Ali’s big fight outside the ring
NEW YORK: Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay, was not the only American to refuse to serve during the Vietnam War, but he was, by some measures, the most famous, the loudest and the baddest. Tracing the road to Ali’s act of defiance in 1967, Bill Siegel’s film “The Trials of Muhammad Ali” tries to recover the cultural éclat of the moment after decades of pop-history shorthand have reduced it to sound bites about the Vietcong.
Ali has already received his share of attention, not only in the annals of sports journalism but also through documentary (“When We Were Kings”) and drama (“Ali” and “The Greatest”). But Siegel’s entry dwells on Ali’s embrace of Islam, and specifically the Nation of Islam, and how his stance on the war led him out of the ring and all the way to the Supreme Court. SPEAKING HIS MIND Sifting through the plentiful footage on record, “The Trials of Muhammad Ali” is partly a story of a man who spoke his mind and broke America’s polite and not-sopolite contracts regarding celebrity and race. The opening clip shows a grandstanding television producer calling Ali a “simplistic fool,” and it’s the kind of invective that betrays an underlying anxiety: Precisely how Ali did what he did was often hard to simplify as foolhardy or even to understand, and therefore posed a threat.
Siegel also doesn’t smooth over the complexities of Ali’s religious affiliation and acceptance of dogma, showcasing fresh interviews with Louis Farrakhan and followers of the Nation of Islam. The film falls short of explaining how Ali, who, like many outspoken individuals, can stubbornly repel scrutiny, nor will it pacify the many who opposed his conscientious objections. But it also underlines one enduring quality: namely, that he probably couldn’t care less what people think.