Screen Story by Gregory Allen Howard
Screenplay by Stephen J. Rivele & Christopher Wilkinson and Eric Roth & Michael Mann
Generously illustrated with movie stills, historical photos, and posters in a stunning four-color book design-- the only official tie-in to the new film, starring Will Smith and directed by Michael Mann (The Insider).
Includes over 160 images, the screenplay, behind-the-scenes stories, and writings by Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Wilfred Sheed, David Remnick, and Thomas Hauser, among others.
Synopsis
With verbal wit and athletic genius, with defiant rage and inner grace, Muhammad Ali forever changed the American scene, taking on racism, the status quo, and the Vietnam war -- as well as the fists in front of him. Ali both ignited and mirrored the conflicts of his time and ours to become the most admired fighter, and one of the most admired human beings, in the world. He talked and danced. He fought and struggled. Ali shook the world.
Michael Mann's film focuses on the seismic decade of 1964-1974, from the night in Miami when 22-year-old Cassius Clay wrested the heavyweight championship from the fearsome Sonny Liston, to the "Rumble in the Jungle" -- the stunning upset in Zaire that saw the long-dethroned Ali regain his crown from a hugely favored George Foreman. Between those epic fights, Ali became a flashpoint for the sixties, the epitome of black power and personal conscience, sacrificing his title by refusing induction into the Army. In the role of a lifetime, superstar Will Smith portrays Muhammad Ali, by transforming his slender frame into a heavyweight's and training for over a year to play his own fight scenes, blows, blood, and all.
Ali takes us into the ring, the strategy sessions, the bedroom, and straight into the mind and heart of Ali. How did he sense that Foreman was ready to fall? Why did he choose not to take that fateful step forward at the induction center? How did he experience the assassination of Malcolm X? Shooting in the real-life locations of Ali's life, from Miami to Chicago to Africa, with Ali himself involved in the filmmaking, Academy Award®-nominated director/writer Michael Mann lays bare the soul of the man and his times.
This dynamic companion book contains the complete screenplay plus more than 160 illustrations from the production and the vast archives of Ali's life as the most documented sports figure in history -- including never-before-published images by photographer Howard Bingham, Ali's closest friend. The text highlights key events and characters in the film, depicted with their real-life counterparts, and collects gems of previously published writing about Ali by Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Wilfrid Sheed, David Remnick, biographer Thomas Hauser, and other literary lights. Here is a must-have collector's book for any fan of "the Greatest."
|
