The Definitive Sports Film

Nothing quite removes the bad aftertaste from this season's derivative and lackluster sports flick fare, such as the recent "King Richard" (2021) and "Bruised" (2020/2021), than does the ultimate underdog sports film "Rocky." Putting aside that only four years later Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro largely eclipsed, and have since yet to be surpassed, John G. Avildsen's direction and Sylvester Stallone's acting as far as the aesthetics of cinematic boxing are concerned with "Raging Bull" (1980), Hollywood should quit trying so much (so often that is, as they haven't necessarily been trying hard) because they already got the feel-good crowd-pleaser version right with this one. So influential on the sports genre is this that most subsequent sports movies strike one as at least partly rip-offs. I always enjoy revisiting "Rocky" after some time even if only for a reminder that the rags-to-riches underdog tale, the training montage, inspirational scoring, and the use of the steadicam once didn't come across as seeming obligatorily hacky. Such is the ruin of decades of imitation and the brilliance of "Rocky" that it's still left standing that test of time and from the punches of numerous copycats. "Rocky" is far more intelligent and subtle in its broader commentary on sport--patriotism, poverty, race, religion--than most, to boot.

It helps, too, when the underdog story is within a box-office sleeper success of a commercial film and when your writer-actor star's life story involves such hardships as partial-facial paralysis from medical malpractice during birth to at one point being homeless and only receiving the "Italian Stallion" moniker post his role in a porno. That's genuineness that can't be faked. Back when the Academy Awards were more like Rocky Balboa and in sync with public acclaim and not, as they are today, more like Apollo Creed--trying to pick an obscure contender that might make for a "smart" sell, "Rocky" pulled in three wins, including Best Picture, among 10 nominations, in addition to being the highest-grossing picture of the year (and the second behind "Star Wars" (1977) the next year). "Gone with the Wind" (1939) or "Titanic" (1997) compared to "Moonlight" (2016) or "Nomadland" (2020), the Oscars have dramatically shifted their creed.

Anyways, added to the innovations of "Rocky," one must include the use of the then-newfangled steadicam. Albeit, one may point to prior examples of camera operators wearing the camera--even so far back as in "Napoléon" (1927)--but Garrett Brown's invention, of which "Rocky" is reported to be the third, but most impactful, film to have exploited it--was decidedly more practical, allowing greater ease of mobility. Following Stallone running up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum being its most famous use here, although it was employed elsewhere, too, including to provide the then-most energetic and intimate cinematography of a boxing match in all filmdom.

Even though they evidently hadn't mastered the sound design for the punching contests yet (until the music starts up, that is) and some of the punches are too obviously short of contact, this was the best on offer at the time. Seriously, watch older boxing films; most of it's embarrassing by comparison. The bloody make-up work deserves credit, as well, for making up for the lack of punches landing and the relatively abbreviated editing of the event. Take note of that final point, filmmakers; one need not bore the audience with drawn-out spectacle of sport most people don't follow or watch anymore anyways. Personally, I even dislike boxing, preferring instead sport, particularly basketball, that doesn't tend to entail brain damage, but that doesn't prevent "Raging Bull" and "Rocky" from being my favorite sports films and the "Space Jam" burgers from being garbage.

All of which is not to say that "Rocky" isn't also to an extent an imitation of films to come before it--particularly working off the Italian-American working-class character study "Marty" (1955), perhaps taking the "beautiful all along" trope of removing a shy woman's glasses from "Now, Voyager" (1942) or countless other movies to precede "She's All That" (1999), and making wish fulfillment out of the "I coulda been a contender" and "instead of a bum, which is what I am" from "On the Waterfront" (1954). Indeed, Stallone's entire performance--more important than basing his boxing style on Rocky Marciano or Chuck Wepner--is largely lifted from Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy. Rocky's even a low-level enforcer for the mob, albeit any anti-union and anti-communist Elia Kazan type defense for naming names to the House Committee on Un-American Activities is absent. Rocky wouldn't take any of that on and win the Cold War single-handedly until the fourth film, after all.

