Thoughts on Rocky Balboa

When Jen and I emerged from the movie last night into the cold night – we were so jazzed up and so exhilarated that we talked a mile a minute as we charged across the city to our subway stop. We talked and talked and talked – about Rocky, and Stallone, and the franchise itself (which we both just love), and the movie, and why it was good, and why it worked … and at one point I exclaimed, in all my excitement, “Oh my God! I have boose gumps right now!”

Boose gumps.

That kind of sums up the entire experience for me, so I figured I’d start out with that.

And Jen made a great comment, too. At one point, the two of us sat in our seats, huddled together, holding ourselves back from clapping and screaming like lunatics, cheering Rocky on, just letting out some of our adrenaline, and also clutching Kleenex because the scene before that one had been a tear-jerker. We were beside ourselves. Later Jen said, “You know what? He didn’t make that movie for himself. Or to prove he still ‘got it’. Or anything like that. Member the moment when we were all huddled together, clapping, and losing our minds? He made that movie for those people.”

Now. There is so much else to say about this very insightful point.

This movie, as far as I was concerned, had almost an absence of ego. Which is so surprising when you consider how much ego there COULD have been in such a venture. Even the ending credits … which I won’t give away … just had this wonderful sense of … non-self-importance, of playfulness, of celebration, of openness and … It wasn’t a movie that over-thought itself. It was a movie made for those of us who loved Rocky Balboa, and those of us who followed his journey, through movie after movie. Behind this film was a generosity of spirit. Behind this film was an acknowledgement of the fact that he, Stallone, had created something that resonated for YEARS with people who were fans of the franchise.

Stallone did not blow us – the giggly happy clapping cheering “Go, Rocky!” fans – off. He did not sell us out. He did not come back with an overblown bloated movie that made us embarrassed to have liked the franchise in the first place. That was my original fear when I heard about the “new Rocky”. I was afraid it would be bad. I was afraid that I would be sad for him. I was afraid that I would be sad for Rocky, and sad that Stallone didn’t just leave well enough alone.

How little faith I had.

Stallone is one of the oddest success stories in Hollywood. He is someone for other entrepreneur artists to emulate, to learn from. Nobody gave this guy jack SHIT until he showed his stuff, on his own. He IS Rocky Balboa (however, the funny thing is is if you hear him in interviews, he’s way more articulate than Rocky – which is a reminder that he is actually, you know, ACTING.) He has created a character. A character he knows, inside out … but it’s not, strictly, HIM. He is not playing himself.

Stallone has ALWAYS played to his strengths. I don’t think he gets enough credit for that. He doesn’t try to show his versatility (although he has way more versatility than he gets credit for – Copland?). Stallone is very smart. He knows who he is, and who his persona is – and he hasn’t made TOO many errors with it. And so his mis-steps are forgiven and forgotten. Sam, one of my great teachers, said to me once, “Self-knowledge is one of the most important aspects an actor can have.” Know what you can do. And then DO it. Whether or not anyone asks you to do it. DO it. Nobody asked Stallone to create Rocky. He just went ahead and DID it. He knew he could “hit it” with that part. That was HIS part.

And his canniness as a screenwriter is also way under-rated.

Obviously, not totally under-rated. Rocky was highly decorated (nominations as well as awards) in 1976 – and Stallone became the third person to be nominated for acting and writing in the same year. (The other two were Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles. Yeah. Uh-huh. THAT’S the kind of company this guy keeps.)

So now onto this latest film and why it didn’t just exceed my expectations – but satisfied me on the deepest fangirl level.

— Let’s start with the title. Stallone is freakin’ smart. He didn’t title it Rocky VI. I think it started out with that as the title – but at some point along the way, it became Rocky Balboa. This is so right. It’s not about Rocky topping himself, or going beyond, or any of the other things that that number would have suggested. He definitely has to push himself, and go up to his limits in this movie – but the REAL story is about Rocky Balboa realizing – that there is unfinished stuff in his life – “stuff in the basement” – stuff he needs to get out. It’s not about beating an opponent. It’s not even about winning. It’s about getting back to who he really is. The title is perfect. Very smart.

