Then and Now...

America’s Bi-Centennial year sort of gets lost in the shuffle but it was 35 years ago. Wow! That’s more than a generation. It doesn’t seem so long if you’ve lived it. I know for certain that I looked different then, as this picture with environmental activist Bill Ruckelshaus and corporate giant Irwin Miller, shows you. Bill has an office in the same building that I do here in Seattle. We often reminisce in the elevators and parking lot and when I showed him this photo, we could only smile and shake our heads.


But we were different inside then, as well. My journal (yes, I have them all since my college days) tells me that the night I’m thinking of was Monday, December 7, 1976. I was ping-ponging between Seattle and New York then talking to institutional investors and financial media about the corporate situation with Cummins Engine Company and its investment in K2 Skis. (Why would a diesel engine manufacturer invest in a downhill ski company? That’s another story.)

On that particular New York trip, I was there with two of my corporate colleagues and, as luck would have it, we had Monday night open. With Broadway dark, I scanned the New York Times for movies (I love them). There I found a big feature story on an independent film by a completely unknown actor-writer that was made for under a million dollars and shot in 28 days. It was having its previews in Manhattan that week. This movie had been picked up after long trials and tribulations by Columbia Pictures, a studio that hadn’t won a Best Picture Oscar in over 40 years. Sounded interesting and my friends were game, so off we went to find the mid-town theater where the film was playing.

There was no long line to see “Rocky”. It was a fight movie. Probably pretty limited appeal, we thought. But, every so often, a movie about prize-fighting comes along that catches the public’s fancy. Raging Bull, Cinderella Man, The Hurricane and Million Dollar Baby are just a few of the most recent. From Rocky’s opening scene in gritty black and white, we were all hooked. It was new with fresh faces and a different never-say-die outlook. And that Hollywood ending is still hard to beat. The rest is, of course, history. Sly Stallone and his curled lip have made millions of box-office dollars since then and I think at least 6 Rocky movies. The film won the Academy Award on the strength of Stallone’s character and some great screen-writing. We were celebrating America back then and we loved a winner.

I’ve just seen “The Fighter” and I have to say it’s the “Rocky” of the Millennial Generation. Many of the themes are the same. Overcoming adversity and dysfunctional families (Man, is this one dysfunctional!) are there in both, but add drugs and violence and community degeneration and unemployment to the mix in “The Fighter”. Movies are more realistic now and this one holds nothing back. Christian Bale looks more like Ratman than Batman and his performance is electric. You feel like he’s ready to explode every time he’s on the screen. Bale and Melissa Leo who plays mother Alice are definitely Academy-Award-worthy. This is a story of the streets, just as Rocky was. But the streets are much scarier today…hookers and drug dealers instead of harmonizing hoods on the corner.

Films like these have great impact. They move people personally. Just as you see the players in the film respond to the HBO special about Bale’s character Dicky, this film holds you by the throat right to very end. I’m glad I didn’t know the ending because it made it much more meaningful. And then seeing the real Micky and Dicky during the credits gave it perfect closure.

Sorry that this sounds like a film review but, for me, it’s not. It’s my personal thoughts about two movies that bookend a period of time that has changed all of our lives in countless ways. The trip from the Bi-Centennial to the new millennium has been a million miles in terms of life in America. We were on a real high at the beginning of the journey and now there is nothing but stress and uncertainty all around us. We’re so different now. Just look at the characters in the two movies (notwithstanding the sisters in “The Fighter”:>) ) and you can see how we’ve changed. I couldn’t help but notice the ad for a dot-com on the floor of the ring in the latest…changed, indeed.

We still love a winner but it’s harder to win these days. And it’s harder to know whether winning is worth it or not. But we do have hope and that’s what both of these movies give us…a big dose of hope. Even in these times, I’m proud to be an optimist. We can all be winners.