impulse, and he even blatantly abuses her.

Scorsese draws a powerful visual analogy between LaMotta's psychosexual distress and organized violence in sports. Remember how a ice cube melted under Jack's belly button while he was lying in bed with Vicky? The blood that was washed off his belt during a boxing match is reminiscent of the scene. His embrace of a woman is implicitly linked to his violent behavior toward a competitor.

Homosexual slurs abound in this disturbing fictional work that echoes the true story of The Ring: Jack told his brother Joey that he 'punches like a spanking in the ass' ". There's a disturbing sense that all is not well in the world of Angry Bull's gender relations, and it articulates heterosexual men's anxieties about sex and sexuality in a way that goes straight to the point of male machismo. Deep-rooted depravity.

​​"Raging Bull"

As long as fighting games persist, its on-screen portrayal will carry weight because of its ability to translate our perceptions, fears, and obsessions into the physical form of a gladiator, all of which exist in the microcosm of boxing middle. Between these ropes, the stories it carries are tragic, triumphant, disturbing and varied.

or are their appeals really something more original? As Tyson's former trainer Teddy Atlas once said, "Everyone's an asshole. They want to see dark things." Maybe that's why after it's been thrown forever into the bad old days, We still can't shake its screen story from memory.