Day of the Fight with Jack Huston and Gus Van Sant (Ep. 512)

The Director’s Cut - A DGA Podcast

Directors Guild of America

Tv & Film

4.6 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Director Jack Huston discusses his new film, Day of the Fight, with fellow Director Gus Van Sant in a Q&A at the DGA theater in Los Angeles. In the conversation, he discusses how he aimed to turn a typical fight story on its head, how he worked with his Cinematographer to capture the black and white look of the film, and finding an Actor that could convey the range of pathos between fighting and interpersonal melodrama that the role demanded. The film shows a day in the life of Mikey “Irish Mike” Flanigan, a champion boxer getting ready for his first fight since leaving prison. As he prepares for the most important fight of his life, he reconnects with the people he was closest to and tries to make things right. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://dga.org/en/Events/2025/January2025/DayOfTheFight_QnA_1124

Transcript

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0:00.0	We wanted to make a film that you could watch without the fight.
0:05.1	The fight is sort of the icing that you've, I wanted to earn a fight.
0:09.8	I'm not a massive, you know, sports movie, boxing film.
0:14.5	I love them.
0:15.5	I love boxing sometimes, but it wasn't like I set out to make a boxing film.
0:20.3	I wanted to make a film about a
0:21.6	character, about a boxer, about a person, about an underdog, and about those struggles that
0:26.5	were relatable as a human, more than anything.
0:52.1	Music Hello and welcome back to the director's cut, brought to you by the Directors Guild of America.
0:55.7	In this episode, a once-renowned boxer takes a redemptive journey through his past and present, and director Jack Houston's drama,
1:01.0	Day of the Fight. The film shows a day in the life of Mikey Irish Mike Flanagan, a champion boxer
1:07.8	getting ready for his first fight since leaving prison.
1:18.0	As he prepares for the most important fight of his life, he reconnects with the people he was closest to and tries to make things right.
1:22.9	Day of the Fight is Houston's directorial debut.
1:29.3	Following a screening of the film at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles,
1:33.6	Houston spoke with director Gus Van Sant about filming Day of the Fight.
1:37.0	Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation. Thank you guys so much for coming.
1:48.2	I mean, we were just talking about the short film, Dave, The Fight by Stanley Kubrick,
1:57.2	and how that influenced this or or sparked this particular film.
2:04.2	Yeah, it's, um, I had an idea of Michael as a boxer from very early on when I was doing
2:13.4	boardwalk with him and I used to remember him punching sandbags and going off to the
2:19.0	boxing gym. So I think the seed was planted there. But when I, during, I was sort of coming up
	...

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