Champion is a movie directed by Mark Robson that follows a man by the name of Midge Kelly throughout his boxing career from start to finish. Along the way to the top, Midge Kelly encounters three women who are crucial to this film and Kelly's character. In this blog post, I will be analyzing the importance of the women and how the director used their characters to reveal Midge's true intentions and values. Side-note: I'm very intrigued by the fact that these photos were the main ones used to advertise the film. If you do a quick google search about this film, you will clearly see Grace hugging Midge in almost every movie poster, and they all mention "love". This is important to me because it shows how crucial these women were to the film. Instead of seeing mostly boxing, you see photos of Midge and his mistresses. Alas, this could just be a slick marketing ploy to try to get females to view this is as not just a boxing movie, but I'd like to think it's because these women unravel Kirk Douglas' character throughout the film. graceWhen Midge is first introduced to Grace, she pays no attention to him. At the beginning of the film, Midge is a nobody, and Grace makes sure he (and the audience) knows that. In this first scene, Johnny Dunne engages into a conversation with Midge, while Grace ignores him altogether. This is important because Midge sees something that he thinks he can never have. Grace is the epiphany of money. She is only faithful to one man and that is the rich, successful one. The director made sure to direct the actor portraying Grace that she must not give the time of day to Midge. Grace has the power over Midge in this situation, and that in a sense emasculates Midge. Midge Kelly doesn't have power over anyone because of his social standing in the beginning of the film and once he gets a taste of that power, his whole character begins to transform. Next, I would like to focus on the eye contact during Midge's fights. During three of the most important boxing matches in this film (Midge's first ever fight, his Johnny Dunne fight he was suppose to throw, and his last fight ever") there is always a scene where Midge looks to Grace in the crowd. In the beginning of the film, Midge smiles at Grace after his first fight. He thinks he did well and she would be friendly towards him, but once again, she scowls him. This is important because Midge realizes just fighting wasn't good enough. To be respected by this powerful, rich female, he would have to do something else. The close-up on his face after Grace scowls him lets the audience know he is aggregated by the fact that this woman is not impressed.
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PALMERAlthough her appearance was short, Palmer was still a female that attributed to proving Midge's thirst for power. When Midge is first introduced to Palmer, he is also in a car with Grace. At first glance, he immediately finds himself interested in Palmer. This represents the literal jump Midge makes from Grace to Palmer. Midge doesn't wonder about the consequences of being attracted to a married woman, because he doesn't think he needs to. Midge, at this point, believes that he has enough power to do anything.
In conclusion, the role of women in Mark Robson's "Champion" is to show how the main character is hungry for all things other than actual romance. Power, dominance, and money are just a few of the factors that drive the main character to lose his humanity in the film. The audience is meant to not feel sorry for this character because he highlights what too much fame and ignorance do to a person. Stanley Kramer, producer of Champion, "said he intended Champion to "be the first film to show the fight game as it really was: brutal and corrupt." I believe Champion successfully highlight how boxing can corrupt an individual mentally, as well as physically. Just as The Professor says in noiroftheweek.com, "Quite frankly, Midge is a pig when it comes to women and he never tries to hide it. All the women in the story are well rid of him, and none were so far gone as to suffer enduring harm." Comments are closed.
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Author(savannah hink) |