EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: JAMES TOBACK

Masculinity in the age of media hype-nosis: Mike Tyson and James Toback.

Fractured dialogues


By John Esther

The most controversial figure in professional sports since the great Muhammad Ali's heyday heroics in the boxing and political rings, former-heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson cuts a complex, crazy and callous character.

On November 22, 1986, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion of the world at the age of 20. Less than one year later he would also become the first boxer to simultaneously own all three major boxing belts: WBA, WBC, and IBF.

The talk of boxing immortality, less than five years later Tyson's reign was knocked down by his controversial 53-week-long marriage to actor Robin Givens (The Cosby Show) followed by a rape conviction and two counts of deviate sexual conduct against Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America Contestant.

It was a sharp rise, fall, rise and demise by one of the most dynamic boxers in American history. To often make matters worse Tyson could not keep his mouth shut, frequently composing some the most ludicrous responses and justifications for his behavior (memorably parodied by In Living Color's Keenan Ivory Wayans and The Simpsons Drederick Tatum).

A force out of control, Tyson finally encountered and created one chaotic situation after another until he quit spontaneously and ceremoniously during a fight with Kevin McBride on June 11, 2005.

Now in his 40s, the retired Tyson looks back at his upbringing in the Bronx, his tutelage under boxing coach legend Cus D'Amato, romance, sex, fighting, boxing, and much more through multiple cameras in James Toback's Tyson.

An independent filmmaker familiar with his own brand of fame and miss-fortune, some of Toback's credits include Jim: The Author's Self-Centered Memoir of the Great Jim Brown, The Gambler, The Beat That Skipped My Heart, Love and Money, Exposed, The Pick-Up Artist, Bugsy, and When I Will Be Loved (featuring an odd cameo by Tyson). Havard-educated and computer illiterate, Toback's films often explore and underscore masculine rage in the face of mortality. It was only fitting Toback should make a film about Tyson.

In this exclusive interview we spoke to Toback about the layers of Tyson and Tyson.

James Toback (talking to a young woman): Somehow I have been a magnet for people who are borderline psychotic or who have crossed over. They usually come to my movies. At any Q&A I have at least two-three people saying, “Hi, I have your story here. I want to give it to you tonight. Here’s my phone number. If you could call me around 1 a.m.” There was one screening where I panicked because there were about 15 of them. I wound up giving my actual cell number to all 15 of them. Later that night I got bombarded with about 100 calls. I said to each one of them. "If you could call me in 18 months, that would be great.” So 18 months minus two days I’m going to change my phone number. [Laughs.] It’s going to be a fucking onslaught.

[The woman leaves. Greetings are exchanged.]

JEsther Entertainment: Speaking of onslaught. You have known Mike for years. Why was it time to tell the story?
JT: How long are we going to be around? We’ve talked about doing it for a while. I’m obsessed with death as an immediate reality. I told everyone I was going to be dead at 26 and it doesn’t embarrass me. I still think I’m going to be dead any day. Tyson can’t believe he’s 40. Everybody he knows is dead, in prison or strung out on drugs. Given that death is the only thing we know is going to happen, at a certain point you say, “It’s now or never.”

JE: Beyond the death connection, what do you have in common with Mike?
JT: An experience of madness, a love of extreme behavior -- both in oneself and in others, a feeling that there are no rules except the ones you make up yourself. It’s important to know yourself and it’s important to have yourself fully revealed to yourself; also a love of boxing, a love of certain sports.

JE: You mention boxing. What are the similarities between boxing and filmmaking?
JT: The stakes are immensely high. If you make a movie or go in for a prizefight, the repercussions of failure are disastrous. And the advancement is huge. If you do it and it pays off there’s an inordinate importance to each of the events in your career.

JE: Mike is credited with being an executive producer and he is a buddy of yours; how much influence did he have making the film?
JT: Zero. That was part of the deal. He didn’t see anything until it was done. I couldn’t have done it any other way. Executive Producer, as you may have noticed over the years, as a title, does not resonate with actual significance with the people who hold it.

JE: How did the friendship influence the areas were you went?
JT: I just assumed he didn’t want to do the movie if he didn’t want to be unadulterated-ly confessional. That was the whole point of it. He asked a question and then had two cameras shooting for the next 45 minutes without interrupting. If there were 10 minutes of silence, fine; let’s see what happens after the 10 minutes of silence. It was a completely relaxed environment where he could come up with whatever occurred to him.

JE: What do you think the medium could not capture about Tyson? What do you know how Mike that is not in Tyson?
JT: Nothing. The toughest thing was to get that sense of madness. The stylistic framework I came up, with the split screen and multiple voices, actually took care of that problem.

JE: Tyson seems to have matured in many ways over the years with the noticeably exception of sex. He still seems to be a kid. Did you ever talk to him about it? “Hey, Mike, you still sound like that kid.”
JT: No, because the idea was not to adulterate anything he was saying and to let him come across in his own way. Just as he in not a censor of himself, I didn’t want to be a censor. For instance, he says, "fellatio," when what he means is cunnilingus.

JE: The natural process of editing does censor.
JT: That’s not censoring. That’s selection. That’s what I had to do as opposed to releasing a 30-hour movie.

JE: Do people question your wise choice not to include other interviewees?
JT: That has been asked at least once at every Q&A I’ve done. It never occurred me to do that. The story is basically psychoanalytic – allow a guy to be on the couch, literally and figuratively, and let all of his voices out.

JE: Lastly, what do you think about these interviews where you talk about your work? Does it serve the work? Should the work speak for itself?
JT: It should speak for itself. Ideally there would be no promotion for any movie. The Soloist opens the same day. I’ve seen 30 spots for the film. By the way, have you seen the film?

JE: Yesterday.
JT: Is it any good? Do you think people are going to like it?

JE: It’s not sentimental. It has a very strong love/hate relationship with Los Angeles.
JT: Oh really? Well, you don’t have to promote that movie. It’s there. Most movies you do. The less money you get spent (on marketing) the more marketing you got to do. If I didn’t do it how many people wouldn’t be aware of it? I don’t know because I’m an Internet ignoramus. Ultimately, nothing I say is going to change what’s on the screen. This doesn’t matter. There it is. You could talk about it all you want.