BOXING CLEVER
Time is right for the GAA to follow Taylor onto big screen
THE new Katie Taylor documentary is a lesson in how sports stars are made for the silver screen. Nothing surer than ‘Katie’ will revive the country’s love affair with Bray’s very own Million Dollar Baby, who put women’s boxing on the Olympic map and is continuing to break down barriers in the professional ranks.
It’s not the archive footage of Taylor’s gold-winning exploits from her amateur days that hits you in the gut but the documentary footage of her personal journey into the professional ranks and the fracturing of her family life that is bound up in this story. It is intimately captured by director Ross Whitaker, whose previous work includes Unbreakable:
The Mark Pollock Story, and Saviours, another home-spun tale featuring three young boxers from St Saviours Olympic Boxing Academy.
This is Taylor as never seen before: vulnerable, crippled with doubt. Who rates herself only five out of 10 after one victorious fight that didn’t even go the distance. Who goes on to show incredible strength-of-will to win a world title fight while being ill and unable to train in the build-up. Who lays herself bare in charting the break-up of the family unit and the painful personal circumstance that sundered the ties that bind, that saw her father Pete — mentor, coach and guiding light — leave the family home and her corner in the boxing ring.
After turning pro and relocating to Vernon, Connecticut under the sage tutelage of coach Ross Enamait, there’s a moment that tears at the heartstrings as she pounds the road in search of answers, the elegiac montage achingly scored by Michael Fleming.
Trying to cook a chicken stir fry while living alone far from home — via her mother Brigid’s handwritten instructions — also drew laughter from the crowd gathered at the Irish Film Institute on Saturday night where it was shown as part of the documentary festival before the movie goes on general release on October 26.
For someone who is a shy and private individual at heart, opening herself up in documentary form only increases the impact. The presence that she carries into a room carries onto the big screen, intimate at times as to almost break down the fourth wall. Funny, immensely likeable, she radiates a charisma and unforced charm throughout that means the audience is with her all the way.
The Q&A afterwards with the director, Katie’s mother Bridget and brother Peter is almost as revealing. Currently in the States, it turns out Katie hasn’t seen the movie and has no intention of doing so while this professional chapter of her life is still unfolding. Loathe to look at herself on camera, she has always struggled with the idea of having to watch back her fights.
The documentary shows how sports stars can make for such compelling characters on screen. And what could be gained if GAA teams, managers, and players took a leap of faith.
There are so many stories in dressing rooms, just waiting to be told. Imagine having behind-thescenes access to the Dublin football team right now. The inner workings of Jim Gavin’s set-up and the training matches between A and B selections that have taken on a layer of mystique all of their own. A window into a highperformance environment and a team that is gearing towards the Holy Grail of inter-county achievement: the five-in-arow. Imagine the boxoffice appeal of following that journey. Whether it is ultimately successful or not, isn’t really the point. It’s the bitter-sweet nature of Taylor’s story that gives it such an emotional punch. Olympic pride before The Fall, in Rio. Unfortunately, the nature of inter-county dealings is such that injury news is treated like classified information. Where the only step left to go is a press release in which the player’s name is redacted for a product launch.
If giving away secrets is such an issue, just put a moratorium on it, like the state papers. To be released 12 months later, when the team and the game have moved on. Or the year Gavin steps away.
Similarly, it’s easy to imagine the demand for a snapshot of life as a Kilkenny hurler under Brian Cody.
Taylor’s training regime is laid bare in its more elemental aspects: the pounding of a tyre with a sledgehammer, the ladder exercise where her footspeed is like a cartoon blur, the constant sparring and speed bag work. There is no sense of a professional boxer being compromised by opening such a window.
Like Katie, it was the personal stories that gave Blues Sisters its emotional heart, as well as introducing not only the Dublin team but ladies football to a broader television audience.
Talking heads about an old classic game or moment or legend is an age-old concept — just witness the popularity of TG4’s Laochra Gael. But the documentary experience that has that live feel carries added currency at a time when social media has made public the private, documenting almost every moment.
Club or county, there are stories waiting to be documented.
It’s time for the big-screen treatment.