Documentary Film Analysis - Tyson: The Movie (2008)

Tyson: The Movie (2008)
Directed by Jason Toback


The documentary starts with music playing over the titles, the music is the iconic Rocky theme tune which is signature to boxing, this is appropriate due to the contents of the documentary. The titles which the music is playing over is written in bright colours and fading from one to another this breaks the natural conventions of opening titles due to the contrasting colours; the titles could reflect on the boxer himself showing his unconventional life. The bright colours convey child-like connotations this could highlight how young Tyson was when his career started. Also they could show confusion and portray the current mind set of the Boxer. They summarise discreetly the life of Tyson, implying the colourful life he has lead.
The documentary mimics the style of a film with an ELS - a typical opening convention of a film. This could show that Mike Tyson's life is and was so eventful that it should have been a film and not someones reality. It then follows with a series of archive footage with grain effect making them appear older.
The music fades out introducing digectic cheers from the crowd and the voice of the commentator, with a CU of Tyson's face highlighting who the cheers are for and the success this man had.
The archive footage continues with a series of shot reversed shot, showing his opponents possibly highlighting the many opponents he had to overcome in life in general and not just in the boxing world. Editing comes into full flow with many freeze frames and transitions which slide the frames into the corner. The multiple images on the screen could highlight how Tyson had many things happening at once in his life.
The archive footage of previous fights seem to be edited to make them appear to happen quicker and the sound of the punches are emphasised highlighting how strong and powerful he was/is and the different camera angles may highlight the complication.
"Reign for a long long long time", is the last thing we hear from the archive voice over highlighting what could happen.
It fades to black and a fade in with the title "Tyson" is presented in a masculine font, the font is pointy, edgy, rigid, thick, bulky and strong even the font for his name shows us the personality of the boxer - the fire effect pattern conveys how unpredictable Tyson is; similarly to fire. The fire pattern could show his fiery temper and his burning rage within.
The documentary begins with Tyson speaking poetically "make up of mind" his voice echos this mimics chaos and confusion which is the juxtaposition of the peaceful serenity images of the sea and the sunset displayed on screen. The sunset could represent the sunset of his career, he is walking all alone with no family, no one, painting the picture of a lonely isolated man - he came with nothing and he will leave with nothing. The sea could be a metaphor for his whole career as it can be calm and can then suddenly change and be very unpredictable and fierce. The repetition of the word "madness" reinforces the mentality of Mike Tyson. 
"Might be my father" the over lapping dialogue lack coherence and highlights the confused mindset, we can see from the very start of the documentary (even if the audience didn't know much about him) that he was and still is a very confused man. 
The interview is set in an expensive apartment it looks very upper middle class. Mike Tyson is wearing a classic shirt, he looks very smart and mature. The lighting is very bright and the whiteness conveys meaning of serenity, the informal setting makes the audience feel comfortable watching. It all equals in Tyson being in a different place to where he once was.
The anchorage of the images of his hometown in Brooklyn and his interview over the top gives us an more in depth meaning of where he came from and who he was. As he talks about his past he smiles about being mugged! and explains how he wasn't the bully - he was a tender sensitive boy who looked after pigeons, this is very contradicting of the image of him now.
During the interview there are multiple camera angles which the camera switches between with cuts to archive stills, this is common in a documentary and zooming in and out of the image is a typical convention.