by Matthew Tobey
synopsis
Following up his 2000 Academy Award-nominated Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, documentary filmmaker Barak Goodman helmed this film, exploring boxing's heavyweight championship match of June 22, 1938. The match, between African-American Joe Louis and Nazi Germany's Max Schmeling, gained world-wide attention and garnered the largest radio audience in history, as the fighters became unwitting representatives for each of their respective homelands and races. Narrated by actor Courtney B. Vance, Goodman's film uses archival footage of the fight and the events leading up to it to examine the men and the weighty meaning attached to their face-off. The Fight screened in competition at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
characteristics
- Nazi
- Prizefighter
- Race Relations
- Match (sports)
- Heavyweight
- Boxer
- Boxing
- German [nationality]
- African-American
