The awesome story of the Rumble in the Jungle, the 1974 heavyweight championship fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, is retold in Leon Gast's "When We Were Kings" -- an entertaining documentary anchored by Ali's legendary charisma.
The Dartmouth Film Society presented "When We Were Kings" last Wednesday. This documentary gave me hope that films are not losing quality in today's times; however, it's unfortunate that a great movie of today was held up for 22 years due to money and legal problems. The result, however, is more than worth the wait.
Every aspect of this movie is stellar: the editing, the music, the footage, the narration, etc. After what director/producer Leon Gast had to go through to put this film in movie theaters everywhere, the movie deserves every accolade (best documentary, best non-fiction film, etc.) that it has received, and then some.
The film was originally conceived as the "Afro-American Woodstock," but Gast and David Sonnenberg decided to focus on Muhammad Ali, the legendary boxing champion back in the days when boxers possessed considerably more skill and when boxing was legitimate. Many people remember Ali as a boxing champion, but this documentary delivers vivid pictures of other aspects of his life that made him a legend: his conversion to Islam, his defiance of the Vietnam draft, the stripping of his title belt, his intelligence, charm, grace and wit and the price he has paid for being such as champion. With all the focus put on Ali, it is almost hard to believe that he was a 7 to 1 underdog for this fight.
The contrast created between Ali and the champion, George Foreman, is one of the strongest points of the movie. George is a man of a few words who appears confident that he will be victorious while Ali constantly shoots one liners left and right
Although the documentary focuses on Ali, enough footage is shown on Foreman to understand his role in the fight. The two clips of his knockouts of Ken Norton and Joe Frazier are enough to see that Foreman could easily knock out Ali with one clean right hook.
Boxing lovers will enjoy footage of the training sessions -- Larry Holmes is seen sparring and getting the best of Ali. In one scene, Foreman punches the bag so hard that there's a large indentation in the bag when he finishes.
There is cool footage of two men who are not in the focus of the movie but were essential for the fight's existence. The first is promoter Don King -- his hair back then was, yes, straight up in the air. And, yes, he was then a shady man. This event put Don King at the top of the boxing world. It is funny to see that he promised each fighter $5 million for the fight -- once both fighters agreed, he then had to go find somebody to pay the $10 million. The other man is dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who pays the $10 million in order to get international publicity. He is also a sketchy character, but he did allow the Rumble in the Jungle to happen.
To make sure that the people in America would understand the African American theme of this fight, three days of African music was planned before the fight -- among the American acts would be James Brown, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, The Jazz Crusaders and The Pointer Sisters. Most of the event would be native African music.
All footage of Muhammad Ali during his little spiels about life, his boxing in front of the camera are a joy to watch. The six week postponement due to Foreman's injury provides ample footage of Ali mingling with locals as well as George Plimpton's interview with Don King.
The fight, as expected, is the climax of the movie and does not disappoint. The fight, which lasted eight rounds, is one of the legendary and most shocking bouts of all time. I was particularly moved to hear that after the fight Foreman entered two years of deep depression that he almost never came out of; fortunately, he is a genial and funny man today.
The documentary closes with a collage of images of Ali. I still have images of the chant he used to rally himself and his fans during his interaction with natives and during the fight. The fight in 1974 was an event that was to heal America from the fall of Richard Nixon; for myself, the movie made me enjoy boxing once again after the failure of the Tyson-Holyfield rematch.
