I Like to Watch | The Rocky Saga (1976 - 2006)
When my third ex-wife and I got together, one of the 'getting to know you' rituals we participated in was the show me the movie you think defines you game.
She chose Dogtooth—Yorgos Lanthimos's 2010 film about a cruel patriarch and his frigid wife who deliberately keep their unsuspecting, submissive children in their lavish, isolated villa. As a result, holed up in their beautiful, high-walled prison, the siblings rely on their cold, manipulative parents to learn about the ways of the world, taking reality-defying lessons from instructional cassette tapes. In this film, freedom is nothing but a word.
Her choice was weird and complex. In it, sex was one of the few avenues to self expression. In the end Dogtooth is a coming-of-age film for the oldest daughter who seems to escape the confines of this surrealistic life dominated by a controlling man and avoiding becoming concubine to her brother.
This was the film she felt defined her.
My choice was Rocky—Sylvester Stallone's Hail Mary shot about a street thug/local boxer getting a Hail Mary shot at the heavyweight title. While Rocky is the archetype of all boxing films before and after, at its heart, it is a love story. Rocky doesn't win the fight or the title but, for him, that was never the point. Going the distance, proving to himself and his mousey girlfriend that he wasn't a bum were what motivated him.
This was the film I wanted her to see to understand me a bit better.
Recently, after the dissolving of that marriage, which certainly seems to reflect those earlier film choices on both parts, I went back and watched all six Rocky movies. Rocky I-V plus Rocky Balboa. I didn't intend on the whole saga. I only intended to watch the first one but each so naturally leads to the next, I just found myself dovetailing each film from one to the next.
On the ApeCast last week, because David was out of the country and too busy to record, I invited my buddy Joe Janes on. One of the things we both agreed was that we both are men of a certain age and both of us feel like we're starting from scratch in life. Remarkably, each film Stallone made about his doppelgänger is about starting over after a loss.
Rocky centers on a man with no options in life but what he's scrapped together. He fights local fights for peanuts. His apartment is a box of near poverty. He works as an enforcer for a bookie. He gets a random chance at something amazing and, after accepting the help of the father-figure who had all but dismissed him and the love of his shy and damaged girlfriend, he crawls his way out of his station in life.
Rocky II begins with our hero after the happily ever after and finds him unable to leverage his new-found notoriety into a living. All he is equipped to do is box. It turns out that Apollo Creed can't let go of the ego bashing being nearly beaten by an unknown pug. He gives Rocky another shot. Balboa once again starts from the bottom and, this time, wins the fight by seconds.
Rocky III begins with Balboa on top only to lose his surrogate father and his confidence when Clubber Lang (an exquisite Mr. T) beats the shit out of him and takes his title. He is once again at rock-bottom. Creed shows up to train him and he has to acknowledge fear—of losing his wife (who goes into a coma from child birth), his legacy, his self respect, and his sense of manhood—before jumping back into the patented training montage and defeating his enemy once again.
Rocky IV gets a bit 80's ridiculous as his friend Creed is killed in the ring by a giant, steroid-filled Russian. He goes to Russia to avenge his friend and is, once again, at the bottom. Training in the snow, using lumber and rocks to train, and fighting an opponent twice his size, Rocky does it again. With the most blow-dried hair this side of Patrick Swayze in Road House.
Rocky V starts immediately with Balboa suffering from brain damage due to the crushing punches of Drago in the previous film and the loss of everything he owns from a crooked accountant who cleans him out. Suddenly back in the blighted neighborhood of the first film, his wife going back to work in the pet shop he met her in, now unable to box, Rocky is disillusioned, bruised, and looking for work.
He is enticed to train a young boxer who becomes known as a Balboa Clone in the press. Rocky ignores his son in the pursuit of another shot at relevance even if only as a manager and trainer of his surrogate. He gets drawn into a partnership built on sand as the younger boxer is only using him for financial gain. He is betrayed and, in the end, beats up his protégé in the street.
Rocky Balboa takes place years later. Rocky is 59-years-old and Adrian has died from cancer. He has a restaurant named for her and the film opens with he and his brother-in-law Paulie revisiting the places her ghost haunts for Rocky. There are a number of people and places Stallone revisits these many decades later and a plot development reawakens Rocky's hunger to not go out without one last fight.
Like the first film, he loses in the end but, again, that was never the point. Perhaps my favorite quote from all six films is from the final chapter:
“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.”
This is the wisdom of Stallone. The wisdom of someone had to fight like hell just to star in the movie he wrote for himself. The wisdom of someone looked down upon, laughed at, and ignored yet refused to give up. That's the legacy of Sylvester Stallone and it is most crystallized in his character most like himself.
At this place in my life—looking for work, looking for a new place to call home, suddenly and inextricably alone—this is the kind of wisdom I need to hear. The speech he gives with that quote is to his son who is pleading with him to not box again. It concludes with this admonition:
“Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you got to be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that.”
Sure, there's a lot of cheese covering these films. The music (except for the iconic Bill Conte theme) doesn't age very well. The plot lines are simplistic. There is a blind optimism at play that feels ancient in an age of pessimism and nihilistic pursuit. A code of living that is in stark contrast to the broken, angry society we are currently stumbling through.
If you ask me to show you a movie that defines me (or least how I’d like to define myself), I'm always gonna show you Rocky.
