Ali Jogs through Zaire before the “Rumble in the Jungle”

By Carolyn Stine

[1] Scene 24, which is a little more than halfway through the film, is a representation of Muhammad Ali interacting with the native people of Zaire, where he has arrived for the infamous “Rumble in the Jungle” fight with George Foreman. Unlike the scene for which H. Lavar Pope provided an analysis, which showed Ali participating in a controversial press conference, the scene that I have selected to analyze is not explicitly taken from the historical record. Instead, I believe that this scene represents the artistic liberties taken by Michael Mann in the creation of this film. This scene is in place to convey a feeling, a shift in Ali’s perspective on the world, something a bit more intangible than merely an interpretation of a press conference that physically occurred and was documented.

[2] The scene opens up with a shot from above the bare, red Earth of Africa, unaffected by the presence of the hype and chaos surrounding Ali’s “Rumble in the Jungle.” Soon, we see Ali’s feet appear in the shot, and we get a glimpse of him running quietly and unobtrusively as the rest of his body becomes a part of the shot. He is dressed in a simple, off-white sweat suit. Subsequently, the camera angle begins to shift, and we are finally able to view what is going on around the Champion. He is running on a simple dirt road, with a fence on one side that has billboards on it, some with writing, some with depictions of people, one of which is Malcolm X. There are children of all ages running around him, with him, waving and chanting “Bumaye, Ali!” I looked this up, and it roughly translates from an African dialect to mean “Kill him, Ali!” Muhammad Ali, interestingly, looks completely taken aback by the actions and words of these children. There are a few close-up shots of his face, and upon it we observe a sense of awe, as if he is unsure of how to respond to this outright reverence. However, although there is this detectable sense of surprise and confusion here, Ali remains largely impassive now and throughout the rest of the scene; there are no bursts of emotion here; on the whole his emotion is rather nuanced. In the background, while this is occurring, there is tribal music playing.

[3] Ali then appears to make a last-minute decision and veers off the main road with the pack of children who are running with him and cheering him on. We see now that a car has been driving in front of Ali the whole time he has been running, with men whom we presume to be some sort of bodyguards for the boxer. When Ali disappears down this side road, the men in the car must turn around and ask a native woman, who clearly does not speak English, where Ali ran off to. The white bodyguard clearly appears to be out of his element here; he sticks out like a sore thumb as he attempts to communicate with the residents. As this attempted conversation is going on and the bodyguard struggles to break the language barrier, Ali is running down a tiny residential road that is flanked with trees and overhanging greenery. Unlike the bodyguard, Ali blends in effortlessly with the children running around him and the people that pass him by; there is no sense of strain with this relationship. He passes by women and children outside their tiny homes. There is something incredibly elemental, natural, organic about this scene. Women carry branches on their heads, children play in their yards; they are immersed in the rhythms of their daily lives, and Ali seems to feel strangely at home here. Soon, Ali passes by a run down wall that has a black chalk drawing on him on, which says “Bumaye Ali” next to his figure.

[4] After that, the tiny side street opens up onto the main road once more, and the chanting grows louder and the growing crowd surrounding Ali repeatedly chants “Bumaye, Bumaye.” Also, a new song begins playing now called “Tomorrow” by Salif Keita, who is an afro-pop songwriter from Mali. The lyrics of this song are mostly in some sort of African dialect, and interspersed between the verses are the words “Tomorrow, only tomorrow” in English. A slow-motion sequence begins at this point, and we view Ali from the side against a wall of murals that runs parallel to him. Again, we see Malcolm X represented on some of them. All of these murals are extremely colorful. At this point, Ali remains pensive and quiet and almost emotionless; he seems unable to react to this scene that is laid out before him, he is simply soaking it all up. A teenage boy comes up to him and tries to play with him and box a little bit, and the boy is clearly so excited to see Ali, but the Champ does not indulge his game, he simply continues to stare straight ahead. Soon the chanting fades, and all we hear is the song repeating over and over again “Tomorrow, only tomorrow.” Ali looks around now, slows to a walk. The boys on either side of him hold up his arms in a gesture of victory, yet Ali’s arms are limp in their hands; he lets the boys hold him up. Finally, Ali comes to an enormous mural and stops; it is of him. The mural is extremely colorful and depicts him with his boxing gloves on in a fight, with bees flying around him, and a halo of gold surrounding his head. There is also a picture of his opponent, presumably George Foreman, who is portrayed with darker skin than Ali, and has an angry expression on his face. The crowd is moving and twisting around him, and Ali is sweating profusely, viewing these paintings with an almost perplexed look on his face. He looks to the other side and sees another depiction of himself in the boxing ring, with his arms raised in the air, with a man knocked out next to him.

