Wiseman’s Boxing Gym Making the Rounds this October

After KO’ing critics (including IndiewWIRE’s Eugene Hernandez) at last year’s IDFA and grabbing plenty of kudos in this year’s Director’s Fortnight section (you can read the accolades further down), this October Frederick Wiseman’s newest, Boxing Gym will commence its theatrical run starting at the IFC Center thanks to a joint release between mTuckman media and Wiseman’s Zipporah Films (both recently paired on the very successful theatrical run of La Danse—The Paris Opera Ballet (read our review here).

Personally I’ve only seen handful of the documentarian’s work, but I’d agree with a producer friend who recently told me, “if aliens came down to earth, all they would need is Wiseman’s catalog of films to understand humanity…” It’s his connection with the human experience that makes his films so rich.

The subject of the film is an Austin, TX institution, Lord’s Gym, which was founded twenty years ago by Richard Lord, a former professional boxer. A wide variety of people of all ages, races, ethnicities and social classes train at the gym: men, women, children, doctors, lawyers, judges, business men and women, immigrants, professional boxers and people who want to become professional boxers alongside amateurs who love the sport and teenagers who are trying to develop strength and assertiveness. The gym is an example of the American “melting pot” where people meet, talk, and train.

Here is an excerpt from the press release:

BOXING GYM is the 38th film in a career that has spanned five decades. Mr. Wiseman is a longtime boxing fan. “As soon as I walked into Lord’s Gym, I knew I wanted to make a movie there. The variety of people working out, the friendly atmosphere, and the old posters on the wall added up to a terrific location for a film.” The French newspaper Libération, reviewing the film from Cannes, writes: “People of all stripes, of both sexes, and of every motivation, go [to the gym] like we go to the therapist. They do it to learn to defend themselves, to arm themselves against life, to forget the idiots at work who get on their nerves, to speak for an hour with their bodies, to let go, to forget… Wiseman’s camera—sly, on the lookout, attentive—gives a reading of something that is so cinematographic (no superfluous intervention, no voiceover to shed light on the plot) that his film finishes by making one think of the great photographers: the American speed of a Garry Winogrand, or the instant appetite of a Cartier Bresson. What Wiseman seizes on is the pure present, the things that only happen once.” Rob Nelson in Variety writes, “for those in Wiseman’s corner, ‘Boxing Gym’ goes the distance.”

Critic Philip Lopate has called Frederick Wiseman “the greatest American filmmaker of the last 30 years.” Zipporah Films, Inc. is the distributor of Wiseman’s films. For over forty years, he has created an exceptional body of work consisting of thirty-six full length films devoted primarily to exploring contemporary life as it is expressed in institutions common to all societies (schools, hospitals, the military, police, prisons, courts, public housing, theater, ballet, and many other topics).