WE NEED A MONTAGE
scenes came equipped with radio- ready theme songs. And it’s not the kind of rich sequence found in a Rocky movie, but it’s worth giving a primal shoutout to the rise of the “lock-and-load montage” ( Commando , 1985; Rambo II , 1985, Stallone again). With all the buckling, headband tying, camo paint applying and zip! shunk! chck-chck! of gearing up to be a one-man army, it was another art perfected in the ’80s. Rocky IV shows just how far the training montage had come in nine years. It begins where they all do, with a morning run, but whereas the first movie’s sequence contains just 22 cuts, the training montage that juxtaposes Rocky’s Siberian hell with Ivan Drago’s NASA-like training facility has 146 individual shots in the time between when Rocky exits his cabin and when the music fades out upon his return. After a short reunion scene with Adrian, the sequence resumes for another 190- plus shots synced to “Hearts on Fire.” It’s a miniature movie in itself, complete with subplots about Rocky dealing with his KGB babysitters and Drago’s steroid use. There are also tributes to past montages, harkening back to the log-carrying stumble of Rocky II and replacing the art museum steps with an actual mountain. The Rocky IV montage itself is a virtuoso performance of match cutting, taking all of the Russian’s over- engineered, high-tech training methods and blending them with the motion of Rocky’s analog versions: Drago sweats on a VersaClimber surrounded by scientist extras and every computer screen and blinking light the prop department could muster while Rocky churns through deep snow; Drago cranks an arm bike while Rocky dribbles an old-school speed bag in a barn; Drago’s isokinetic machine is matched with Rocky helping a villager right a horse-drawn sleigh; Drago lifts barbells, Rocky lifts rocks and wagons containing his friends. Most memorably, Drago’s murderous punches on a sparring partner are matched with
Rocky swinging an axe, the sounds of chopping wood blending with glove impacts until both targets crack, the man and the tree tilting and crashing to the ground in unison. The montages have only gotten more refined since then, and yet they are still familiar. The training sequence of the most recent movie in the extended Rocky universe, Creed III , blends two separate training camps by crosscutting between them, and it uses temporal cutting to bring in flashbacks alongside close-ups of Adonis struggling emotionally, just as Rocky did on the beach when racing Adonis’ father. Along with the way music and dialogue trade places in the foreground, it gives the whole thing a more impressionistic, nonlinear feel, and an almost mystical aura is created by the way Adonis and his rival, Damian Anderson, both stand in front of mirrors as if they are portals to each other. The fact that one of those giant mirrors is set up on an airport runway for some reason is just the kind of style-over-substance weirdness that keeps it interesting. As always, running plays a big role. And as always, we see the fighters push through greater pain and become more fluid and faster as they master each technique. In the Creed era, choreographed mitt routines feature more prominently (thanks, Floyd), but the mainstays are always there. That familiarity factor can work both ways. The doorway to a training montage is easily recognized, which immediately grounds the audience and creates anticipation, but the anticipation is sometimes the eye-rolling “oh, here we go” kind. It runs the risk of getting ridiculous. This is where Team America: World Police , a 2004 action comedy in which a counterterrorist group of marionettes fights to save the world, is worth visiting: When one underprepared puppet is faced with an overwhelming challenge, he is told there is only one solution. A driving rock beat kicks in and the training begins. The inspirational chorus: “We’re gonna need a montage.”
The character then goes through all the training cliches while the song’s lyrics overexplain what a montage is. It’s very funny and it’s mocking, and yet it serves the same purpose as any training sequence: When it’s over, the character is ready. And as with the Rocky movies, it’s the part of the movie that many people remember best. The training montage might be the most important part of a Rocky movie, in fact, because it’s in this microcosm of the whole story that we, the audience, truly bond with the character. We hopefully know enough about them to see what’s at stake, and it’s where we make a choice to follow them down the final stretch or not. In the first movie, Rocky’s most humbling moment is when he’s told that getting the color of his shorts wrong in the promo banner doesn’t matter, because nobody will remember him anyway after he loses. After reflecting, he admits to Adrian, “I can’t beat him.” These sound like the words of a quitter, and yet they come just after the montage that ends with him on top of the world. It doesn’t seem to come in the right order. But because of what we’ve just seen him do in the montage, his heart is not in question. When he says he wants to go the distance above all else, we know he is honest, and we are with him. And we wonder if he might just win despite himself. The definitive image is the one from Rocky II , with him running through the streets as more and more kids spontaneously join the run. It’s a totally unreasonable scene, literally childish, and it works. Rocky has shown us his humanity, but he’s going where only superheroes can go, and he’s taking us along for the ride. It’s the “us” that matters, and it’s there because this character doing those things to that music brings everything together and, like a corny but passionately earnest motivational speech, causes us to stand up and say, “I’m in.” That’s what the montage does. That’s us. Running to conquer the stairs that stretch into the heavens.
Rocky hones his rib-cracking power as fight night approaches.
Rocky III has two training montages. The first, set to Frank Stallone singing “Pushin’,” isn’t really in the mold of the others, but it’s worth mentioning because it takes the art further by introducing the idea of contrast, cutting between Clubber Lang’s gritty, no-frills training camp and Rocky’s laid-back training “glamp.” From the way Clubber sweats and yells his way through one torture session after another while Rocky shadowboxes with a live band and poses for fan photos, we know what Mickey knows: This isn’t going to end well. It’s a different kind of montage, one that creates a sense of dread rather than soaring confidence, and in a brilliantly subversive way it makes the audience feel disgusted with Rocky. We know he’s blowing it, and indeed he does – at Mickey’s expense – which only deepens the pit of despair he has to climb out of to redeem himself in our eyes as well as his own. The second montage in Rocky III is probably the most scrutinized in the franchise. It is frequently cited,
the movie, those 10 pages are cut and combined into a single heart-to-heart in which Rocky admits to Adrian that he’s afraid of losing. In probably her most significant scene of the franchise thus far, Talia Shire reattaches Rocky’s head to his shoulders and the scene transitions straight into the horns of “Gonna Fly Now.” Three minutes later, Rocky and Apollo are embracing in the surf after the Stallion has won the sprint. Freeze frame. He’s ready. In 1985, the year Rocky IV was released, training montages were everywhere in Hollywood. They were featured in movies about wrestling ( Vision Quest , 1985), dancing ( Flashdance , 1983; Breakin’ , 1984; Footloose , 1984) and of course karate ( The Karate Kid , 1984, directed by Avildsen), as well as basketball- playing werewolves ( Teen Wolf , 1985) and college outcasts battling frat boys ( Revenge of the Nerds , 1984). Variants included the academic achievement montage ( Real Genius , 1985) and the entrepreneurial success montage ( Risky Business , 1983). Many of these
both mockingly and interpretively, as being homoerotic, but more deserving of attention is the cringey fact that Rocky’s progression is based on his ability to absorb Apollo’s apparently genetic talent for footwork, despite Paulie’s objections (“You can’t train him like a colored fighter. He ain’t got no rhythm!”). The overall mood of the montage is undeniably joyous, though, and even Paulie is about 10% less racist by the end of it. Underlining its still-increasing role, the training montage in Rocky III is marked “TRAINING MONTAGE” in the screenplay, but major changes once again happened in the editing room. Chekhov’s firearm, the beach sprint, is hung up when Rocky drops out of the race against Apollo and wanders away in a haze of flashbacks. In the script, this happens about 10 pages before the start of the training sequence. In
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