There is no narration in Frederick Wiseman’s 2010 brilliant and mesmerizing 2010 documentary Boxing Gym. Nor are there on-screen titles or talking heads. All we see are the owners and patrons of a scruffy Austin, Texas, boxing gym going about their daily routines – conditioning and instruction. Except for a one- or two-second shot of the gym’s entrance, all 91 minutes is shot inside the small gym. The effect is hypnotic.
This is a gym for people of all ages, ethnicities, levels of fitness and genders. It’s unusually welcoming to women, and we see lots of women working out (and never being hassled by the men). There are kids, and even a baby who is moved from workout station to workout station in his carrier seat. Former pro boxer Richard Lord and his wife run the gym, where a membership runs only $50 per month – and that’s negotiable.
This is a sports movie without a climactic Big Fight. We don’t even see a boxing match – just lots of hitting the bags, shadow boxing, jumping rope, footwork on a giant tire and instruction. And more hitting the bags. Everyone is concentrating – getting in a self-isolated zone so they can achieve the rhythmic pattern of footwork and pat-pat-patting the speed bag. Wiseman edits his own films, and Boxing Gym is a masterpiece of editing. He lets us fall into the pace of the place and meet the characters by watching them and eavesdropping on them. He lingers on shots for a reason, skips to another vignette at precisely the right moment and the film is perfectly paced.
There is one extraordinary scene. Near the end of the movie, a man and a woman are sharing the ring as they each workout. In his half of the ring, he is practicing his footwork and throwing punches, simulating a fight. In the other half of the ring, she is doing the same. These are separate individual workouts, and the two never make eye contact. Each is in his/her own bubble of concentration. But their footsteps are rhythmic, they’re both breathing heavily, and the man grunts when he throws punches. If you listen without watching the screen, it sounds like sex. The result is a powerfully erotic scene – perhaps even more powerful because the two people are not interacting with each other at all. Unforgettable. (Wiseman may not have known what he had when he shot this sequence, but he certainly recognized it in the editing room.)
Wiseman was 80 when he made Boxing Gym, his fortieth movie. Since then, he’s directed the critically praised La Danse, At Berkeley and National Gallery. Wiseman was a law professor who made a career change at age 37. His breakout film was the pysch hospital expose Titicut Follies in 1967.
Boxing Gym is available on DVD from Netflix.