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Oscar nominated writer (“Bugsy”) and director James Toback presents a no-holds-barred portrait of the controversial former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson in this documentary which was a winning entry at the most recent Cannes Film Festival.

Through a mixture of original interviews, archival footage and photos, “Tyson” is an examination, in the fighter’s own words, as to all the highs and lows of his life, both public and private, that is both poignant and sometimes funny. Stylistically and editorially, outside of using split screens and some fancy editing, Toback is essentially talking to one man, and taking his word for it. Moreover, with the subject as one of the film’s producers, one might think this is a puff piece. Instead, the ex-champ dissects himself with the same relentlessness he showed opponents in the ring. Yes it is his point of view, but regardless of your opinion of him, “Tyson” proves a compelling film subject despite or perhaps because of his mass contradictions.

Toback has said in interviews that what interested him about Tyson, whom he’s known for more than 20 years, is “the balance of fragility and rage,” and that definitely comes across. From the rough upbringing on the mean streets of Brooklyn then becoming a pro boxer at 18 and world heavyweight champion, to his fall from grace and his current attempts to fully rehabilitate himself, Mike Tyson is laid out like never before.

A wild Brooklyn kid with multiple arrests by age 13.

A supremely talented fighter who became the youngest world heavyweight boxing champion at age 20.

A felon imprisoned for three years for raping beauty contestant Desiree Washington.

A driven pugilist who comes back to regain the world boxing crown.

A sex and drug addict who threw away $300 million.

Bonus material include director commentary, a filmed Q&A session with Toback, as well as “A Day in the Life” that follows the director the day the film premieres in Los Angeles.

The SandC Interview: “Tyson” Director James Toback

How did the idea for the film come about?

I’ve known Mike since he was 19. We had an odd connection over the years. He came by the set of “The Pick Up Artist” where we hit it off right away.

Jumping ahead, after he got out of prison, I felt it would be a good time for him to be in a movie I was preparing, “Black and White”, because it was a movie about hip hop where he is an icon. I wrote him into the film, not with dialogue but with situations. I didnt tell Mike that the Robert Downey Jr. gay husband character to Brooke Shields was going to hit on him. Downey, who was in a quasi-suicidal state at the time anyway, did hit on him until, after being polite for 5 minutes Mike finally snapped, threw Robert to the ground and called him a “c*(m drinker”. Brooke then hit on Tyson and it intimidated him. He didn’t know how to handle it. That was the first inkling I had that he could be a substantial screen presence because all of his dialogue was improvised. He was really good holding his own with these actors both of whom are excellent improvisers.

We shot a scene in the gym the next day where Tyson plays himself as a young rapper comes to him for advice about killing someone. Tyson gives him contradictory suggestions on when and how to murder someone. Then talks about the humility of being stripped searched in prison. Spoken in a quiet, meditative way, I thought to myself, I could extend that version of Tyson into a really riveting hour and a half portrait if I could find the right visual style.

I mentioned to him that night and he said ‘I’m ready whenever you are’.

Finally, seven years later we did it.

From concept to final edit how long did this film take to complete?

What happened was I made two movies in between, “Harvard Man” and “When Will I Be Loved”, which Tyson was in with a small part where he plays Buck the pimp from Minnesota.

Kind of bizarre but what triggered it was, he was arrested for cocaine possession and crashed into a sheriff’s car in Phoenix. He was put into rehab and I thought to myself, ‘ This might be the ideal time to do this movie’. Mike won’t be victim to his normal ADD consciousness. He will have a readiness to really reveal himself and be meditative and articulate for maybe a week. I propose it to him, he was excited and the rehab let him out. We shot 10 hours a day for 5 days. It took me a year to edit.

As you were watching the footage, what makes Mike Tyson such a compelling figure?

Even women who had a major antagonism towards him and didn’t like boxing have been moved by his uninhibited truthfulness. There is no sense that he is telling you what he thinks will make you think one way or another about him. It is a penetrating and stirring quality for any human to have. People are so used to being manipulated and, if not lied to, sort of fooled or one that doesn’t have much to say or doesn’t know how to say it in an interesting way. He is a guy with a very dramatic story who is a very complicated and tortured soul, who has a tremendous amount to say and a fresh, and in his own way, articulate, way of saying it.

Then there is that weird incrongruety with that face and lispy quasi-soprano voice which add to a sort of hypnotic effect.

This is certainly not a conventional film biography, at what point did you decide to use only Tyson on camera and no fresh interviews with promoters, boxers, cornermen, broadcasters, agents, family et al?

