Million dollar baby

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Movie
German title Million dollar baby
Original title Million dollar baby
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2004
length 127 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Clint Eastwood
script Paul Haggis
production Clint Eastwood,
Paul Haggis,
Tom Rosenberg ,
Albert S. Ruddy
music Clint Eastwood
camera Tom Stern
cut Joel Cox
occupation

Million Dollar Baby is an American feature film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood from the year 2004 . The film received numerous awards, including four Oscars .

action

The boxing trainer Frankie Dunn has never done it with his charges to a major title, although he had for quite the potential. But for him it's not about quick successes, but about perfect craftsmanship, which is why many of his boxers switch to other managers sooner or later. During the course of the film it turns out that Frankie also has a daughter, whom he writes regularly, but she refuses to accept his letters. As a regular churchgoer, he also deals with theological issues and provokes the pastor with his idiosyncratic views.

One day, 31-year-old waitress Maggie Fitzgerald shows up at Frankie's boxing studio. She dreams of a career as a professional boxer and asks Frankie to train her. Frankie refuses, on the one hand because she is too old, on the other hand he does not train women on principle. Defiantly, she continues to train on her own until Scrap - the studio's caretaker, former professional boxer and Frankie's best friend - takes care of her and gives her some tips. When Frankie notices this and confronts her, she manages to persuade him to become her trainer. However, one of the conditions he makes is that she looks for another manager to enter professional business. It is around this point that it is also revealed that it was Frankie who supervised Scrap in the fight in which he went blind in one eye. Frankie wanted to end the fight at the time, but was not authorized to do so as a cutman . Since then, Frankie has shied away from big fights for his boxers.

For Maggie's first fight, Frankie arranges a manager for her, as agreed, but from whom she does not get the tactical help she needs. Only when Frankie, with Scrap actually only as a spectator in the stands, takes over again and gives her the decisive tip, Maggie wins the fight. The talented Maggie rises quickly under Frankie's management: She usually wins her first fights at the beginning of the first round by knocking out. That makes it difficult to find opponents for her at all, so that Frankie eventually compete in the next higher weight class leaves. Maggie wins this fight too, albeit with greater difficulty.

Before Maggie competes in a professional match against the reigning British boxing champion in London , Frankie gives her a green cape on which the Gaelic saying Mo Cuishle (German for example: my pulse or the pulse of my heart ) is embroidered. Maggie wins the fight and qualifies for the world championship in Las Vegas. When Frankie hesitates, Maggie introduces him to her welfare mother, which ultimately convinces him. On the way home, the two visit a small restaurant that Maggie knows from her childhood. Frankie is so impressed that he toyed with the idea of ​​buying the restaurant.

Maggie's opponent in Las Vegas, the defending champion in the middleweight division, is a German from East Berlin and is known for a decidedly unsporting style of fighting. Maggie takes a number of unauthorized blows in the first rounds, most of which the referee overlooks. Frankie then changes Maggie's tactics: she should get back at her opponent and hit her sciatic nerve . That brings the German champion to the edge of the knockout, but also makes her very angry. When the referee sends both of them back to their corners at the end of the next round, the German gives the unsuspecting Maggie a brutal blow from behind, which throws her neck onto the edge of the boxing stool, which Frankie can no longer pull back in time. Maggie wakes up in the hospital and learns that she is incurably paralyzed from the neck down and is even permanently dependent on artificial respiration.

Maggie's family comes to visit after a few weeks, and apparently only for the purpose of having their property, including the house that the mother lives in, transferred to them. Maggie throws her family out and breaks off contact. Her condition worsened and her left leg had to be amputated due to pressure ulcers .

Finally, she asks Frankie, who hardly leaves her side, expressly to switch off her life support systems - she expects nothing more from life and does not want to forget what she has achieved. Frankie indignantly refuses this request. Maggie then tries to commit suicide by biting her tongue. However, she can still be saved and is immobilized with medication. Frankie realizes how serious she is about euthanasia and that that's all he can do for her. Despite the urgent warning from his pastor, with whom he had a conversation about it, he sneaks into the hospital at night. As a farewell, he tells Maggie that the Gaelic Mo Cuishle on her cloak, the meaning of which she does not know, means my darling or my blood . Then he deactivates the alarm function of the life support devices , interrupts the ventilation, injects an overdose of adrenaline into her vein drip, whereupon Maggie's vital functions immediately go out, and leaves the ward.

