I’ve known of and thought about Mike Tyson since I was 10 years old,
when he became the youngest ever heavyweight-boxing champion. His power
captured my imagination as I caught fire to the world of sports, and
his youthful fame seemed eminently more relatable than a galaxy of teen
actors could ever sell. I cheered for him as he routed opponents,
resisted as scandal mounted outside the ring, and violently turned on
him as his outrages proved irresistible.

Now, having seen the documentary Tyson, I realize none of
these responses gave him a fair shake at all. How is it that I never
truly perceived a man I’ve been paying attention to for more than
two-thirds of my life?

Tyson is a monologue of a film, a life story narrated by the
only man who lived it. Through archival footage and the champ’s
reminiscences, Tyson takes us back to his hardscrabble upbringing on
Brooklyn’s mean streets. Simply, powerfully, the idea of a scared,
bullied kid who lives in terror of being physically humiliated
emerges.

Incarcerated in a juvenile center after run-ins with the law, Tyson
serendipitously came to the attention of boxing trainer Cus D’Amato at
age 14. D’Amato taught the youngster discipline and character and gave
him a safe place to be in the world. On film, Tyson gets emotional
talking about the mentor who believed in him. The boxer rose through
the ranks under D’Amato’s tutelage, and then, on the verge of getting
his heavyweight shot, the trainer died. Tyson was 19 years old and
admits he was scared and vulnerable and lost belief in himself when he
lost his friend.

Tyson’s new trainers took him through his first years of fame, but
they certainly don’t appear to have had the beneficent effect on Iron
Mike that D’Amato did. Based on the evidence in the film, it’s very
tempting to point to D’Amato’s death as the moment when Tyson’s life
began to crater.

In passages such as these, Tyson could not be more sympathetic a
figure. But contrast those passages to the way he talks about women,
saying he likes to dominate strong women sexually and continuing to
deny the rape allegations Desiree Washington made in 1991 (for which he
was convicted and imprisoned for three years). In the film, Tyson calls
Washington a “horrible swine of a woman.”

In the hands of filmmaker James Toback (Black and White, the
Bugsy screenplay), Tyson is as captivating in conversation as he
was in the ring. Toback presents him with a visually arresting series
of split screens and voiceover doubles and triples that come like a
flurry of punches.

As an idea, Tyson conjures a host of paradoxes. It was
through the pop-culture lens that Tyson was sequestered from being
something other than his persona. So call it the miracle of media,
then, that Toback uses the same tools to give him back his
humanity.

The enquiring public has rented the famous boxer for more than 20
years. It’s time to return the keys. Another inherent irony: It is
through the sacrament of cinema consumerism that we can ritually
cleanse ourselves of the celebrity stain.

Tyson goes from a larger-than-life character to the victim and
victimizer we all are. “Old too soon, smart too late,” Tyson says.

At the end of the film, he faces the future angry and disappointed
in himself. One wishes him the blessing of anonymity to heal himself.
(My screening of Tyson happened prior to the news of his
4-year-old daughter’s tragic accidental death. If it’s now acknowledged
in the film, I cannot say.)

Tyson

Opens Friday, June 12th

Ridgeway Four