Boxing Movies

Let me start by saying I live with a paradox.  I hate boxing.  It is an awful, brutal sport.  Everything about it is depressing and demeaning, and I think crooked and corrupt. 

The other side of the paradox is that boxing movies fascinate me.  Are there any bad ones?  I recently watched two, Requiem for a Heavyweight and The Setup.  I have not ever seen the one considered the best, Raging Bull (I tried, but the domestic violence in it was upsetting, and I will be the first to admit that there are some movies I just can’t watch because of violence, extreme sexuality, and blasphemy), and there are a few others I have missed.  But the two recently watched ones, along with Cinderella Man, and Rocky (the fighting in that one is a bit cartoonish), and Million-Dollar Baby are great drama.

Why does boxing draw filmmakers to make such good movies?  I think it has to do with the sport’s logistics.  It’s one man against another, wearing nothing but a pair of trunks, shoes, and padded gloves.  Being a boxer is physically and emotionally grueling, but it doesn’t attract the elites of society.  It’s a common man, Everyman sport.  The fighters do their deeds in a tiny “ring” (square?), perfect for closeups.  It’s not a particularly noble sport—I mean, you are trying your best to knock the other person unconscious, so what kind of person psychologically is drawn to that? 

The boxers are surrounded by a crowd trying to encourage one man to hurt the other—how emblematic of society is that, especially American society, built on competition? The crowd seems hardened to what they are watching, the pain the fighters are going through—they just want a show. On top of that, the people behind the scenes—the managers, the sponsors, the gamblers—make for tension.  Anyone who loves the fighter—usually the faithful wife, sometimes the weathered manager or trainer—has to stand by and watch the suffering. 

And of course there is the long-term damage to the boxer.  That is the theme of Requiem for a Heavyweight.   Like Death of a Salesman, boxing movies are often about the remains of a life spent in something the person loved, or at least tried to love in order to make a living or because he/she thought it was all he/she could do.  That is a theme in Million Dollar Baby, where the young woman believes that is all she is good at and doesn’t even get that approbation from her redneck family.  What does a boxer do when he/she can no longer fight?  What does anyone do when he/she can no longer do what defines one’s life?  An ultimate question. 

A friend of mine lost her voice due to the early stages of a terminal illness, although she didn’t die for two years.  She was a teacher, as I am—not having a voice is unimaginable.  I could still write, and would, but perhaps would become quite depressed if I couldn’t be in the classroom.  In many boxing movies, there are usually no other options for the washed-up boxer—taking them to the level of Greek tragedy, in some ways.  In Requiem, the boxer becomes, despite all his moral objections, a “professional wrestler” where he has to pretend to lose—“I never took a dive!” he says.  But circumstances (his manager’s gambling) push him to it due to the boxer’s flaw, his loyalty to the manager.  In Million Dollar Baby, she wants to commit suicide but can’t, so her manager does it for her.  Many Christians protested that movie’s end, but I thought it made sense and was not done maliciously or flippantly done. 

Yes, a good boxing movie is a Greek tragedy.  Maybe one day I’ll be able to sit through Raging Bull.