Rocky (1976)

 

Rocky

I am not certain “Rocky” introduced the sports montage, but I cannot imagine a sports montage without the “Gonna Fly Now” soundtrack. In fact, any preparation for doing something big must be accompanied by this track, just as the actual performance in slow motion must be Vangelis’ “Chariots of Fire” and the eventual success, Queen’s “We are the Champions”. Then add iconic scenes like the victory jump at the top of the staircase of the Philadelphia Art Museum or the persistent cry of “ADRIAN!”, which you will always feel like shouting if you get beaten up badly. Three Academy Awards including Best Picture and countless sequels and spin-offs of which the latest is due this year. To think this all came from a low-cost production in 1976 with non-union crew, an extra as the lead, no actor pampering and a persistent diet of pizza…

Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is a working-class boxer and part-time collector for a loan shark. His career never took off and he has let himself slide so the games he fights are cheap and brutal and with no future. He cares about boxing because he is good for nothing else and his only other interest is Adrian (Talia Shire), a shy woman who works in a pet shop. They are both off-beat characters and that is, I suppose, their attraction to each other. To see them make out is so awkward and poignant that I felt the camera really should not be there.

Rocky’s break happens as one of those once in a lifetime events, when the opponent of World Champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) cancels due to an injured hand. The game is highly advertised, too much money is at stake, but there are no other ranked opponents available. Creed comes up with the idea to find some unknown, local boxer and make it an “American Dream” chance and he likes the sound of the name “The Italian Stallion”, Rocky’s call name.

From completely unknown, Rocky is now thrown into the limelight and must get his act in gear for this game. The rest, as they say, is history.

I have never been a sports guy and boxing is a game I never cared for. I just never watch it. This may be the reason I was never into the Rocky series, but even I have been massively exposed to that franchise. It is one of those, like “Star Wars” or “Indiana Jones” that you just cannot avoid. As I mentioned in the opening, the tropes founded by this movie are big ones and the world would have been a slightly different place without this movie. To me, though, this movie is less about boxing than a rags-to-riches tale and one that springs out of a truly sad place.

The environment of Philadelphia in the mid-seventies presented is just depressing and the no-future life of those living there is heartbreaking. The movie spends a lot of time and focus on this world. The dirt, the hardships and the sorry existences living there. The love story of Rocky and Adrian works because they are two “losers” who find that together they are not losers and that is the heart and soul of the movie. Rocky knows he is going to lose the fight, but this is not about winning a game but winning over himself, to show that he can pull himself up. In this sense there is a clear parallel to “Bad News Bears”, reviewed earlier on this page.

Then of course the production of this movie is a parallel to the story it tells. Before this movie Stallone was an extra or performing in soft-core porn, but he wrote the script for Rocky and insisted on playing the lead with the result that is was rejected as a big production and only got very minor funding. It became, however, a huge success and a true rags-to-riches story on its own.

Even without the acclaim and massive influence on pop-culture “Rocky” does stand its ground. It is a solid movie, even if the basic story has been repeated ad-infinitum. It just works.

ADRIAN!!!!