TYSON: HEAVYWEIGHT'S HEAVY MEMORIES
August 25th 2009 07:45
You could easily imagine Mike Tyson as being any one of a number of things: a fearsome fighter; a reckless brute; a convicted criminal. His public life is seemingly a litany of aggression, some of it trained for, much of it not.
It’s perhaps harder to think of the former heavyweight champ as a talker, but talk he can. Tyson is in fact the Lloyd Dobbler of professional fighters, his mouth moving too slowly for the torrent of information trying to tumble out of it. He’s the guy entrenched in your kitchen at 3am, long after the rest of the party goers have gone home, eating room temperature hors d’oeuvres and wanting to chat about the deep stuff.
It’s that constant need to communicate that director James Toback has tapped into for his documentary, Tyson. Toback sets the camera up like an adversary, staring down its subject, and Tyson, trained to never look away from an opponent, talks like his life depended on it.
And you get the impression from Tyson that his life does depend on this documentary. It’s his chance to tell his story.
So he does, information pouring out of the man like he’s scared of the tape running out mid explanation, mid confession. He talks about his early life, surviving in the slums of Brooklyn, learning from an early humiliation to impose himself physically on others. Tyson’s realisation of his ability to outmuscle his street side competitors leads to a teenage life of petty crime, and eventually a place in juvenile detention.
But what would be the end of the line for any other young delinquent turned out to be a turning point for Tyson. He fell into boxing, and quickly came under the tutelage of Constantine ‘Cus’ D’Amato. D’Amato virtually adopted the young man, built his skill set, and helped create a modern sporting marvel.
It was D’Amato’s death in 1985 that Tyson now acknowledges as the beginning of his own descent. Without his beloved father figure, the newly crowned heavyweight champ fell into a troubled life of excess, eventually landing in jail for three years in the early 90s, convicted of statutory rape.
It’s fascinating stuff, watching Tyson muddle through his life, trying to put the pieces of his personal jigsaw into place. Toback is a true friend of Tyson’s and it shows - not because he’s easy on his subject, but because he doesn’t let Tyson avoid the more dangerous aspects of his own personality. The former champ admits to having trouble relating to women (although he still denies having raped Desiree Washington in 1991), and acknowledges his susceptibility to fits of unrestrained anger.
Iron Mike isn't afraid of self reflection in Tyson.
The whole film is a strange sort of penance: a washing of hands of a troubled past by a philosophical former fighter. Throughout, Tyson is unexpectedly engaging company: he’s thoughtful and self aware, often plainly emotional and frequently funny. It’s interesting to get his interpretation of events, the film having plenty to say about the cult of celebrity through its illustration of popular media’s depiction of Tyson, which usually had him pegged as an out of control monster.
Technically, things are tight and efficient. Toback lets Tyson unspool his thoughts, but never allows things to dwell for too long on any one topic. The film benefits from fantastic footage of Tyson’s life under the wing of D’Amato, and includes some deftly cut fight montages. In fact, Aaron Yanes’s editing is brilliant all round, cleverly playing on Tyson’s verbosity by splitting the screen and overlapping different parts of the interview, before whittling things down to a single potent strand.
Approaching this documentary it’s reasonable to be cynical; the film’s subject is after all listed as an executive producer. But Tyson turns out to be a rewarding viewing experience. It may tell only one side of an incendiary personal story, but the other popular version of a modern day monster has been peddled more than enough times. Tyson is sharp, gripping documentary making, the man himself sitting down with no interruptions and nobody propping him up, allowing you to watch as he goes to work, slowly washing away his sins.
Check out the trailer for Tyson below:
| 54 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Mountain Fog
Comment by David O'Connell
20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Matt Shea