On the flight home from Cannes on Sunday, I sat next to a prominent female film critic who, like me, had major problems with James Toback’s much-praised Tyson. Particularly concerned about the section of the film where Mike Tyson tells “his side of the story” in regards to the rape that sent him to prison, she predicted that the film’s eventual distributor, Sony Classics, would likely have to tweak the Cannes cut in order to avoid a libel suit. But a story on the boxing site The Sweet Science indicates that might not be the only spot where Toback and Tyson fudge the truth.
The film virtually cuts straight from the death of Tyson’s former mentor Cus D’A,ato to his years working under the eye of Don King. Steve Lott, Tyson’s assistant manager from 1985 to 1988, sites numerous places where Tyson “lies” in Tyson, and accuses Toback of glossing over the years in which Lott worked with the boxer in order to better support the case that Tyson was “has demons, that he was a thug, that he was crazy.” Lott says the Tyson he knew was “neither an addict, nor a hoodlum, nor a manic depressive…[but] ‘the golden boy of corporate America’,” and that his life only started to spin out of control when Don King and Robin Givens stepped in. He also claims Tyson lies in the film about being forced to sign a contract when he was underage:
“I have the contract right here,’’ Lott said. “Mike Tyson was 18 when he signed that contract, not 16. He’s saying these lies for two reasons. The effect of Don King and all those years of him telling Mike it was the white guys who screwed him and the fact that Jimmy [Jacobs] is dead and can’t defend himself. I defy anyone to come out of the woodwork and say something bad that Jim did to Mike Tyson.’’
Of course, it’s possible that there’s a touch of sour grapes to Lott’s protests. The obvious (and admitted by Tyson) goal of Tyson––and the main reason why I find it so reprehensible––is to rehab Tyson’s image to the point where, as the Sweet Science story puts it, he can become “a product America will once again buy.” Lott apparently tried to do this himself two years ago:
Lott said he met with [licensing agent Harlan] Werner two years ago to discuss his ideas of how to help his old friend. He suggested he first get rid of the face tattoo he began to wear late in his boxing career and then do a series of exhibitions for the troops in Iraq followed by similar fund raising appearances in the U.S. for various fire and police departments.
In perhaps the only interesting stylistic element of the film, Toback uses overlapping voiceover and split screens to draw attention to where Tyson repeats and/or contradicts himself om various topics. Maybe this becomes a question of documentary ethics: is a filmmaker even responsible for “lies” told by his subject, if he draws attention to the fact that said subject is the world’s most unreliable narrator?