The socio-political context this time mostly operates, if not below the surface, at the margins--at least to the extent that one could enjoy the picture without even considering it. No "great white hope" mania that has existed in the "discourse," as they say, of the boxing world since race riots erupted back when Jack Johnson whooped James J. Jeffries between the ropes is depicted here. Instead, Carl Weathers's Apollo Creed is presented as something of an anti-Muhammed Ali, or rather another wish fulfillment of what some might have preferred the icon to be. Like Ali, Creed is still the greatest in the game and a savvy promoter, but gone is the identification with the Nation of Islam (his creed of his forename alternatively pointing to Olympian myth) and in place of Ali's famous and infamous Vietnam War draft refusal, Creed performs an ultra-chauvinistic spectacle: wearing the red-white-and-blue colors of the U.S. flag and riding into the arena dressed as George Washington before changing costume to that of Uncle Sam as pointing to the crowd as he chants the war draft call, "I want you!" Muhammed Ali as a non-Muslim implicit supporter of the Vietnam War, if only outwardly and cynically.

No "Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire here, either; Creed stages the fight in the birthplace of the United States, Philadelphia, and upon the country's Bicentennial. He's a performatively patriotic fantasy who would identify--indeed, he does at one point before dismissing that, too, as unimportant--as a "black" American, as opposed to "African" American. Meanwhile, the "Italian" American heritage of Balboa is repeatedly emphasized--not only in Creed and the media's promotion, but also in Balboa's own, i.e. the "Italian Stallion." This Italian ancestry, furthermore, is associated with patriotism by way of an Italian, Christopher Columbus, discovering the Americas. It's no wonder some consider "Rocky" a reactionary response to the Civil Rights movement and a construction of supposed white identity and victimization, which I think risks over-simplification, but basically sums it up.

As with class, country and race, religion, too, is oft entangled in the mythos of athletic competition as spectacle. This side of "Hoosiers" (1986) and "He Got Game" (1998) (OK, there are good basketball films, too), "Rocky" is one of the most interesting sports flicks I can think of to integrate Christian themes. Of course, this, too, plays into the de-Islamization of the film's version of Ali. While Creed is merely given the forename of what many at the time, if not still, would consider less threatening, of a dead pagan religion, Balboa is associated with Christianity from the very first image of the picture, as the camera pans down from the image of Christ to find Rocky boxing in a smoky church. Later, we'll see him kneel in prayer before the big fight. There's also the variously quasi-religious and secular holidays that mark the plot's timeline: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, the latter of which marks the circumcision of Jesus, as I've recently written about in my "The Green Knight" (2021) review. I won't go so far this time, though, to suggest that Rocky faces any symbolic circumcision, let alone castration anxiety, in this psychoanalysis-free review. But, Rocky's ultimately broken nose here is a sort of baptism, if only to the cult of pugilists made ugly.

Not quite a Cinderella story this, but one could argue it a variation on the American Dream and Christian redemption, to an extent, as well as race fantasy. Sure, it's even somewhat Capra-esque, I suppose. Rocky is saved from poverty and the sin of "bums" and "losers"--every important character in his community manifestly feeling in some way inadequate--to enter the rich, heavenly space of the championship contest in the ring--hand plucked to do so by the champ, the author or creator of the entire spectacle, the "god," Apollo. Moreover, this is simply a rich, so to speak, depiction of lower-class urban Philadelphia. The cinematography, the mobile tracking of that steadicam, and the Oscar-winning editing add to the intimacy, as well, with that production design and fine acting all around. I will say, too, that the "Oscars So White" campaign has a wider historical point when among the principle cast here (Stallone, Weathers, Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith and Burt Young), Weathers was the only one not nominated for an Oscar. As evident from how much I've discussed him, I think Apollo is the second most important character in the film, and the charisma of Weathers in the part is further evidenced by his character providing the offspring for the "Creed" spinoff series of, thus far, two installments--both of which go a long way to redirecting as well as continuing the themes here and in the rest of the "Rocky" series.

Sometimes the audience knows better, and the uplifting entertainment of "Rocky" is such a case. It's a picture that may be appreciated on different levels: classic underdog story with memorable scenes, an iconic score, and great ending; political and philosophical myth; even simply as a motivational workout video; and a technically innovative and well crafted production for which its success mirrors its own script. Stallone can spend a lifetime making mindless action flicks--and he largely has--and I'll still appreciate that he gave us this definitive sports film. It touches upon all the greater issues that frequently get bundled up in narratives of spectacle athletics, and, indeed, through Creed's creation of that narrative by selection and promotion of Balboa, himself and their fight, the film is about its own making. Apollo as filmmaker, an on-screen surrogate for Stallone the writer, and Rocky as a version of the real Stallone, through which we, the spectator, identity, and with the camera steadily tracking him and taking us inside the ring. Now, that is smart.