The Vulnerable Spectator

Abstract

FQ Columnist Amelie Hastie mixes autobiography and film analysis in her column on Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015), reflecting on the physical acrobatics of the sport of boxing and the grand narrative gestures of the film. She also addresses her treatment for a brain tumor, which has compressed her left optic nerve. The tumor is constantly visible in her own line of sight, and everpresent with her at the movies. Boxing, like dancing and trains, is one of cinema's early objects of entrancement: in both cases, the audience is compelled to watch things move, whether giant industrial vehicles or bodies in all their parts.