HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
Sun Herald
Sunday July 26, 2009
A new biopic reveals the former heavyweight champion has always lived in trouble's shadow, writes GAYNOR FLYNN. First he wasn't doing the interview. Then he was. Then it was downgraded to a maybe. Mike Tyson was clearly having reservations about speaking to the press.He was supposed to be promoting Tyson, James Toback's brutally candid documentary, which looks at the tumultuous life of the former world heavyweight champion. "Supposed to be," Toback chuckles. He's known Tyson for about 25 years. Would he show? "Not even Mike knows what Mike will do," he says.That's partly why Toback (Black and White) made the film. He's been obsessed with boxing since he was a child. He's known many fighters. "Mike is light years more interesting than any of the others," he says.None of them had the speed or the ferocity of Tyson. They certainly didn't have "the mystique that's around Mike". Brando had it. Dietrich. Michael Jordan. "There are people in certain fields [who] just become the representative iconic figure of that profession and for me as a boxer it's Mike Tyson."It's not a conventional documentary. That didn't interest Toback. He likens the film to Van Gogh painting a self-portrait. What did Tyson see when he looked in the mirror? That's what makes the film so remarkable. For 90 minutes Tyson talks about Tyson and it becomes glaringly obvious that he's still trying to figure himself out. It's funny Toback mentions Van Gogh. Both men have a fixation with ears. The painter sliced his off. Tyson chomped off parts of Evander Holyfield's.There was another reason to make the film. "We both have personalities that go from extreme to extreme," says the director. Meaning neither man expected to make it to old age. Tyson didn't think he'd see 40. He's now 43. "It's a miracle [I'm here]," he lisps later on."I used drugs. I had all sorts of altercations with dangerous people. People were angry with me. I slept with guys' wives; [the husbands] wanted to kill me. I've lived a wild and strange life."Is he glad he stuck around? "Yeah, because it tortures certain mother-f---ers that I'm still here."Finally Tyson arrives. He doesn't look especially thrilled to be here today. He moves like it's a burden to have to put one foot in front of the other. When he sits he hunches his shoulders. His head hangs slightly. Mind you, it is massive. So is his body. The man is the size of a pterodactyl.Why isn't Tyson jumping for joy? Audiences love the film. Critics are raving about it. Isn't he proud of what he's done? It turns out he isn't. He feels "pretty embarrassed" by it. "I'm so vulnerable up there."Vulnerable is not a town Tyson likes to visit. It reminds him of his hellish childhood in Brooklyn. One of three kids, (he has a brother, Rodney, and a sister, Denise), he describes his mother as promiscuous. His father was a non-event. He was a "fat f---k-up". Tyson's high-pitched voice and lisp attracted the bullies. He was scared. He ran away until one of them snapped the neck of his beloved pet pigeon. He knocked the kid out. A thug was born. By the time Tyson was 13, he'd been arrested 38 times.He discovered boxing in juvenile hall and Cus D'Amato upon his release. D'Amato had trained the likes of Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson. He was the first person to ever believe in Tyson. The boy loved him for it."It's just very tough for me to watch myself," mumbles Tyson. "Watching myself on the film. I'm a harsh critic of myself. Even [when] someone may think something is great, I see the non-perfection in it."Tyson has never thought much of himself. In 2005 he told USA Today, "My whole life has been a waste I've been a failure."But rather than succumb to depression, Tyson became enraged. Those demons led to the highs and lows that have come to characterise his roller-coaster existence.Born into abject poverty be became a heavyweight champion at 20 (the youngest ever). In 1992 he was convicted of raping former Miss Black Rhode Island Desiree Washington and jailed. In 1996, within a year of being released, he regained his world title. Then he lost it. Then came the ear-biting incident in 1997. It's estimated that he earned over $US300 million ($366 million) during his career. He squandered it all and declared bankruptcy in 2003. When Toback approached him about the film he was in rehab again."Mike talks about living by extremes," says Toback. "And when you are an extremist you almost have no shot at even keel. Your life is going to go through peaks and valleys even more radically than most other lives."Tyson retired in 2005. He tries to live a modest life in Las Vegas and yet his life still ricochets between those peaks and valleys.Some time after this interview took place, his daughter, Exodus, was found dead at her mother's home. A tragic accident claimed the four-year-old's life. The electric cord from a treadmill became wrapped around her neck. Two weeks later he married for the third time.Does he miss boxing, the adrenalin rush, the power?"I never want that again," he says. "For me it was a lot of trouble. I felt that I can do anything. The feeling of being invincible; the feeling of walking down the street and doing whatever I want; take whatever [I want]. I was just too young for it. I wasn't experienced enough to deal with that."Did it give him anything positive? Tyson thinks about this for a while. "Some kind of bizarre spiritual thing," he says. "I always looked at it as if I was some barbarian king coming to conquer the Roman Empire. It was something I wanted, so I was going to take it."One of the most surprising aspects of the film is Tyson's ability to self-analyse. Watching