He reflected aspects of it in that he represented a new model of it that was less interested in the old tactics of the Southern, Christian civil rights movement which was about integration. He began to win people back.ĪP: Did you feel Ali mirrored the Black experience decade by decade or did he set it by the nature of his celebrity and stances?īurns: I think it’s a little bit of both. By that time, we’re beginning to realize he was right about Vietnam. He gets hit in the last round and he gets back up. (His image) is already improved after the loss to Frazier in the first of the three Frazier fights. I think it’s the way that in the midst of this loud, cacophonous thing that was his life, how amazingly centered he was, how purposeful it was. He was considered like a Buddha, like a religious figure. When he’s out lighting the torch in Atlanta, we forgot what a divisive figure he was. In the midst of this loud, wonderful promoter, learning from Gorgeous George, he has this in him.ĪP: What did you learn about how America’s opinion of Ali changed through the decades?īurns: When he dies, we forget what a divisive figure he was. He understands something really fundamental. But then he talks about setting an example because everybody loses. The Frazier fight, he’d been bagging on Frazier, he’d been predicting, he’d been brash, he’d been bold. The poise that he has at different points. It’s like you’re hitting a double in tee ball and saying, “I am going to be the greatest baseball player ever.” OK, that’s good aspirations. He puts on the gloves, he has a couple of fights and now declares he’s The Greatest. on PBS.ĪP: When you peeled back the layers, what was your biggest discovery about Ali?īurns: I think it’s this sense of purpose.
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It’s, let’s try and understand him from birth in the early 40s in segregated Louisville, Kentucky, to the death by Parkinson’s.”īurns talked with The Associated Press by phone from his home in Walpole, New Hampshire, to discuss the four-part, eight-hour series on Ali that airs Sept. “Yet nobody had said, let’s try to do it comprehensively. I think the opening half-hour, 20 minutes of Michael Mann’s ‘Ali’ is one of the finest openings of any film, ever,” Burns said. “There are a lot of really, really great documentary films on Muhammad Ali. He was, of course, at the intersection of so many themes of race, of politics, of war, of faith, of fidelity.”īurns began work on Ali, who died at 74 in 2016, nearly seven years ago and said the story on the boxer’s life “lifts up and we see instantly how it resonates in the moment.” Burns (who co-directed the film with his oldest daughter, Sarah, and her husband, Dave McMahon) weaves archival footage and interviews with Ali’s daughters, ex-wives, sports writers, athletes and activists to stitch together pieces of the charismatic and complicated life of the three-time heavyweight boxing champion. He has so much, still today, to offer us. At the end, he is a transcendent American character. “He’s complicated, there’s undertow, there’s flaws and we don’t hesitate to remind people throughout this film that there are. Burns’ film “ Muhammad Ali ” explores the life of the boxer who floated and stung his way into greatness.