Boxing at the Movies: Kings of the Ring

Boxing and film goes back to the early days of cinema with footage surviving from Edison's days.

Boxing has always been a popular subject for movies because you can have stories of not only pugilists slugging it out in the ring but stories of crooked managers and weak willed boxers.

Danny Leigh examines the popularity of boxing films but also how boxers transgress themselves into film by way of documentaries such as Muhammed Ali in When we were Kings or playing themselves as Mike Tyson does in The Hangover films.

We go through some of the most popular boxing films. On the Waterfront, Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby. We have an academic explaining the relevance of the films and the examination of race, gender and films as well. In the early years, there was resistance of showing footage of actual black boxers beating up white boxers and movies substituted stories of black boxers with whites ones.

However the documentary felt a little empty. Leigh might be a boxing fan as well as a film buff but so many interesting boxing films were ignored, those that appear in different genres such as comedy. There is a rich tapestry out there and although interesting to see Kubrick's take on a boxing film, we needed more diverse nuggets like that.

There have been many boxing movies produced ever since the silent era that have proved entertaining as well as instructive: KID GALAHAD, THE HARDER THEY FALL, ROCKY, and RAGING BULL. Danny Leigh seeks to account for their popularity in this documentary with the help of several actors, technicians and academics.

One reason for their success is that they are relatively easy to film. Within a restricted area the two pugilists endure a variety of emotions as well as pain, while the managers, trainers, gangsters and other hangers-on try to advise them as how the fighters should win (or lose). Fights can often function as center-pieces within a drama, as well as providing plenty of material for drama, especially focused on the relationship between good and evil.

To be honest, that's about it. While the documentary included testimony from academics such as Sarah Churchwell (from the University of East Anglia) about gender relationships, disruption and boxing matches, such comments seemed vaguely peripheral to the issue. Likewise any references to man's tendencies towards brute forced seemed generalized and unrepresentative (there are legions of men who harbor no such instincts).

The documentary offered plenty of clips to illustrate its points, but nonetheless still seemed too long and repetitive in content. There was sufficient material here for a half-hour program, but stretched out to a one-hour length, the content seemed desperately thin.