Muhammad Ali with his daughter Maryum “May May” Ali in 1988, wearing the boxing robe gifted by Elvis Presley that he would donate to New York’s Hard Rock Café. Photo credit AP
Now he has turned to Ali. Stretching eight hours (split into four episodes), “Muhammad Ali” took seven years to complete and features interviews with close friends, family, experts and cultural figureheads, selections from over 15,000 photographs and intimate footage that even Ali’s daughter Rasheda had not seen before. So yes, you could call it comprehensive. But still the question: Why?
“His life and his professional life intersected with all the main issues of the second half of the 20th century, that has to do obviously with sport and the role of sports in society and also race and politics and faith and Islam and war … He’s just the most compelling figure in all of sports.
The director shares he has a neon sign in his editing suit that reads, “it’s complicated.” The same applies to Ali’s life. Alongside the familiar heroics, Burns gives the ugly side of Ali — the bullying, the promiscuity — ample space. “There’s no message” to the documentary, he insists, “we’re in the history business.”
Ken Burns’ “Muhammad Ali” debuts on September 19 on PBS.
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Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/15/sport/muhammad-ali-ken-burns-pbs-interview-spc-intl-hk/index.html