ROLLING WITH THE PUNCHES
Falardeau gets in the ring for Chuck
Philippe Falardeau has always had a funny bone. Even in his Oscar-nominated 2011 breakthrough drama, Monsieur Lazhar, about an Algerian immigrant teacher who helps his elementary school students deal with tragedy, there were sprinklings of comedy.
Though it fizzled at the box office, his 2013 refugee saga, The Good Lie, co-starring Reese Witherspoon, was a warmly humorous tale. And his goofy 2015 political satire, Guibord s’en va-t-en guerre (My Internship in Canada), made little attempt to be serious.
So it’s not entirely surprising that Falardeau’s take on the story behind the world’s most famous boxing movie plays out like one big running gag. Chuck (previously titled The Bleeder, in reference to its hero’s ability to take a punch) is based on the life of Chuck Wepner, the New Jersey boxer who went 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali in 1975, inspiring Sylvester Stallone to write Rocky. From the film’s first moments, Falardeau takes a lighthearted approach.
“I like ‘fun,’ ” he said, in response to my description of the movie. “I use the word ‘playful,’ which is closer to ‘ludique’ in French. While I was reading the script, although what happens to Chuck in the second and third act is not necessarily fun, there was always a playful mood around Chuck. That’s the man he is. No matter how much of an a--hole he could be, you could always forgive him for some reason. He has that charisma. So I thought the film had to be playful and generous to the audience and the character without being complacent. We had to show what he did, but it made no sense to make a pure drama out of it.”
Wepner, as played by Liev Schreiber, is a gregarious, charismatic womanizer who rarely makes the right decision and, as the stakes get higher, becomes increasingly lost in a haze of denial.
“I had never dealt with a character who had more flaws than (good) qualities,” Falardeau said. “If you look at my other films, the main characters have this nobility that carries their story. In this case, I had to deal with the fact that he would be considered by some as a not-so-good person.
“I wanted to explore that and see if I could make him appealing in spite of all his flaws. So it was a departure into something dirtier, rougher around the edges, and I tried to convey that in the esthetic of the film.”
Highlighting the hand-held camerawork of Quebec cinematographer Nicolas Bolduc (Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy, Kim Nguyen’s Rebelle and Two Lovers and a Bear), Chuck takes a rock ’n’ roll approach to the ’70s and to its protagonist, using grainy imagery, colourful costumes and a freewheeling soundtrack to conjure a distinct sense of time and place.
Falardeau’s first hurdle was winning over Schreiber, who had been attached to the project for some time and was concerned about what kind of vision the director had for Wepner’s story.
“Liev comes from the theatre,” Falardeau said. “He’s very grounded and cerebral. Just like me, he needs to find out why we’re doing things (a certain) way. He was as obsessed as I was in making sure we were making a fun film but also a meaningful film.
“We found a common language. He really liked it when he realized I was just going to dance with him, put the camera on (Bolduc’s) shoulder and make a very subjective film that would stay close to him at all times. Between the three of us, it was like a ballet on set.”
Falardeau takes a leap of faith in not making Wepner’s claimto-fame bout the climax of his film. Instead, he places it at the midway point, then goes on to show how the fighter’s life unfolded — and unravelled — in the aftermath.
Along the way, Falardeau demonstrates how closely Stallone stuck to the facts of Wepner’s life, including his side job as an enforcer, how he was chosen to fight Ali because the promoter (Don King) thought a blackversus-white fight would garner wide interest and his troubled relationship with his wife (played with scene-stealing backbone by Elisabeth Moss).
“When you look at Rocky Balboa and Chuck Wepner, they’re two different men,” Falardeau said, “but it’s undeniable that Sylvester Stallone was inspired by what Chuck Wepner accomplished that day he fought Ali. The odds were 40-1 against him, and he was able, during the fight, to turn the crowd and have at least half the people there backing him at the end.
“Stallone was inspired by that moment; it was like an epiphany for him. But it transformed into a big rabbit hole for Chuck. It wasn’t so much the Ali fight that put Chuck into trouble: it was the Rocky movie. He got a taste of celebrity after the Ali fight, but the Rocky movie messed with his head.”
Like his lead character, Falardeau’s film loses focus following the epic battle. Seemingly unsure whether it wants to be a comedy or a tragedy, and where it’s going aside from downhill with its hero, Chuck doesn’t quite manage to keep our attention through the home stretch. The movie may be imperfect, Falardeau admits, but for him it’s already a winner.
“It’s the film I wanted to make,” he said. “If there are flaws, they’re mine. No matter how it does, I think it’s already done something in the industry by showing that my palette is larger than just Monsieur Lazhar.”