— I need to talk about Stallone’s acting in this movie. He’s not trying to show he’s a tough guy – or that he’s still ‘got it’. You know how embarrassing that can be. Think Michael Douglas being married to Gwyneth Paltrow in that silly movie, and how ridiculous that was. Especially because the age difference was never referenced, or even brought up. We’re supposed to just believe that a 22 year old girl would marry a man like that. For love. Cary Grant never ever made such a stupid mistake. He never opened himself up to that ridicule. Even when he made Charade – he was VERY concerned with the age difference. He spoke with Stanley Donen a lot about it – and wanted to make sure that it was SHE who did the pursuing. He knew it just wouldn’t look right for a man his age to be pursuing a girl who was so much younger. (Never mind what he did in his personal life. That’s irrelevant to this conversation.) And so the movie works – because there is this bemused understanding, from his side, that – “wow, I am WAY too old for this girl …” It’s self-knowledge (we’re back to that again.) Michael Douglas just wanted us to swallow the fact that he got to marry Gwyneth Paltrow. He didn’t want us to question it, because his own personal ego is wrapped up in the fact that he’s still ‘got it’. See what I mean? There’s a lack of self-knowledge there which has hurt Michael Douglas in some of his choices. Again: I’m not talking about his personal life, which has nothing to do with his PERSONA, and how it is perceived.

And so Stallone did everything right in this movie. He didn’t pump himself up. He didn’t film himself lovingly, or with soft-focus anxiety. He didn’t push the romance. I was SO glad he was smart enough to have it just be a friendship, a helper, a supportive woman. Maybe it WILL develop into a relationship, maybe not … but the actual journey of the film is about Rocky Balboa stopping living in the past, and embracing the present. The woman in the film is a symbol of that. He’s starting to come out of his shell.

But there would have been something wrong about seeing Rocky in a romance at this point. Stallone would have opened himself up to all kinds of criticism – for setting himself up to look too good (think about the criticism Barbra got for her nails in Prince of Tides – vicious. Directors have to be really careful about stuff they also act in. Especially in Stallone’s case – where he also writes the stuff. If it looks too much like a vanity project, people can tell.)

Stallone went for the grit. He remembered what the whole franchise was about. He remembered what we loved about it. The local color, the rattling subway, the smoking sidewalks, the meat hanging in windows … Rocky running by … a local boy … at heart. And Rocky Balboa embraces that.

There were moments where I felt like – my life flashed before my eyes. I have grown up with this franchise. I can’t remember a time (literally) when I have not “known” Rocky Balboa. It’s IN me. And so I have nostalgia. And I’m okay with that. And what I LOVE is that … Stallone is okay with that too. I have nostalgia for Adrian. For that scene in the pet shop. For her glasses. For the scene in the ice rink. I feel like I was there. I can recite some of those scenes by heart. I KNOW these people. And Stallone, in this latest movie, gave it all to me. Without sentimentality. We revisit all the spots. We see Rocky in his familiar surroundings. We get a couple of blurry flashbacks of Adrian (poetically done – blurry and sometimes black and white – not literal) and I felt like: Oh God. It is so good to see her again.

There was one line in the movie that I thought was a bit too … cheesy I guess … but only one. Other than that, the script was fantastic. It was funny, unexpected, powerful – surprisingly emotional – it was all about the characters – really low on plot – which was good – and some of my favorite moments were the subtle ones.

Scenes to look for, in terms of how well-written and simple they are – and also how efficient and expedient – his scenes ALWAYS propel the movie along. There is NO FAT on his movies. Spielberg should take a page out of Stallone’s book. When you think you are done with editing – edit MORE out. Faster is better. Shorter is better. Always. It is never the case that it is BETTER to say something in 2 pages that you could also say in 2 lines.

Scenes to look for:
— the scene in the dog pound. It’s so simple you might even miss it. But seriously: watch for the gentle humor of it, the verbal banter back and forth and also … what the scene is actually about. It’s not about Rocky getting a dog. It’s about Rocky bonding with the kid. However. What they are both doing in the scene – is talking about the dog. That’s good writing. It’s not on the nose. There’s no soundtrack cueing you how to feel. There’s no closeups where it’s bashed over your head: LOOK! THEY’RE BECOMING FRIENDS! Nope. What we see is Rocky and the kid trying to pick out a name for the dog. Beautiful work. All around. Beautifully written and beautifully acted.

— The scene between Rocky and son on the street outside Rocky’s restaurant. Jen said afterwards, “Now that is good parenting!”
All I can say is: My God. Watch Stallone when he says, “I just want to be involved…” and watch his gesture with his hands when he says that. Acting really is that simple. It told me everything I needed to know. About the character – Rocky’s blunt honesty, his emotional maturity, his willingness to just say what’s going on with him – and also – there’s just something raw about it. That, for me, was always the appeal of that first Rocky. Its willingness to be raw. Its rawness was the whole thing. I mean – the way it ended! So not what would be expected. Stallone did not create this character originally to just be a winner, a big ol’ champion. He created a MAN. Who didn’t always win. Or at least – he didn’t win in the obvious ways. He lost the match – but he won his battle within himself, and he won the girl.

THAT is the beauty of this franchise at its best – and the beauty of the last “chapter”.

It never loses sight of the character. Or of why we loved him in the first place.

