FEW SPORTING FIGURES ARE AS controversial as Mike Tyson.
The youngest ever heavyweight boxing champion of the world (he was just 19 when he won his first title), not only did he follow a spectacular rise to the top with an even more spectacular fall from grace (landing himself in prison for three years on
a rape charge), he went on to subvert the standard rise-fall-redemption character arc beloved of all sports narratives by clawing his way back to the top, only to bottom out again, this time disgracing himself and the sport with that ear-chewing fight against Evander Holyfield.
By rights such a train wreck of a career should make any documentary about the man a bit of a rubbernecking viewing experience, but with Tyson, director James Toback offers a remarkably candid and insightful portrait of the man known as Iron Mike. It probably helps that the pair know each other well. Tyson has had cameos in a couple of Toback features (When Will I Be Loved, Black & White), so a bond of trust exists between them. This encourages the boxer to lay himself bare for the cameras, discussing everything from his hard-knock up-bringing on the streets of Brooklyn and his ferocious fighting style, to his disastrous marriage to actress Robin Givens, his willingness to be exploited by the "leeches" who have repeatedly bled him dry over the years (it's estimated that he's blown more than $300 million) and the peace he feels he has found as a father. He's contrite about nearly everything in his life, although he disputes the rape charge – an experience he says almost destroyed him. Regardless of how that makes you feel about him, the film doesn't try to make excuses for the way his life has turned out, and neither does he. His double rise-and-fall trajectory may make him a tragic "too much, too soon" sporting cliché, but the film offers a more complex portrait of a flawed individual making a sincere effort to understand himself and his actions.
It's easy to forget that in the 1970s, Australia, like America, was embroiled in the Vietnam War and was undergoing significant social changes at home, thanks to the increasing visibility of a civil rights movement courtesy of increasingly politicised Aborigines, and the increasing prominence of feminism, courtesy of Germaine Greer. As a result the government-funded Australian film industry sought to present a better, more cultured image of itself to the rest of the world via prestigious films such as Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock. Less celebrated, however, was the explosion in cheap and cheerful sex comedies, horror films, kung fu flicks and action pictures ripped off from Hollywood B-movies in the same period. Most never made a big impression outside Australia, yet thanks to a drive-in, beer-drinking domestic movie-loving culture, they proved a big success at home, helping sustain the industry while it presented its better face to the rest of the world. That's the hypothesis of Mark Hatley's amusing documentary Not Quite Hollywood, a celebration of so-called Ozploitation, which counts among its many fans Quentin Tarantino (who else?). The film succeeds in making a valid case for trash art, not least by showing how two of the biggest Ozploitation successes were Mad Max and Mad Max 2, which as any right thinking person knows, are two of the greatest films ever made.
