Requiem for a Heavyweight:"Mountain Rivera was no punk. Mountain Rivera was almost the Heavyweight Champion of the World! "

Ralph Nelson's Requiem for a Heavyweight, returns us to the more traditional boxing movie. It focuses on the arc of a boxer after leaving the ring, but contains many of the same thematic elements of a boxing film. Economic stagnation and exploitation, the difference between real and fake, entertainment and sport, etc.

One of the most important parts of this film is the interactions Mountain has with other people. His developing relationship with the unemployment worker, and his established relationship with his manager, have amazing influence on his decisions. Having the betrayal of the boxer come from a person who he believes to have his best interests at heart is an interesting change-up from the typical boxing tropes. This is especially unique when Mountain decides for himself to wrestle, in order to save his manager from the mob, another typical boxing trope. This shift sheds some light on why boxers are so easily exploited, often, because of their limited education, young introduction to the sport, intense relationships with their coaches, or other reasons, they cannot see the harm that these important figures in their lives are causing.

Grace Miller's efforts to lift Mountain out of his unemployment, though unfortunately fruitless, end the film on a bittersweet note. The film chastises those who keep people down for their own self-interest, and one gets the idea that Grace would be successful if not for Maish. Grace has hope where others see only a source of money to be extracted until it runs out, without consideration for his dis-figuration, lack of education, or employment, Grace fought to seek employment for Mountain, and although it was undone my Maish, the existence of Grace is enough to be hopeful.

Fight Club:"SIR! THE FIRST RULE OF PROJECT MAYHEM IS....."

David Fincher's Fight Club is a quintessential generation X movie. Teen angst on a global scale, the characters lament for days gone by when men were men and blowing up skyscrapers was a cool solution to societies problems(stick it to the man)! Addressing a sort of societal rebellion against the dehumanizing, emasculating effect modern civilization has on humans, who adapt much more slowly than we'd like to think(thanks biology).

Fight club's premise confronts many issues simultaneously it's a little hard to keep track of them. I'd almost need a second personality to manage all these themes(*wink*). Right of the bat you have economic distress of the lower-middle class, a theme this film shares with the classic boxing films of yore. The hotly debated relationship between gender and society, in this case, examining a population of men forced to define their own masculinity in a society tries to suppress it. It addresses the shift in family structures that resulted from the combination of women's liberation, continuing societal pressure to marry, peer pressure to be promiscuous, etc, and it's effect on a generation raised without a "traditional" family. It explores the phenomenon of settling for mediocrity, criticizes the cultural institutions that prevent us from achieving our full potential, as well as addressing the intrinsic ones.

Fight club rejects the idea that longevity should be a priority in life. Rejects the industrial influence on our society that created a generation of unambitious, middle-achieving, long-lived obedient drones, and challenges us as a society to rethink our priorities. If we are not happy or in the process of achieving happiness then what are we even doing? It flips the status quo on it's head and asks not if "fight club" is good for society, but if society, but if society is good for humans. It is easy to get caught up in our modern world, with no room for any outside experience's it is easy to forget, or never now of anything different, creating a sort of bliss-through-ignorance that has been explored since Plato's Allegory of the Cave all the way to Fight Club and The Matrix.

 

The Wrestler: "The only place I get hurt is out there. The world don't give a shit about me"

 Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler may not be a literal "boxing" film, but "wrestling" shares many similarities with boxing and other combat sports. These similarities between the sports, and the arc of the character this film follows allows us to further abstract the true nature of a boxing film, or maybe it would be more accurate to define a more general genre. Arena films maybe?

To extract  what this film has to say about the boxing film genre, we must first observe the film through the lens of a boxing film, and unsurprisingly, many of the main elements of a typical boxing film are present. Our protagonist begins the film just steps away from poverty. The films intro hints at a past successful wrestling career, which we later find out was not able to secure Randy a comfortable retirement. Already the film is touching upon the exploitative nature of the entertainment industry, especially in such a physically demanding sport.

The film is not specifically criticizing wrestling however, Randy's other job at a warehouse, appears to be just as painful to his aging, broken body, and the film seems to be associating both lines of work with each other, letting the audience's empathy for Randy lead them to question the ethics of work where people trade their bodies for money. Randy's love interest Cassidy, also quite literally does this as her profession, in a bit of heavy-handed character-building.

The goal of this film, as with any film, is to transport the audience into the mind of the subject. Film, being the visual medium that it is, allows us to see what we otherwise would not. Some of the most successful genre's in film are able to trace their success to their depiction of the uncommon, the strange, the unknown. Documentaries, horror films, superhero films, etc explore the uncommon, or the common from an uncommon, sometimes disconcerting angle. The boxing film genre, and it's relatives, explore an increasingly rare , yet increasingly relate-able subject. Randy the Ram, is, like many of his predecessors, a hard-worker, physically talented, and has a bit of an ego. But he and other subjects of these films often lack an ability to adapt, depending on the film this ability may be a lack of will, or a character flaw, or even a lack of opportunity. In Randy's case, he may just have gotten too old. Like the institutionalized Brooks from The Shawshank Redemption, the world moved on to quickly for Randy to keep up with while wrapped up in his career. The film includes an important scene that highlights this concept when Randy plays video games with a local kid, who seems disinterested in the old games and talks about the new Call of Duty. Randy does the best he can do with what he has, but as his life reaches it's end, his body is worn out, but it's still the only thing he can make money on.The idea of a person or class of persons "forgotten" by society is not new. But as the pace of technological and social change increase, many people are beginning to feel left out.

The film, as well as exploring the concept of physical exploitation in the modern world, implores us to sympathize with Randy, and those like him. Randy built the foundation of his career on the entertainment value of destructive behavior, and while it may be tempting to condemn him to his fate for poor planning, it would take a real heartless bastard to watch the final scene of the film, and not wish Cassidy or someone would run out and stop Randy from destroying himself. People like Randy lived and thrived on the capabilities of their young bodies, but as they age, the combination of decreasing ability and limited opportunities outside of physical labor leaves people feeling useless, helpless, and hopeless. The film presents an alternative life for Randy, with family and love and hope, but it is not to be. The pride of Randy, and men like him who built their lives with their hands and bodies is large and easy to wound, and would never accept a life of working behind a deli-counter. The nostalgia, the damaged pride, and the embered hope inside of Randy is particularly relevant recently in the wake of a political movement with the motto: "Make America Great Again". The film places a lot of emphasis on Randy's "finishing move", I find it quite fitting that the film uses the action that implicitly gave Randy his past success, and likely resulted in his current physical state, would also deliver his untimely end.