tyson - the documentary

my interest was immediately piqued when i heard there was a mike tyson documentary coming out. as a confessed movie snob who thinks 98% of the people i know have poor taste in movies, (with their transformers and x-men and vin diesel and scary movies,) i was sold the second i found out tyson would be playing at laemmle’s playhouse in pasadena.

the movie is fantastic. its subject is one of the most enigmatic figures in recent pop culture history as well as one of the most prolific artisans of the sweet science ever. mike tyson has been a firebrand for some 20+ years, instantly and clearly dividing people into two camps, those who loathe him and those who are empathetic to his plight. the odd thing about the man however, is the fact that his perspective on some of his most notorious exploits has not been prominently available if accessible at all. that is what tyson the movie delivers; the man’s perspective on everything from his childhood right up to his current circumstances as a 40-year-old father and pariah.

the only voice you hear in tyson is that of mike tyson. he is answering unheard, (but understood,) questions and his answers effectually make him the narrator of the film. ultimately his perspective reveals an interestingly introspective individual who owns up to a multitude of flaws without ever making excuses, but for whom excuses, or at least cause and effect reasons, abound.

as expected tyson explains early on that he had a tough childhood. his mother was promiscuous and on drugs and tyson had very little guidance or support. he tells a story of getting beat up as young kid by older neighborhood kids and he suggests this incident colored many of his behaviors later in life. knowing and seeing tyson as a case study it is obvious he had this sort of childhood.

in this way tyson the film serves as insightful social commentary. there is a large segment of our society who seem to exist in a vacuum of empathy. they cannot imagine themselves walking in another’s shoes for a minute much less a mile and so, they judge. in mike tyson the judgment they levy just gets easier and easier because the vast majority of his actions have been outside the realm of their imagination.

no, they cannot imagine having a mother who let them wander the streets at night when they were 10. they can’t imagine not having a father or having a mother on drugs or in jail. they cannot imagine being a social outcast who reacts by getting tattoos from spite. they can’t imagine going from squalor to a level of wealth almost unfathomable without any coaching or guidance whatsoever on how to handle such things, much less being convicted of a crime they did not commit and being sent to jail for three years over it.

similarly many people are incapable of reconciling good and bad or black and white. so, they dismiss mike tyson as simply a bad person. when tyson chomped on holyfield’s ear they could see the savage but they could not identify with the guy who became enraged over his opponent’s unseemly strategy. (holyfield is one of the top five head-butters of all time and while this does not justify tyson’s cannibalistic behavior, it should be easy to understand why he lost his cool.) still, seeing the gray area or the dual nature of man as good and bad is outside of a boundary many are either unable, or prefer not, to negotiate.

for his part, mike tyson comes across as honest in his self-assessment. he is child-like in many ways. when he discusses cus d’amato and becomes emotional his inner child is on display in such a way it is easy to see that his emotional development was stunted and that cus did good by tyson in as much as he rescued him from a life of crime which would surely have ended behind bars but through no fault left him unequipped in so many other areas. cus developed tyson as a boxer but left him defenseless as a man-child.

when d’amato passed away, tyson the savage was brutalized by convention and good taste. his money was like honey for a swarm of bees who devoured him and his cash. it is plain to see tyson was and possibly is a child emotionally. mentally he was and is likely in the same range. physically he was and is way beyond the masses, and that comes out in the movie, too. he was a significant physical specimen to begin with but then he trained so that his body was a finely tuned machine.

his focus for fighting was at one time similarly refined. under d’amato tyson studied not only the greats but really the history of boxing and he defined the boxer he would become by his preferences which were likely d’amato’s preferences first. tyson said he preferred the smaller weight classes because of the speed and the skill employed to win. as he came to prominence his game plan consisted of being the quickest fighter especially on the inside, one who could employ styles of some of his favorite fighters as a situation demanded always to the detriment of his opponent.

when the movie walks the viewer through the cavalcade of beat-downs tyson administered, it is easy to recall the splendor that was his raw speed and power. this sequence begins with his first title bout with trevor berbick then goes back to his first pro fights and goes forward again to berbick and beyond. up to his ill-fated loss to “buster” douglas, tyson was a man among boys. no one challenged him in any meaningful way.

d’amato actually over-prepared his prodigy. tyson combined everything a boxer wants to bring to his matches: strength, dexterity, skill, style, raw power, endurance, class, focus, determination, will, cunning, execution and desire, and up to the point when his training regimen fell apart in tokyo and he was partying like a, well, like a heavyweight champ, he just destroyed his opponents.

in one fascinating moment of the film, tyson talks about his eye contact with his opponent upon entering the ring and how much it meant to him. in one particular fight, he explains, he got into the ring and established eye contact with his opponent, (bruce seldon, perhaps,) who then looked away at which point tyson already knew he would win. when they came to the center of the ring to touch gloves and hear the rules, tyson the narrator remarks on the tough look his opponent offers but declares it null and void because of the misstep earlier when his gaze fell away if only briefly.

the film cuts from the interviewee tyson to the fight where tyson steps forward at the opening bell and dismantles his opponent quickly and his story about how his opponent lost the fight when he glanced away from his gaze a few minutes before the fight is at once entirely believable.

one moment which exemplifies the sum total of the film’s appeal involves tyson’s commentary on one of the worst periods of his life. when tyson went to jail in indiana for a rape that seemed questionable at least, most americans came across hours of coverage of this event and thereby formed opinions. most of the people i knew figured tyson raped desiree washington and was getting his just dessert by incarceration. (i went the other way.)

in the movie we get to hear tyson’s word on the subject. we see tyson meeting washington as the two playfully flirt with one another after which we hear tyson in the present refer to washington as “that wretched swine of a woman.” it is at once honest, insightful and entertaining.

james toback has made an understated but solid film in tyson. celebrity serves the public in as much as it allows us the freedom of making judgments without consequences. tyson presents the man as an open book, counter-balancing all that we already know from so many other perspectives. the man comes across as warm, flawed, accessible and humble and the film feels like mike tyson’s respite from public scorn.