SUBMITTED BY Scooby
December 13, 2001 — EW spoke with Michael Mann about Ali:
There are so many iconic American boxing films. How did you avoid the clichis?
First of all, Will became a fighter. He boxed every Thursday, and worked out six hours a day five days a week. He actually trained with [Ali trainer] Angelo Dundee. So Will hit and got hit. There was choreography where we knew certain things were coming, certain historical events that we knew we had to include, but in between it was all improvised sparring. In fact, everybody who plays a boxer in the film IS a boxer. We didn't use stunt coordinators or stuntmen. Michael Bentt, who plays Sonny Liston, was a WBO heavyweight world champion. James Toney plays Frasier. Charles Shufford [who plays George Foreman] fought [Wladimir] Klitschko on HBO, like, two months ago.
The fight sequences are pretty vivid. How did you film them?
We used a Steadicam, but then to get even closer, we used a high-def cam from medical technology. But the most effective tool was something we made up, a low-res VHS camera about the size of a matchbook that simultaneously shot both the left and right sides of the action. Instead of running around the ring trying not to get hit, we mounted these things on the actors either at eye level or at waist level. Plus, we experimented with a bunch of ridiculous cameras that we attached to helmets, boxing gloves, wrists, elbows, even hair. It all looked stupid; we didn't use any of it.
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