I was introduced to Mike Tyson through Nintendo. He was big – - incredibly big, pixelated, and moved very fast. Our meeting was brief, for the most part, because he was punching me.
Since that time (1987), Mr. Tyson has punched me, and a bunch of other people, a lot less. He can still be pixelated, especially if you’re streaming through Netflix. I wasn’t initially sure why I would want to watch an entire 100 minutes about Tyson – - I am really not into sports, especially boxing, and the idea of celebrity-driven documentaries doesn’t really excite me. But “Tyson” the movie was on the front page of my Netflix and I figured it just had to be for a reason and if it wasn’t interesting, I could always turn it off. Right?
Tyson is nearly impossible to shut off because it’s narrated by Tyson himself, talking directly to you, and you don’t want to be rude and break eye contact. There’s also the editing, which is brilliant. In his narration, Tyson gets distracted, periodically forgets what he’s trying to say, begins listing multiple words for the specific one he’s trying to think of, and during these sequences the filmmakers begin to overlap dialogue and footage to create a collage of muddled thoughts.
Ordinarily, this would be pointless and distracting but in this particular documentary it’s successful because it shows (and some might say “exaggerates”) what a mess the human brain can become after being walloped at high-impact over a series of decades.
The idea of a Tyson documentary seems superfluous if you look at it from the simple “he hit people professionally, and occasionally for personal reasons”, storyline, but one thing that Tyson shows is just what a huge effect being in prison – - particularly solitary confinement – - had on the latter part of his career. Suddenly, he has problems being in crowds, and is easily started. Next thing you know, he’s biting people in the ring – - something incredibly out of character for such a strenuously disciplined fighter.
But outside of that narrative, there are the weird bits of trivia, particularly in regards to Tyson’s tattoos. That Maori tattoo on the eye? Initially, he had wanted little hearts.
