Killer's Kiss Duels

Kubrick was fascinated by face-to-face confrontations, whether intellectual or physical (chess and boxing were two of his passions); he thought of them as above all struggles with one's self.

The evening of Friday, 25 October, Davy Gordon again puts his boxing title on the line. After 88 victories and only 9 defeats, his 29 years weigh heavy as he faces off against the young Kid Rodriguez. He is fighting for his career but also for his future.

The fight scene lasts only three minutes but the documentary violence is remarkable. In 1949, Kubrick had done a photo feature about a boxer (1), starting from which he made a documentary (Day of the Fight (2)) two years later. Several plans in Killer's Kiss seem to have come directly from this short film: the taping of the hands, the massage, the warm-up...

The shooting of Killer's Kiss emphasises the brutality of boxing. Kubrick plants his camera under the stool of one of the fighters. The shot is ordered and permits a mirror vision of the other boxer. The match begins, and the director then films his characters at ring level with force and precision. The geometric shot disappears in favour of the chaos of the brutal combat, the camera following the boxers closely. The sound ambiance is saturated by the blows, the protagonists' breathing and the crowd's encouragements. The camera becomes subjective and bounces off the ropes with the boxers, the low-angle shots accompanying the hero in his fall. The editing cuts the bodies into pieces. There is no overall shot, no pulling back, which might give the viewer's eyes a rest. This match, a model of both concentration and power, allows Kubrick "a reflection on human violence through the emblematic figure of the boxer, which will continually find new avatars (gladiators, Droogs, Alex, duellists, soldiers...)" (3).