Toback shows the ferocious tirade of jailhouse threats that Tyson unleashes at a press-conference heckler: an ugly, impotent fantasy of sexual assault. As to what was done to him in prison, and what he did to others. Was that rape charge fair or not? Tyson lavishes contempt on his accuser, but is not pressed on exactly what happened, though he is allowed to muse on how he likes to toy with his sexual conquests. Tyson recites Oscar Wilde while looking at a sunset, and it sounds phoney - but talking about his former coach and mentor Cus D'Amato brings him to the brink of authentic tears.īut at no point does Toback really probe and question. Some of these emotional moments look contrived. In that famously soft, sibilant voice, Tyson looks back at his life (he is now 42), and shows his vulnerable side. This is after all, the notoriously aggressive boxer who was jailed for rape, and once distinguished himself by biting off part of an opponent's ear.
Tyson film 2008 series#
"Iron" Mike Tyson has given a series of interviews, or rather sympathetically edited monologues to Toback, and it is undoubtedly true that he is more intelligent and introspective than any lay observer could have imagined. I suggest we talk about this like rational men." Film-maker James Toback does not allude to this remarkable encounter, perhaps because he doesn't believe it, or perhaps because Ayer gets a technical knockout, but I felt we could have done with more of the Ayer spirit: questioning, sceptical, undaunted. "Do you know who the fuck I am?" an astonished Tyson raged at him "I'm the heavyweight champion of the world!" Ayer replied: "And I am the former Wykeham professor of logic. Incredibly, the only person to stand up to Tyson was a fellow guest, the 77-year-old British philosopher AJ Ayer, who gallantly interposed his frail person.
The boxer was at a party in New York in the late 80s, aggressively hitting on (the phrase was never more appropriate) Naomi Campbell.
Tyson film 2008 movie#
The final sequence of Toback's picture offers hope on a religious or spiritual level, Toback's movie seems to express the notion, however deeply buried beneath the brutality and waste of Tyson's talent, that as long as a man, no matter how flawed and potentially violent, is alive and willing to try, he can do good, and perhaps (as Tyson seems to hint) even dare to savor the chance to be better than he was.I t is nowhere mentioned in this deferential fan-portrait, but Mike Tyson was at the centre of the greatest celebrity anecdote in history.
Tyson film 2008 full#
The scenes of the boxer playing with his children tell us that the monster he seemed to be in the press in the 1990s was not the full picture. He has gotten to his forties without killing anybody, and perhaps he's wise enough never to get to that point, and be more decent along the way, if he and circumstances permit it. He did throw away hundreds of millions of dollars, and lost his freedom for years and any dignity he might have found in the ring, and all because of terrible judgment on his part nonetheless, he does come off as someone who, had he gotten a slightly fairer shake in life a little earlier, might well have been a more decent guy a lot earlier as well.
The latter does, just enough, so that in the end one does feel sorry for the guy, to the degree that one can feel sympathy. This all could be tiring if one weren't interested in the subject to start with, or if Tyson's human side didn't come through.
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