FAT CITY (1972)
Directed by : John Huston
When you hear Kris Kristofferson sing "Help Me Make It Through the Night" while you watch Stacy Keach (playing old, past his prime boxer Billy Tully) stumble around his bare boarding room in his underpants, you're getting an accurate reflection of what Fat City is all about. Broken dreams, busting your guts out for peanuts, drinking yourself into a stupor (short term) and the grave (long term) and the ridiculously tough sport boxing is. John Huston liked the idea of making this film about a young up-and-comer and an old boxer trying to make a comeback because he was involved with boxing as a youth. Leonard Gardner adapted his own novel for the screen. Joining Keach was Jeff Bridges, fresh off his breakthrough success in The Last Picture Show. Bridges plays Ernie Munger - young and talented, but inexperienced. He never sees the low blows coming, and you could say he lacks a little drive - despite his enthusiasm. Tully is like an old shoe - beat up, tired, broken down and nearly always drunk. Despite this he slugs things out, and goes through hell just to keep the impossible dream going - for his life to really mean something.
The boxing scenes in Fat City manage to be both understated and phenomenal at the same time. I'll be damned if I didn't ride every punch - and perhaps that's because I cared so much about the characters, who really need to do well in the ring for it all to make sense. Up there with the boxing scenes are the barroom ones - with the added presence of Susan Tyrrell (who is wonderful) as the constantly soused Oma Lee Greer, who Billy hitches his wagon to. "You can count on me," is his constant refrain - everything comes pouring out once Billy gets drunk, as does the sorrowful lamentation from Oma whose man is now in prison. We see them at their lowest - but is there any amount of training, conditioning and good luck that will lift them any higher than their present station? Billy picks up work in the fields, harvesting various crops for basically loose change. He seems attracted to the gutter. Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto) gets him a fight with an old pro whose name seems big on paper, but who has some devastating health problems of his own.
The world of boxing seems ludicrous when you see how hard it is, and the lives of all the characters in Fat City are hard all-round. It's push and effort - sometimes for nothing. A broken nose and no reward. Covered in mud and the car's still stuck. An unwanted marriage because of an unwanted pregnancy. A paycheck down the drain in exchange for a night of being deliriously drunk. All some characters have to show for it is a cardboard box full of stuff, and a middle-finger from an ex. To contemplate all of this could easily be overwhelmingly depressing, but Huston puts many human touches in which give every one of his characters a certain amount of humanity, spirit, nobility and honor. When Billy says "You can count on me," he means it, even if at times he can't fully live up to it. In the ring there are no cheap and easy ways to get by. Huston makes sure the camera captures every single moment of what makes all of these characters worth exploring in minute detail, even if their lives are heading straight for the drain. It has a solemn yet winsome edge to it with enough moments of catharsis to relieve the relentless sadness. Keach's performance is remarkable - and this is an extremely good movie.
Glad to catch this one - Susan Tyrrell was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Oma in 1973.
Watchlist Count : 438 (-12)
Next : Beau Geste (1939)
Next : Beau Geste (1939)
Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Fat City.
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Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
We miss you Takoma
We miss you Takoma
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