Only at the end does it become clear that the entire film reflects the content of a letter that Scrap wrote to Frankie's daughter after the event, to explain to her what kind of man her father was. Frankie's current fate is unknown to the letter writer, he went into hiding without a trace after Maggie's death. The film ends with the recording of the restaurant Frankie went to with Maggie. The back of a man who could be Frankie can be seen indistinctly through the window. He's having cake served.

Film music

The soundtrack is by Clint Eastwood .

  1. Blue Morgan (Opening Titles)
  2. It's nice viewing
  3. Boxing baby
  4. Boxing assembly
  5. Pick up money
  6. Nice working with you
  7. The letters
  8. Blue diner
  9. Deep in thought
  10. Driving
  11. Blue bear
  12. Frankie Horrified
  13. They're amateurs
  14. May have to lose it
  15. Maggie's plea
  16. Frankie's dilemma
  17. Frankie's decision
  18. Lethal dose
  19. Frankie's office
  20. Blue Morgan (End Credits)

Reviews

“A sports film that only appears to be conventional at first glance, with a more conventional staging, which admittedly serves the stereotypes of the genre, but at the same time varies and questions them in an appealing way. In the last third of the film, the film takes an unexpected turn that undermines the triviality of the subject, turning it into a serious drama about life and death. The film, staged with clarified mastery and superbly photographed, is carried by brilliant actors who bring their characters to life with casual understatement. "

- Lexicon of international film

“There is no other director who can boast such an impressive late work as Clint Eastwood. […] Here it is Maggie Fitzgerald, who started boxing late and escaped from her white trash past, played by Hilary Swank, who received her second Oscar, and who attracts Eastwood's attention. As a director and as an actor, because he also embodies Maggie's coach Frankie Dunn. What develops between the two unequal characters in front of the camera is one of the great moments in film history. "

- critic.de

background

The film is based on a short story by the US boxing trainer F. X. Toole from the Rope Burns collection : Stories from the Corner .

Million Dollar Baby is Clint Eastwood's 25th directorial work and also his 58th film as an actor. The film was shot in just 37 days. Leading actress Hilary Swank trained around ten kilograms of muscle mass for this film.

Million Dollar Baby opened in German cinemas on March 24, 2005.

The portrayal of euthanasia at the end of the film sparked protests from conservative politicians and disability organizations in the United States. Radio presenter Rush Limbaugh described the film as a “ million dollar euthanasia movie ”. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Clint Eastwood replied, “ I'm just telling a story. I don't advocate. I'm playing a part. I've gone around in movies blowing people away with a .44 magnum. But that doesn't mean I think that's a proper thing to do. "(German:" I'm just telling a story, I'm not advocating anything. I'm just playing a role. I've walked around in films and shot people with a .44 Magnum , but that doesn't mean I endorse it. " )

Awards

Academy Awards 2005

Golden Globe Awards 2005

National Society of Film Critics

  • Best movie
  • Best Actress (Hilary Swank)

Seattle Film Critics

  • Best movie
  • Best director

Screen Actors Guild Award

  • Best Actress (Hilary Swank)
  • Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman)

Broadcast Film Critics Association

  • Best Actress (Hilary Swank)

Boston Society of Film Critics

  • Best Actress (Hilary Swank)

Directors Guild of America

  • Best director

New York Film Critics Circle

  • Best director

Chicago Film Critics Association

  • Best director

National Board of Review

  • Honorable Mention ( for Producing, Directing, Acting and Composing the Score ) Clint Eastwood

DVD champion

  • Best international film

Jupiter

  • Best film internationally
  • Best Actress International (Hilary Swank)
  • Best International Director (Clint Eastwood)

The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) awarded the film the title “particularly valuable”.

literature

  • Dirk Blothner: What people can endure ... - Million Dollar Baby . In: Heidi Möller, Stephan Doering (eds.): Batman and other heavenly creatures - Another 30 film characters and their mental disorders. Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-642-12738-0 , pp. 169-179.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for Million Dollar Baby . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2005 (PDF; test number: 101 770 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Million Dollar Baby . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Million Dollar Baby in the German synchronous file
  4. ↑ IrishGaelicTranslator.com Million Dollar Baby movie ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.irishgaelictranslator.com
  5. ↑ million dollar baby. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  6. ↑ Short review at critic.de
  7. ↑ 'Baby' plot twist angers activists. Los Angeles Times, accessed May 17, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Evaluation of the German film and media evaluation (FBW)