{"id":5910,"date":"2015-11-25T09:05:16","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T17:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/creed-balances-brutality-theatricality\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T09:05:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T17:05:16","slug":"creed-balances-brutality-theatricality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/creed-balances-brutality-theatricality\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Creed’ balances brutality, theatricality"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES<\/strong> \u2014 Sylvester Stallone knows most of Rocky Balboa\u2019s famous fights would have been stopped by a real-life referee long before the battered and bloodied fictional heavyweight champion rallies his will to win.<\/p>\n

Stallone also realizes many people who only know boxing from his \u201cRocky\u201d saga might believe his beloved sport really looks like a Rocky movie all the time.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Stallone has always insisted that the \u201cRocky\u201d films acknowledge the heavy cost of boxing, even amid the cathartic ring victories that have turned the character into an icon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel responsible, because I see the brain damage,\u201d Stallone said in a recent interview. \u201cI see the harm. No one walks away unscathed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cRocky\u201d series continues this week with the release of \u201cCreed,\u201d writer-director Ryan Coogler\u2019s reimagining of Rocky as a reluctant trainer for his oldest rival\u2019s son, Adonis Creed.<\/p>\n

Coogler and Stallone maintained the Rocky series\u2019 delicate balance between depictions of hyper-stylized, brutal fighting and that acknowledgement of the dangers and damage inherent in boxing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have this conversation with my wife,\u201d Stallone said. \u201c(She\u2019ll say) \u2018This is so brutal. How can you condone it?\u2019 Well, a lot of these men, they don\u2019t sing, they don\u2019t dance. They\u2019re not intellectuals. This is what they do, and when it\u2019s done properly, it\u2019s the most incredible, graceful, beautiful, violent ballet. It\u2019s something that\u2019s just in certain men.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early in \u201cCreed,\u201d Rocky tries to talk Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) out of fighting at all. An illegitimate son rescued from foster care by Creed\u2019s wife (Phylicia Rashad), Adonis gives up a steady white-collar job and a well-to-do lifestyle in Los Angeles to train in hardscrabble Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want brain damage?\u201d Rocky asks Creed. \u201cYou\u2019re better than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cRocky\u201d saga\u2019s balance between boxing reality and cinematic showmanship was a challenge eagerly accepted by the 29-year-old Coogler, who pursued Stallone for a year to get the chance.<\/p>\n

Coogler\u2019s first film, 2013\u2019s \u201cFruitvale Station,\u201d brimmed with slice-of-life realism and delicate touches. Coogler shows impressive versatility in his move to a big-name action franchise, but says he kept in mind the humble persona in which Stallone\u2019s sometimes superhuman Rocky was always grounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething we always talked about is that (Creed) has to earn his way,\u201d Coogler said. \u201cThis dude doesn\u2019t want to be handed something. He wants to go out and get it. So we knew there was going to be a bunch of fights in this movie, and each one has to feel different. Each one has to tell the story of what that fight is, and therefore dictate the style.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan had his own appreciation of Stallone\u2019s view of boxing after a year of training to look like a light heavyweight contender. He filmed with real boxers including Andre Ward, Tony Bellew and Gabriel Rosado, getting hit with his share of accidental punches amid the cinematic choreography.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, what these boxers go through mentally and physically, man, it\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cAs boxers, your hands are wrapped up most of the time. You can\u2019t do anything yourself. You need somebody to help you. That\u2019s the cool nuance about people who we think are so manly and masculine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coogler added more than a new screenwriting voice to the \u201cRocky\u201d series, which had been written entirely by Stallone and directed only by Stallone and John G. Avildsen. Coogler also brings the fights to dramatic new life with staging and imagination that don\u2019t skimp on reality or theatricality.<\/p>\n

An early bout in Tijuana is staged in a claustrophobically small ring that emphasizes Creed\u2019s solitude. Later in the film, Creed\u2019s first fight in Philadelphia is presented in much grander scope \u2014 a virtuoso display of big-picture filmmaking.<\/p>\n

Coogler shot the entire Philadelphia fight in a single take, including the entire pre-fight walk, two rounds of action and every exchange in between. The unbroken showcase puts the audience in the middle of a boxing match in a way the first six \u201cRocky\u201d movies never imagined \u2014 which was Coogler\u2019s goal all along with every aspect of \u201cCreed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story of that first fight in Philadelphia, which is so important to us, is the idea that Adonis has finally got what he wants,\u201d said Coogler, a receiver at Sacramento State before attending film school at the University of Southern California. \u201cAnd when you get what you want all of a sudden in life, it\u2019s cool and it\u2019s scary, because then you\u2019ve got no more excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Coogler had no desire to entirely abandon the boxing theatricality for which the series is known, particularly in the grand finale expected in any Rocky film.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to build to a crescendo so we earn a final fight that delivers on what people want when they buy a ticket for this movie,\u201d Coogler said. \u201cIt has to deliver on a certain spectacle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 Sylvester Stallone knows most of Rocky Balboa\u2019s famous fights would have been stopped by a real-life referee long before the battered and bloodied fictional heavyweight champion rallies his will to win. Stallone also realizes many people who only know boxing from his \u201cRocky\u201d saga might believe his beloved sport really looks like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5910"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}