When We Were Kings
Leon Gast (1996)
The opening titles for this Oscar-winning documentary include the names of those who will appear as talking heads in what follows. Introducing the main players like this would of course be conventional in a ‘fictional’ feature but it seems unusual for a documentary; you can therefore see the titles as an expression of confidence on the part of the director, Leon Gast, that he has a dramatically compelling tale to tell, and he has. This is the story of the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ of October 1974 – in Kinshasa, capital of what was then Zaire – in which Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman to regain the world heavyweight championship. Needless to say, Ali is the star: his name appears on screen before that of the film. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the mid-1980s and the state of his health when When We Were Kings was made reinforces the nostalgic quality of Gast’s interviews with, among others, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton and Spike Lee. The last-named doesn’t say much of interest but the retrospective contributions of Mailer and Plimpton, both of whom covered the fight and were ringside for it, are richly layered. They are remembering arguably the most famous boxing match, arguably the greatest heavyweight fighter, and unarguably the most powerful sporting personality – as a performer on camera – of all time (ie so far). By the time they were interviewed, the verbal aspect of that personality had been irretrievably submerged. (At one point, an unidentified voiceover explains that Ali’s ill health consists of motor skills problems but that it has not resulted in any intellectual deficits.)
The fact that Ali is no longer able to speak for himself resonates in the film in two ways. It was more than seven years after the Foreman fight that he eventually retired from the ring: you naturally wonder what-might-have-been, whether, if he’d quit after the Rumble (he was thirty-two at the time), Ali would not only have ended his career in extraordinary triumph but also avoided Parkinson’s in the years that followed. (The fight he lost badly to Larry Holmes in October 1980 is widely considered to have caused physical damage that contributed to Ali’s later health problems.) And because Parkinson’s has since silenced him, Ali’s motormouth has a poignancy in When We Were Kings – although I had to keep reminding myself of this in order not to be annoyed or angered by much of what he says. Forty-odd years on, I find it hard to forget his interview on Parkinson in 1971 – an occasion memorable not only for the separatist-cum-racist views that Ali expressed but also as a rare instance of the host’s standing up to egregious comments from a big-name guest. (It’s only typing this that I’ve realised the unfortunate Parkinson’s/Parkinson connection …)
Leon Gast makes clear the significance of the fight in Kinshasa as a return, for the two antagonists, to the continent which their forefathers had left as slaves. In the opening sequences, Gast cross-cuts between interviews with the young Cassius Clay and newsreel of contemporary developments in the Belgian Congo (which became Zaire), on the cusp of the post-colonial era. The meaning of the contest to Ali especially – and what he meant to Africans at the time – is a strong theme throughout. The Rumble, originally scheduled for September 1974 but postponed for several weeks when Foreman suffered a freak injury in training, was used by the promoter Don King as an opportunity to stage in Kinshasa, shortly before the fight itself, shows by stellar African-American musicians of the day, including James Brown and B B King. In spite of all this, the film would hardly have gained and maintained the reputation it still has if the hot favourite Foreman had won: it’s the unexpected outcome of a sporting event, rather than the substantial cultural contexts in which it took place, that makes the climax to When We Were Kings exciting.
The footage of the time that describes the build-up to the fight depends heavily on Ali’s charisma. In the ethnic circumstances, it was tough on George Foreman that he was darker-skinned than Ali yet, in the public perception of the contest, the villain of the piece; tough too that, in the fight itself, he was not just outwitted by his opponent’s tactics but verbally taunted by the supposedly heroic Ali. Unfortunately, though, there’s no denying that, if you’re not a connoisseur of boxing, Foreman is a dull fellow – except for a moment of comically inadvertent casuistry. In answer to a question at a press conference, he takes issue with the suggestion that postponing the fight will mean a delay: the fight is being rescheduled and it will then take place, he insists, at the scheduled time. This is quite an example of how big fight contestants, before the event, always have to be invincible.
Next to Ali, Don King is the most colourful performer among the dramatis personae in the 1974 material. He rattles off the ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity’ lines from As You Like It in an interview with George Plimpton, according to whom this was the tip of the Shakespeare-quoting iceberg in King’s head. (I hadn’t realised the Kings/King link either …) One of the most enjoyable aspects of When We Were Kings for me was the virtual double act of Plimpton and Norman Mailer. Their forms of wit complement each other so well – Mailer flamboyant and demonstrative, Plimpton quietly incisive – and much of what they have to say is well worth listening to. (Mailer is convinced that Ali’s fast talk in the build-up to the fight with Foreman was even faster than usual because he was scared of what would happen. He also talks interestingly about Mobutu’s Zaire and the dictator’s personality. Plimpton confesses to being much impressed by a local féticheur’s pronouncement that a succubus would stymie Foreman’s chances.) But, for a viewer of the film in 2014, the two men don’t simply contribute recollections with a strong nostalgic edge. Mailer died in 2007 and Plimpton three years later. They themselves now generate feelings of regret – and pleasure that they’ve been recorded on film.
13 September 2014