[5] At the conclusion of the scene, Ali is running again. We see just his face in the camera shot as he observes the homes around him. He sees laundry hung outside the windows, people standing around and chatting on shoddy balconies. Finally, his bodyguard catches up to him in his car and yells at him “Where were you?” Ali completely ignores him and doesn’t even seem to take notice of his presence or words.

[6] I think that the beginning of the next scene is very important to take note of as well, when Ali has returned to his hotel room with his wife, Belinda. The hotel room is spacious and well decorated and clearly quite exclusive, and Belinda is handing Ali a bottle of water. Immediately apparent to me was the enormous juxtaposition between this posh hotel room and the uncomplicated existence of the native people of Zaire whom Ali was just running with on the streets. He complains when Belinda hands him the bottled water, says that he wants to drink tap water. Clearly in this moment Ali feels detached from his life. In the previous scene, Ali, though stoic and quite emotionless at times, seemed to be completely at home with the people around him, and when he emerges from that experience and comes back to his hotel room and his “real life,” he is uncomfortable, and lashes out against his wife.

[7] Although there was no real action in this scene, I believe that it is significant for its rhetorical and metaphoric value. It is a very slow scene in the movie, especially when contrasted with the fight scene that is about to happen, the “Rumble in the Jungle.” There is no main event here, it is a rather passive time in the film. I believe that this scene highlights the connection that Ali has with people of Zaire. Unlike in the United States, where Ali feels as though he is being deprived of his essential freedoms as he is drafted against his will and forced into an difficult trial that will determine if he has to serve jail time for defending his personal and religious beliefs, in Zaire he is accepted for who he is. As he runs through the streets and observes the simple and hardworking native people, he does not feel judged by them, or persecuted. There is an outpouring of support and admiration for him on the part of these people, whom he does not even know at all.

[8] I thought that another great point of contrast occurs between this scene and the very first scene of the film. In the opening scene, Ali is jogging as well, but the context for this action is quite different. First of all, he is jogging alone here, at night, with his hood up over his head. This is a much more solitary and psychological activity for Ali at the beginning of the movie. He is very focused, concentrating on his breathing, punching into the air. He really appears to be “in the zone.” This is not an emotional experience for him like it was in Zaire; here he runs purely as part of his training regime. Also, in the first scene he is jogging against the backdrop of the industrial city, unlike the rural dirt streets of Africa. He is running on pavement, passes by massive buildings built of steel. This makes for quite a contrast with the natural environment that he is jogging in during scene 24. Finally, the music that is playing in the backgrounds of the two scenes is inherently different. At the beginning, Ali is jogging to the music of Sam Cooke, a contemporary jazz musician of his time, while he is running to tribal music in Africa.

[9] Overall, I believe this scene to be a nice a pause in the action of the film but also to be a bit indulgent. The scene seems to stretch on and on, and clearly the point is made after a few seconds that this was a very touching moment for Ali as he prepared for the “Rumble in the Jungle” and felt the support of the native people of Zaire behind him. It was unnecessarily drawn out in my opinion, and after watching it for a short amount of time I found myself wanting to fast forward to the next scene. Ultimately, I thought that this scene in “Ali” represented a very gratuitous bit of cinematography on Michael Mann’s part.