On Feb 26, 2005, at 9:39 PM, joanna bujes wrote:
>
> Swank works very, very hard....just like in all the Hollywood biopics:
> the calendar pages turn, she punches the bag harder and harder, she
> starts winning bout after bout. Finally, she gets set up to fight a
> German woman, who is known to fight dirty, for a million dollars. The
> woman lands an illegal punch when Swank isn't looking. Swank falls,
> breaks her neck, is paralyzed from the neck down, and is finally
> "mercy" killed by Eastwood -- who is tough enough to kill the one he
> loves.
I have had an entirely different read of the movie (both yours and Kelly's). Eastwood "before Swank" had been blocked (has lived the static life of a traditional teacher/coach/father who feels responsible for anything that happens to his disciples) by his guilty complex. "After Swank", he's experienced something new : “exchange, of an eros of reciprocal trust and, indeed, love. By a process of interaction, of osmosis, he learns from his disciple as he teaches him.” This makes everything dynamic. He can, at last, truly act because he's able to learn from whom is/was considered his pupil(s), even against his beliefs or preferences.
Anyhow, I don't understand Kelly's taken of the movie as well (maybe I do, but I disagree). Disability cannot be considered as a condition that forgets the intrinsic fact that it deals with singularities not just groups, categories of people.
ciao, alessandro