Day of the Fight

It's always interesting to go back to the beginning of a director's career, in this case Stanley Kubrick's, and take a look at his earlier work. Day of the Fight just happens to be the first film by now legendary director Kubrick who is widely regarded as one of the best contemporary directors ever. This film is around about 15-20 minutes long and revolves around the build up to a boxing match the study of the build up will revolve around.

Interestingly enough and perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that it was inspired by a photograph Kubrick himself took for a 1949 edition of a magazine. This could be seen as an early example of suspense, with constant reference to the boxing match and its importance made through narrator Douglas Edwards, a good casting for the serious and deep voice the film required. As a short, it works and the suspense and build up maintains some sort of interest as the montage plays out. Kubrick includes all sorts of shots and angles creating the nice range for the eye, my favourite being the low angle on the statue of Mary in the church about half way through.

But the focus could well be the fight itself. There is some good camera work to be had out of the actual match and a low angle between a boxer's legs would later be used by Kubrick in Killer's Kiss, another early Kubrick film. I actually would have liked the boxing match's result to have been the other way around as I feel it would've added a new dimension to the short, a sort of anti-climatic spin that might've worked well. But that said, it's worth seeing if for the match itself and the chance to see where it all started off for the great man.

It's true, I would not know anything about this short RKO-type documentary if not for the fact that it was the first time that iconoclast Stanley Kubrick picked up a camera with rolling film stock to be screened in theaters. But as a student filmmaker myself, I find it of the utmost fascination - even when it is in a jittery, ragged print like the one I obtained on video - to see the early, primitive works of famous directors (Last Year in Vietnam by Stone, My Best Friend's Birthday by Tarantino, and Les Mistons by Truffaut are others) and the foundations of style. Day of the Fight, to be sure, is not something of incredible note, and it would not be until the Killing that Kubrick would create a great film. Yet through this film, I was constantly aware- and pleased- by how this very typical kind of story was executed.

In a way, it's almost of more worth to watch this film with the sound off; the narration, while good at getting to know the very basics of this boxer that's being profiled, it's also a distraction and not very revelatory. As just a succession of images, however, it works a lot more. It's the kind of short documentary that is 70% real, and 30% staged, with Kubrick following the boxer and his brother on the streets of New York, leading up to the fight that will bring him recognition. When looking at how Kubrick uses the camera, it seems fairly simple and, for those looking for all of the Kubrick trademarks, disappointing. But in just looking at how he uses the camera, how he gets his subjects in frame, and the importance of composition and the subtleties of lighting, it's really quite good. And the fight sequence, filmed by Kubrick and a friend, has some cut-away shots that almost ring of the future of Scorsese's Raging Bull (though, of course, still primitive).

Is it more of a curiosity, a film for Kubrick die-hard completists looking to have all 16 of his works, docs and features, in their collection? Sure, but it is also one of the better short doc's he made in his formative years, taking a subject he was already interested in (he was a photographer for Look magazine with this boxer under profile) and going a step further. As his sort of film school, this is in terms of the image even more fascinating than the lackluster 'doodle on the fridge' film Fear and Desire.

The first short film by Kubrick, it follows a boxer through the day-long wait for an evening fight.

I watched this out of interest as I watch the majority of Kubrick's films. However this is the only appeal that I can see for watching this.

The short follows the boxer through his routines on the day, the heavy narration talks us through the whole thing. In theory the short is meant to give us an insight in the boxer's thoughts and feelings however it really only shows us what he eats and who he talks to.

This is interesting if you are a Kubrick completist but other than that it is of limited appeal.

Stanley Kubrick was never one for realistic films about ordinary people; the nearest he came to a straightforward drama was probably the heist movie, The Killing. This shying away from realism seems to show itself in his very first film, this short documentary about the boxer, Walter Cartier, preparing for and engaging in a fight. Any boxer is a special person, but some directors might have portrayed Cartier as a regular guy with a particular skill; but from the start Kubrick stresses Cartier's unusualness by showing waking up beside, and going around town with, his identical twin brother, giving a surreal aspect to the film.

The way Cartier psychs himself up for the fight in his dressing room, turning himself into a fighting machine, also seems to fit in with Kubrick's later interest in making films about people under stress (eg Full Metal Jacket) or in an abnormal state (eg The Shining and Clockwork Orange). It is also intriguing to wonder whether the director's fondness for voiceover narrative in his feature films stems from this and his other early documentaries. Oh, by the way, it's quite a good documentary about a fighter who, in fact, never became champ, and went into TV and films.

Interesting presentation (very 'The Killing'), great photography, compelling dialogue.