I may just be speaking for myself – but I don’t think that Rocky was so loved just because he kicked people’s asses. That was maybe why guys loved Rambo – but that’s not what Rocky was about. He was human – people related to Rocky. What was awesome about that character was his underdog status, of course – how hard he had to work for everything he got – and also … that heart, that big big messy raw open heart. I mean: “I LOVE YOU ADRIAN!” Seriously. I still can’t watch that scene without being totally covered in boose gumps.

And Stallone does not make the mistake of thinking that we need to see him win. We need to see Rocky’s struggle. We need to see his obstacles. We need to invest in his training (and, come on, awesome training montage with the song that I could sing in my sleep. Oh – and written by a Rhode Islander, thank you very much). We don’t need to look at his opponent and think: “Rocky is TOTALLY gonna kick some ass.” We need to look at his opponent and think: “Hm. I’m kinda scared for Rocky.” We need to BELIEVE that once again Rocky has to go down into that basement, that dark place where he keeps his ambition, his fire, his drive … and stand up. Stand up and fight.

Other scenes/moments to look for:

— Before the big match in Vegas – Rocky is surrounded by paparazzi, and I can’t remember the exact line – but they’re all shouting questions at him, and he says (but not with ego – again, the no ego thing) – “I guess they say it ain’t over til it’s over.” Something like that. And one of the reporters jokes, “Is that a saying from the 80s?” Joking about his age. And Stallone says, “I think it might be from the 70s.” I can’t explain WHY it is so funny – the way he says it – but it got a HUGE laugh. Beautiful.

— There’s a moment where Stallone is in the meat locker with Paulie (Paulie!!!) – and he’s talking about the fact that he might want to fight again … nothing big … no big deal … just local fights … because he’s still got some stuff … “down in the basement” … that he has to deal with. Paulie is trying to talk him out of it. “YOU’RE NUTS. YOU’RE 60! YOU’RE NUTS!” And Stallone has this monologue where he kind of explodes – not in a big actor-y way – it was totally real. He starts talking about how hard it is … how he didn’t think life was supposed to be so hard … and during this monologue, Stallone suddenly gets choked up. And you know, there’s something devastating about a man that big getting choked up. A man who is not used to crying, and so when the tears come up – they freak him out and must be suppressed immediately. When Ed Harris gets choked up in Apollo 13 it has the same effect on me in the audience. It feels like my heart might burst. Sometimes actors cry and we in the audience feel nothing. Perhaps because it seems too “actor”-y. Actors know how to cry and so sometimes the tears seem cheap, too easily come by. And therefore not really human. And here’s another great acting lesson: If the actor tries to suppress the tears – then those in the audience will get the catharsis. The audience will cry. Sometimes I cry watching an actor cry (Gwyneth Paltrow breaking down in Sylvia comes to mind. When she starts weeping, I cry, too. Perhaps because her character is normally so tearless and brittle, so when she breaks down I feel like I get the release too). But when an actor is desperately trying not to cry … it can be so effective. Because it seems real, it seems like life.

The scene ended and Jen silently handed me a napkin. And we both sat there mopping the tears off of our faces, and having the time of our lives.

The soundtrack to the movie was perfect. Subtle. Underneath scenes. But not in a cloying way, not too much. When the “training montage” came we got the burst of music – the music we all know – and it just felt so right, so familiar, so … perfect … The movie earned that. It didn’t assault us with it from the get-go.

Intensity builds at the end – in a crescendo – and I hadn’t read too many reviews that gave away the ending, and how it all comes out – so I just didn’t know what the outcome would be. The theatre we saw it in wasn’t packed – but people were definitely cheering and clapping – you could feel the urgency and stress in the air – Jen started punching the air a bit, during the fight. You were living the scene, rather than watching it. Like all great fight scenes in boxing movies. The fight just works. It works on every level it needs to work. It works on the level of plot – it needs to come to that in the story, and it does. It all feels inevitable and right. It works in terms of character – the journey of Rocky with his son, with Paulie, with his opponent. All of these elements are there in that fight. So we are invested. It is not an empty action sequence. It is not a done deal that Rocky will win. And also, at this point in his life – what is winning? THAT’S what the movie is about.

Here is how that last fight would go if Stallone was trying to still prove something or prove that he still ‘had it’ or was still a bad-ass:

He would have set up his entrance into the ring differently. He would have had it be ominous. Like: Uh oh. This upstart young heavyweight champion don’t know what’s about to hit him! Uh oh! Which would have been embarrassing. Because all we’re feeling out in the audience is: Rocky, you’re 60. Please be careful. Stallone knows we’re feeling that and so his entrance into the ring … and the music that Paulie chose for his entrance music …

I won’t give it away but it’s a PERFECT choice.

Let me just say: that in my humble opinion Sylvester Stallone has ended this franchise in a perfect way with not one jangly off-key note.

