The Most Exciting 5 Seconds in Rocky
First of all, Happy 50th Anniversary to one of the all-time greats!
I’ve always admired the clever way the big fight in Rocky is staged. The darkly lit set suggests a packed Philadelphia Spectrum, letting your imagination fill in the crowd. Once you’ve seen the movie several times, you realize there really aren’t that many people there.
Pure movie magic.
Richard Halsey and Scott Conrad won the ‘76 Oscar for Best Film Editing, and my absolute favorite edit of theirs comes at 2:31 in the video below.
It happens right after Rocky lands a surprise left in the first round and knocks Apollo Creed to the canvas for the first time in his career.
Halsey and Conrad cut to the local bar.
The excitement there always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The bartender spikes his towel. Everyone erupts. Cut to the black-and-white TV. It’s only a few seconds, but it makes the knockdown feel enormous. It’s all so perfect.
If director John Avildsen had stayed ringside, I don’t think the moment would have nearly the same adrenaline rush. Cutting to the bar is genius.
Enjoy…
Robert McEvily is a writer and multidisciplinary creative who publishes short fiction, humor, essays, cultural commentary, drawings, photography, and video.
He’s the Creator and Editor of Six Sentences (Est. 2006), and hopes you’ll share your work.
