Each month, the Madison Central Library joins with The Independent Television Service for Community Cinema, a program that screens new documentaries from the PBS series, “Independent Lens.” This month features The Trials of Muhammad Ali, a new film by director (and UW-Madison alum) Bill Siegel.
Receiving an Academy Award nomination in 2002 for co-directing The Weather Underground, Siegel’s new film dissects Ali’s life during the 1960s, a tumultuous period in his career when Ali would fight not only boxers but politics, racism, and the anxieties of white America. I sat down with Siegel this past weekend to discuss the director’s career in the film industry and the profound impact Ali had on him.
So I really enjoyed the film. As a cultural figure, Ali transcends the sport of boxing itself. As I watched it though, I couldn’t help wonder: Why Muhammad Ali now? Why tackle this subject?
Well, I think Muhammad Ali now and forever. The struggles he went through, as explored in the film, involved a journey of faith and finding his identity against the powers that be. There are many timeless issues in his story in the film that help prove history is relevant. People coming of age now are faced with many of the same conflicts. You look at this country’s relationship with Islam now as just one example. Certainly race relations continue to be a struggle.
The amount of archival footage you draw from is really impressive. At one point, you use a clip from Ali’s appearance on The Jerry Lewis Show, and you can tell there’s some legitimate heat between the two. It feels like Ali had already become such a polarizing and magnetic figure, that the boxing was an afterthought in his career at that point.
That’s the main idea of the film, too. Obviously there’s tons of great material on Muhammad Ali out there, but for the most part they feature his boxing career. And for good reason. I really felt that there was a fight film — not a boxing film — but a fight film to be made about Ali outside the ring. You see him swinging, using his wit and wisdom, and you see that in the Jerry Lewis scene. We forget just how vilified he was in many corners of society back then. People in mainstream white America were not ready for Cassius Clay to change his name, to join this controversial religion. There was this expected code of conduct for a heavyweight champion.
There is fight footage, but you also show how his fights took on a symbolic quality. The Ali-Patterson fight for example is framed around what that bout meant for Black Muslims, what it signified as a message to Patterson from Ali himself.
There was a point during the making of the film where I had the notion to never show Ali hitting anybody in the ring, but I thought that was facetious, me trying to impose a cinematic style. He was a boxer, but I did try to use ideological components in his fights. The media called that Floyd Patterson fight “The Crescent vs. The Cross.” There he is on the center stage becoming himself before the public, defying expectations of what he’s supposed to be but doing it on principle. When he’s with Floyd Patterson, he’s not just “popping off,” he’s representing who he is. It’s totally different.
You talk to a lot of people in this film. Louis Farrakhan, Ali’s brother, his ex-wife, even the New York Times writer who covered his career. Did you ever make an attempt to contact Ali himself?
The first thing I did was contact Muhammad Ali, essentially to get his blessing. I didn’t need it for legal consent, but I certainly wanted him to know I was out to make this film about the most controversial, notorious period in his life. I was able to get a meeting with him and his current wife Lonnie, and they totally got it. Lonnie said, “I don’t want my husband’s legacy white-washed.” Because of Muhammad’s current health status with Parkinson’s, he’s not really able to do a productive on-camera interview. His mind is entirely there but he can’t verbalize. Had I been able to, I would have.
I would argue that the absence of any direct interviews with Ali actually works in the film’s favor. You’re showing the impact he had by proximity, from family and friends to former managers, Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis.
He demanded a response. To take the two words you used, he was both polarizing and magnetic. If the film’s working, ultimately it’s as much about us as it is about him. Our response to him has evolved over time. That’s what the beginning of the film is about with the clips of [American talk show host] David Susskind tearing into him and former President George W. Bush giving him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That says more about who we are than it does about who Muhammad Ali is.
It’s quite an effective juxtaposition.
It’s meant to be a punch in the face and establish that this is not about boxing but it is going to be a fight.
Where did the idea for this project come from?
My first job in documentary, I was right out of grad school as a research on a six-hour series that aimed to be the first comprehensive look at Ali’s life. It was a dream job because I just had to immerse myself. I sat in a room and watched tons of footage and talked to people and built background units. The scenes of Muhammad Ali outside the ring speaking on college campuses was a time I didn’t know much about and they stayed with me. I went on to do other things. Eventually, I co-directed a documentary called The Weather Underground, and finally about six years ago I got back to this project in earnest and made it my own.
I like to say that this is a “film for the whole family” in the same spirit that the new Mandela films or the Jackie Robinson film that just came out [42] are. Those aren’t documentaries, but there’s still a generational hand-off in the sense that whoever you are, there’s someone you know who doesn’t this Muhammad Ali.
Outside your work as a director, iMDb also gives you a researching credit on Hoop Dreams.
They’re generous with the credits, but I had a little bit to do with the tail-end of the project. I got a lot more from that film than they got from me. That was my introduction to Kartemquin Films here in Chicago, a legendary 50-year old documentary collective, and they were my production company on this film. They gave me a ton of support on this project.
Considering The Weather Underground and Trials, the intersection between sports and politics seems to interest you.
I’ve always been a sports fan, and I think the nexus between sports and politics is a great way to examine some deep issues in a way that can reach a broader audience. It’s deeper than conventional sports coverage and broader than straight political reporting. It’s a great vehicle because everything’s there: celebrity, class, race. You name it.
I almost hate to ask now, but do you think we have a modern equivalent of Ali today?
Yes and no. No, we’ll never see the likes of Muhammad Ali in the ring again. He was a cut above the rest. Just phenomenal. I think it’s rare these days to see celebrities put their fame and fortune on the line on principle, for a moral stance like Ali did. People are speaking out, but they seem far more concerned with their brand than their morals when it comes to public participation. That said, I think that the capacity to represent yourself, to figure out who you are and what you stand for and to be able to take a moral stance is not rare. That exists in every single one of us. It can be hard to access and it takes a lot of guts to act on it, but we all have it.
- You can ask Bill Siegel more questions this Thursday night at 6:30p when he presents The Trials of Muhammad Ali in person at the Central Library. Other featured guests include Ibrahim Saeed of the Islamic Center of Madison and author and WXXM host Stu Levitan. FREE.