Even through the credits (stay to the end, people. Stay to the end.) That last moment, if you love the Rocky series like I love it, is truly boose gump worthy.

I tracked down a review Roger Ebert wrote of the first Rocky. It’s obviously written long after it had come out – maybe it was for his “great movies” series – but it just captures the feeling of this franchise (at its best) perfectly. Boose gumps. Read it below the jump.

Rocky
By Roger Ebert / January 1, 1976

She sits, tearful and crumpled, in a corner of her little bedroom. Her brother has torn apart the living room with a baseball bat. Rocky, the guy she has fallen in love with, comes into the room.

“Do you want a roommate?” she asks shyly, almost whispering.

“Absolutely,” says Rocky.

Which is exactly what he should say, and how he should say it, and why “Rocky” is such an immensely involving movie. Its story, about a punk club fighter from the back streets of Philly who gets a crack at the world championship, has been told a hundred times before. A description of it would sound like a cliche from beginning to end. But “Rocky” isn’t about a story, it’s about a hero. And it’s inhabited with supreme confidence by a star.

His name is Sylvester Stallone, and, yes, in 1976 he did remind me of the young Marlon Brando. How many actors have come and gone and been forgotten who were supposed to be the “new Brando,” while Brando endured? And yet in “Rocky” he provides shivers of recognition reaching back to “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He’s tough, he’s tender, he talks in a growl, and hides behind cruelty and is a champion at heart. “I coulda been a contender,” Brando says in “On the Waterfront.” This movie takes up from there.

It inhabits a curiously deserted Philadelphia: There aren’t any cars parked on the slum street where Rocky lives or the slightest sign that anyone else lives there. His world is a small one. By day, he works as an enforcer for a small-time juice man, offering to break a man’s thumbs over a matter of $70 (“I’ll bandage it!” cries the guy. “It’ll look broke”). In his spare time, he works out at Mickey’s gym. He coulda been good, but he smokes and drinks beer and screws around. And yet there’s a secret life behind his facade. He is awkwardly in love with a painfully shy girl (Talia Shire) who works inthe corner pet shop. He has a couple of turtles at home, named Cuff and Link, and a goldfish named Moby Dick. After he wins forty bucks one night for taking a terrible battering in the ring, he comes home and tells the turtles: “If you guys could sing and dance, I wouldn’t have to go through this crap.” When the girl asks him why he boxes, he explains: “Because I can’t sing and dance.”

The movie ventures into fantasy when the world heavyweight champion (Carl Weathers, as a character with a certain similarity to Muhammad Ali) decides to schedule a New Year’s Eve bout with a total unknown — to prove that America is still a land of opportunity. Rocky gets picked because of his nickname, the Italian Stallion; the champ likes the racial contrast. And even here the movie looks like a genre fight picture from the 1940s, right down to the plucky little gymnasium manager (Burgess Meredith) who puts Rocky through training, and right down to the lonely morning ritual of rising at four, drinking six raw eggs, and going out to do roadwork. What makes the movie extraordinary is that it doesn’t try to surprise us with an original plot, with twists and complications; it wants to involve us on an elemental, a sometimes savage, level. It’s about heroism and realizing your potential, about taking your best shot and sticking by your girl. It sounds not only clich餠but corny — and yet it’s not, not a bit, because it really does work on those levels. It involves us emotionally, it makes us commit ourselves: We find, maybe to our surprise after remaining detached during so many movies, that this time we care.

The credit for that has to be passed around. A lot of it goes to Stallone when he wrote this story and then peddled it around Hollywood for years before he could sell it. He must have known it would work because he could see himself in the role, could imagine the conviction he’s bringing to it, and I can’t think of another actor who could quite have pulled off this performance. There’s that exhilarating moment when Stallone, in training, runs up the steps of Philadelphia’s art museum, leaps into the air, shakes his fist at the city, and you know he’s sending a message to the whole movie industry.

The director is John Avildsen, who made “Joe” and then another movie about a loser who tried to find the resources to start again, “Save the Tiger.” Avildsen correctly isolates Rocky in his urban environment, because this movie shouldn’t have a documentary feel, with people hanging out of every window: It’s a legend, it’s about little people, but it’s bigger than life, and you have to set them apart visually so you can isolate them morally.

And then there’s Talia Shire, as the girl (she was the hapless sister of the Corleone boys in “The Godfather”). When she hesitates before kissing Rocky for the first time, it’s a moment so poignant it’s like no other. And Burt Young as her brother — defeated and resentful, loyal and bitter, caring about people enough to hurt them just to draw attention to his grief. There’s all that, and then there’s the fight that ends the film. By now, everyone knows who wins, but the scenes before the fight set us up for it so completely, so emotionally, that when it’s over we’ve had it. We’re drained.