Chewing the Gristle

FAT CITY (1972; d: John Huston)

There are some movies that exist as if an affront to the medium of filmmaking itself, sharply subverting the very notion of entertainment (and storytelling).  When someone sits down to watch a movie like FAT CITY, what they are getting (or being subjected to) has nothing to do with consideration for audience appeal or expectations. 

Stacy Keach, in perhaps the greatest role of his career.

Legendary director John Huston--a former amateur boxer himself--working from Leonard Gardner’s screenplay (based on Gardner’s own 1969 novel), wanted to make a true, unflinching look into the world of journeymen boxers on the fringe, middling–hell, losing--the guys on skid row who exist solely to make stars out of other men, and that is what he delivers. 

The dire streets of Stockton, California, offer authenticity to spare.

It’s a legacy of damaged men and their women, destitute and discarded by society, the glory they live for but will never attain in the fighting ring, and the brutal reality lying in wait on the other side of that equation. 

There is little joy to find in this world and only fleeting glimmers of hope.  And yet this movie is so vivid and true, so skillfully crafted and acted, that it’s somehow so much more than the bleak sum of its parts.  It is a fascinating, exhilarating sight to behold, an utterly real stroll through society’s raw underbelly—and a major return to form for Huston in his twilight years. 

There is something like a love story here, between two drunk, desperate, lonely souls, needing and finding one another, but we know their story cannot end well, even as it’s just getting started. 

These aren’t people meant for happiness.  These are the lost, still young by most standards, but already beholden to the wreckage of their pasts.  They are slaves to the rhythm of their own destruction and a connection forged under these terms can only foster more misery.

And there seems to be an unspoken awareness of this, even as they press forward together.  When it’s over, there is no surprise, no histrionics, no ceremony…just a consensual nod to the futility of a lost cause. 

Much the same can be said for the boxing ring itself.  When the dreams of glory give way to reality’s devastation, when the fighters realize they’re just pawns in a game too big to overcome, who can muster any surprise or resistance?  It’s just another tough lesson in a long line of them. 

A young Jeff Bridges, still learning the ropes.

FAT CITY offers no agenda, doesn’t sermonize, and has no bones to pick (except, perhaps, with the sport of boxing itself).  And it provides no salve for fresh wounds.

Susan Tyrrell earned the only Oscar nomination of her career in the role she was, for better or worse, born to play.

Not to be concerned with backbone, grit, determination, or other manly preoccupations, the only heroics here lie in the ability of its ne’er-do-wells to survive the onslaught.  To take their licks, brush off, and move on.

That might sound like a tough steak to chew on, but along this stretch of bar, for tonight at least, we’ll make due--trying not to think about whatever tomorrow may bring.