Rocky’s Worth

Take the Cinderella story. Give the heroine a sex change and muscles (make her a Palooka in Philadelphia). Turn the fairy godmother into a black, heavyweight boxing champ looking for a promotional gimmick. Change the handsome prince into a spinsterish ugly duckling who clerks in a pet store and the two ugly sisters into an angry butcher and a washed-up trainer. What have you got? The “best picture of 1976.”

Best picture? Well, probably not. But if you expect me to put down Rocky for being tacky and/or anti-intellectual and/or racist and/or sexist, reader, pass me by.

Rocky’s got several things going for it. Not the least of these is a Hollywood film industry becoming increasingly dominated by gimmicky and impersonal blockbusters. Compared to these, Rocky is refreshingly different: unsophisticated and direct and people-oriented. Sylvester Stallone’s script is rich in the careful and endearing details that are often associated with actuality (Rocky’s “Yo,” for instance). The actors have the homey faces and mannerisms of fascinating neighbors. And John Avildsen’s direction is functional and unobtrusive enough to make things click.

More essential to Rocky’s success, however, is the actor who gives the film its heart: Stallone as Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion. His is not a completely flawless presentation. At times he does look like he’s acting, i.e., doing what an actor would do in a given situation rather than what a real person would do. But at least he does not give the kind of streamlined and mannered performance that the usual star would give. (Or perhaps he’s just not familiar enough yet for us to detect his tricks.) His portrayal has a natural feel to it, a kind of lived-in quality as if he not only knows guys like Rocky but is one of them.

His performance is engagingly credible; it also has a unique resonance. This resonance is especially apparent in the training sequences. Rocky is about a guy who, given a last-minute chance to be somebody, works hard to prove himself and succeeds at it. You probably don’t need me to point out that Stallone translated his own frustration, and pride, and ambition, and pain as an actor into this story about a boxer. So there is an extra, almost allegorical, level to the film — for instance, when Rocky jogs through Philadelphia with a brick in each hand, when he struggles at those one-armed push-ups, when he builds to a sprint in the harbour and vaults up the stairs at the government building to raise his arms in the victory sign. This is not only Rocky training to be a heavyweight boxing contender; this is Stallone training to be a heavy-weight acting contender, working his butt off to make it. Oddly enough, just as Rocky’s fight ended in a split decision, so too did Stallone’s: he lost the Oscar for best actor but won for best picture.

Is Rocky any more than an effective melodrama or adult fairytale, affecting in its surface details, its emotional manipulation, and perhaps its resonance, but lacking in those more enduring qualities that we like to associate with art?

That’s hard to say. The film does have some artistic pretensions. It’s not entirely accidental (you’ll hate me for suggesting this) that Rocky is 30, that he trains in the Resurrection Club, that he preaches to a group of street-corner toughs, that this story is one of self-sacrifice and salvation of others (Adrienne and Paullie). Likewise it’s no accident that the film is set in Philadelphia, that Rocky gravitates toward a government building during his training runs, and that Apollo Creed enters the arena surrounded by living Statues of Liberty and dressed like a grotesque parody of both George Washington and Uncle Sam.

But, although this has the advantage of not being hammered at blatantly, it is pretty elementary stuff — a kind of high-school symbolism. What is a bit more intriguing is the way Rocky conforms to the outline of the classic American hero. Like the hero of the Western, for instance, Rocky is a man alone — a mysterious fringe person with no family, no status, no past. More important is his contrast to Apollo Creed (interesting name, symbol hunters). Rocky stands for individualism and generosity and perseverance (the wholesome, old-fashioned American ideals) as opposed to Apollo’s association with corporations, acquisitiveness, and slick media manipulation (the contemporary American perversions). And his victory, a moral victory, is not a glamorous one. It is a kind of bulldog victory based more on tenacity and stamina and masochism than on strength or intelligence.

The difference between Rocky and the classic American hero is his love for Adrienne. Gunfighters ride off alone. The battered boxer ends up in the arms of his girlfriend. Much of this looks like it was designed for the Harlequin Romances trade, especially the ending. If freeze-framing weren’t such a trite way to end movies, I’d say that the director was trying to add a bit of complexity to this sugary apotheosis. Perhaps this is also the reason for his decision to dress Adrienne in black and in a rather mannish outfit. It does introduce a minor negative note into the film’s final frames.

The ending isn’t the only part of the film that provides some food for thought. Take, for example, Rocky’s first date with Adrienne — the scene in the ice-skating rink. This scene has some of the choicest dialogue. “Are you closed to the general public or are you just closed to everybody?” Rocky asks the proprietor in his inimical Palooka’s logic. Later when Adrienne questions him about fighting, he says: “You gotta be a moron.” For a moment it sounds as if he’s insulting her until he repeats himself: “You gotta be a moron to fight.” Meanwhile the proprietor punctuates their conversation by yelling out as each of the 10 minutes paid for is up. This is all very offbeat and amusing. Is there anything more to it?

Let’s speculate. Why is the scene set in an ice-skating rink? Rocky is about to rescue Adrienne from isolation and near catatonia with her brother and in the pet store. Perhaps the ice-skating is meant to suggest that Adrienne is being transformed into a woman of mobility and grace. If it is, I suppose it could be linked to her new sense of vision. (Rocky removes her glasses in his apartment and she miraculously doesn’t need them after this.) In a way you can interpret this as Rocky creating his own complement. For at the end of the fight he is blind and immobile and must rely on Adrienne’s corning to help him.

The only problem with this is that the removal of the glasses is such a cliche that it’s almost embarrassing to give it this extra dimension. And this is something that happens throughout the film. At times it looks very intelligent; at other times it looks soft-headed. And at other times it looks simultaneously intelligent and soft-headed. Rocky is certainly worth seeing once. Maybe more.

— Gene Walz