the film, you feel like you're eavesdropping on a therapy session, except it's Tyson who's probing the recesses of his mind. Who would have thought he possessed such insight or, to be brutally honest, the intellect?"I've always analysed my life since I was able to analyse period," says Tyson. "I go back in my life ... in my head. I think about my life; I think about my mistakes; I think about my mother; I think about my old friends that used to be alive. I've always been objective about myself. because Cus D'Amato taught me to analyse the whole scenario of my life."Why let Toback film it? Did he hope to redeem himself in the public's mind? "I didn't do it for that reason," he mumbles. "I just went along with James. I like James. I don't care [what people think]. I don't care if they don't like me. I thought it'll be interesting."I never thought this movie is going to make me [look like] a better person because in the United States I don't think if I won a Nobel Peace Prize it's going to change what they think about me."Does he think about the rape conviction? His eyes blaze. It's the one subject guaranteed to get a hostile response."Sometimes in my life I've been abusive to women," he admits. "But the situation I got convicted for I thought it was a misjustice. I thought it was unfair and I thought it was unhumane [sic] in a humane system." It does make you wonder what happened that day. Tyson is so forthcoming in the film but he categorically denies raping "that wretched swine of a woman".What does Toback think? "Both Mike and I are about as uninhibited in personality and speech as anyone gets. I've never seen Mike censor himself or speak untruthfully."In other words, make up your own mind.Tyson might be surprised to learn that the film has changed many people's opinions about him. Because what emerges is that the man dubbed "the baddest man in the world" is also one of the most complex. Toback attempts to capture "the many faces of Mike" using split-screen imagery in the film. It only highlights the fact that no one will ever really know Tyson. Not even Tyson.Many people think him a hero. What does he think? He shakes that big head of his and you watch the Maori tattoo around his left eye swing back and forth. He doesn't want to be a hero. It's a "burden". In the USA Today article he talked about wanting to "escape" from the US. "People put me so high; I wanted to tear that image down," he told the paper.What about being a role model? Is that an easier label to bear?"I never considered myself a role model of any sort. The message I have is just to believe in yourself. People will strike you down in life but you have to keep fighting. Never give in to anything disrespectful and other people putting you down or saying you can't accomplish anything. I think that's worth fighting for."You wonder why he doesn't mentor underprivileged kids and give them motivational speeches such as that. It's what D'Amato did with him. "I'm a different kind of person to Cus," he says. "He's too dedicated and too fanatical. I couldn't carry that load."There was a time when Tyson inhaled adoration like a drug. When he was called a hero back in his heyday he would upgrade himself to a god. That's what he arrogantly declared in the ring after a fight. But that Tyson is long gone.Tyson found humility in jail. Being trapped in a system not of his own making would have reminded him of his childhood. He spent 3 years inside, almost half that time in solitary confinement. He read Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. He converted to Islam and was given a new name, Malik Abdul Aziz. "I was never the same person after I came out," he says. "I am humble now," he adds. "I never was humble when I was fighting."Does he think that if he had found humility earlier on in life he would have reached the boxing heights that he did? Isn't humility the antithesis of being a great boxer?"No. To be a great fighter you have to be humble," he says."Because in order to rule you have to know how to serve. If you don't know how to serve then you won't know how to feel when you're champion of the world."You can almost hear D'Amato drumming that into the young man's head. Is he saying that he never really felt like the champion of the world? "Yeah. I always thought that if I could do it, anybody could do it."Ask Tyson if he harbours any regrets and he'll say, "not many". It's a surprising admission. Perhaps he's trying to convince himself. What about his kids? Doesn't he regret not spending more time with them? Isn't that what he told The Guardian newspaper in London? Didn't he say, "I've worked hard all my life to give them a great life, and I never enjoy it with them." Tyson doesn't answer he just looks slightly more deflated.Do any of his kids box? (He has seven children to several women.) "It's just not for them," he says. "They're not made out of that stuff. When I was 10 years old I was already on the street, smoking pot, drinking. [When] my son was 10 years old he was still playing with SpongeBob."Tyson is getting antsy. It's time to leave. What's next for him? He mentions a feature-film project with Jamie Foxx playing him. But he's not sure he can handle it.What's to handle? "Success," he says. "Money. When I'm happy and everything's going fine, I f--k myself up," he says. "I get egotistical. I'm better when I'm not happy. When I'm happy I get out of control. I'm just made that way. I'm a pretty extreme person and it doesn't happen overnight that I'm going to stop."It doesn't work that way in life. You wanna know what the future holds? Nothing. Everything. I'm just taking it minute by minute."Tyson screens from August 6.
© 2009 Sun Herald
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