| Overview: | In 1964, Cassius Clay becomes heavy-weight champion of the world and declares his name is Muhammad Ali. A date in sports history and a turning point in black consciousness. This was the subject of William Klein's feature documentary: Cassius The Graeat, winner of first prizes in four interational festivals. It was a searing look inside boxing, inside the Southern power structure, inside the Black Muslims, We met the Kentucky synidacte who bought and sold Clay. We follow the mysterious Clay-Liston match and re-match. Malcolm X, a week before his assassination, analyses Ali's profound political significance. Grotesque ghosts of boxing from Joe Lous to Beau Jack lumber, punch-drunk and tragic, through the film. And, above all, Muhammad Ali, explodes on the scene constantly catching America off guard, the first black champion to declare himself free. Eventaully, it cost him his title, 3 years enforced retirement, and many millions of dollars. But unkindest cut, as ex-champion the became a symbol in reverse. In America, a martyr is more loser than hero.
Muhammad Ali, an aging 32, who no longer Floats-like-a-Butterfly-and-Stings-like-a-Bee, no longer a revolutionary figure but nostalgia, wants his title back, or, at least, one last big pay check and he shall fight the terrifying Foreman.
And to all odds, this is the end of the most extraordinary sports career of all time.
October 31, 5:30am, Kinshasa, Zaire, Ali stands triumphant over Foreman, bewildered and K.O. How did Ali, underdog, has been, ex-martyr, become once more and, for all time, hero, champion and legend?
What has he become, the man that Malcolm X called the most important black personality of our time? The phenomenon that Norman Mailer calls "The Spirit of the 20th Century, the Prince of Mass Man and of Media". Who really, is Ali?
This first and only real portrait contrary to recent stock shot montages, Muhammad Ali the Greatest, brings a powerful, often hilarious, and always entertaining answer.
'A must-see! The dramatic qualities of the film are worthy of the depth and objectivity of its argument. Klein takes real-life film-making into another dimension.' (Henry Chapier-Combat)
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