I felt doing a regular biography about anyone other than myself was boring to me. I am only that interested in me. So the idea of ‘ wow, I’m going to get the truth of Mike Tyson’s life as a boxer’ wouldn’t have held up. It would have been an exercise in lack of ambition on my part.

I thought what would be interesting is a kind of self-portrait the way that Gauguin or Rembrandt painted self-portraits. This was my version of Tyson’s self-portrait. What was interesting was to take this very interesting and complicated personality and allow him to reveal all those complications. Not say ‘ this what I found out happened instead of that’ or Teddy Atlas’s view of something that happened one afternoon 29 years ago or any of that stuff.

Incidentally you do get certain things such as Tyson’s rather riveting account of why he bit Holyfield’s ear, which kind of makes you think if had a third ear he should’ve bitten that one as well. So if the stuff came about organically fine. Like the rape conviction, which he has always vehemently denied, and I find completely credible, the idea of running around trying to find out what Desiree Washington or her father said or what somebody else said just wasn’t of interest to me. I was tempted, but I couldn’t have done it structurally to let Alan Dershowitz, one of the leading criminal lawyers in America, who said that in 40 years of following and engaging in criminal trials, it was the single worst miscarriage of justice he has ever seen. But if I put that in, then the genie is out of the box. The whole structure is altered.     

You have known him for quite some time,  so what is the most surprising thing you learned about Tyson from doing this project?

I was most surprised to learn how fearful he was. Endless confession of fear. ‘I was afraid….afraid…..’ If we hear that phrase 30 times in the movie, I have (unused) footage where he says it another 300 times.

I think the whole life of Mike Tyson has been a struggle to overcome the fear which grew out of being a short, fat kid who was bullied and pushed around and humiliated on a regular basis growing up. I think that is new and surprising. 

What was your biggest disappointment connected to the making of this film?

I had no disappointment whatsoever.

Of my 13 or 14 films, I must really be f*&^%k” up if I cant remember how many films I have done, 5 have worked out ideally. This is certainly at the top of the list.

I’ve made other films that didn’t come out close to the way I wanted and it is very frustrating. The frustration here came when the boring question of rights, finishing money and distribution amounted to an unbelievably stupid waste of time. I felt, ‘ok at least it is in that area not in the area that counts, which is the actual making of the movie.’

At one point Mike says ‘ I have a mind of an extremist… I don’t know how to live in the middle’. Would you agree that statement echoes the theme of the picture?

Absolutely. I think the reason he and I had, without sounding gay, this immediate bond and sense of communion the first night we met, is that we both had a sense that each had met someone as obsessive and compulsive and driven to extremes as he was in the other. A sort of complete match.

The movie itself I think gives you that feeling, that sensation almost an assumption of extreme behavior all through the film. No sense of moderation or caution or hesitation. Everything is there. I hope it is well sculpted and shaped with a sort of a volcanic sense of propulsive possibility that is there all the time.  

Connected to that, what do you hope audiences come away with after viewing your film?

I hope they come away with a sense that they have been moved and connected to a kind of riveting and complex personality, because I think all of us, including Tyson, have a sense of isolation and aloneness. We’re all born in shock and die in some form of shock and isolation. And when it is possible to make human connection in some way, I think it is a very valuable moment that one appreciates where very few other things in life do. If one can make a movie where that feeling is conveyed, I think it is worthwhile doing. That is what the movie seems to be doing with most who see it.

“Requiem for a Heavyweight”, “Raging Bull”, “The Set Up” are just a few examples that some of the best theatrical films with a sports backdrop involve boxing, what is it about the sweet science that makes it so compelling for motion pictures?

I think the real essence of boxing and boxing movies give you a sense of do or die urgency. We could be totally destroyed in any minute, the carpet pulled out from under us. Others, like football and “sudden death”, love to pretend they have it, but boxing is the actual embodiment of in its purest form.

Is there another sports figure you’d like to create a documentary or feature film on?

No. I am done, going back to fictional films, but I would like to say the book I wrote about my life with Jim Brown in the Hollywood Hills that just got re-published by Rat Press called Jim: The Author’s Self-Centered Memoir on the Great Jim Brown is out now in paperback.

It documents my two years living in the wild orgiastic environment of Jim Brown’s house where I was the only white guy living in this totally orgiastic world. James Toback and seven black athletes carrying on like psychopaths 24 hours a day.  

Speaking of athletes and film, what are James Toback’s five favorite sports movies of all-time.

Number one, by light years, and nothing comes close is “Fat City”.

It is an under appreciated film that people should see.

The Set Up
Requiem for a Heavyweight
The Harder They Fall
Drive, He Said