:57:08
(Ceremonial band playing)
:57:13
(Mailer) 'The heavyweight
championship produces an excitement
:57:19
'that's unlike
almost any other spectacle.
:57:22
'It's almost physically unendurable
:57:24
'to wait for that bell
to ring for the first round.
:57:28
'In 1974 in Zaire, the fight started
at four in the morning,
:57:31
'in order that it could be shown
on TV in America
:57:35
'at a reasonable hour like 10.'
:57:37
Boma ye! Boma ye!
:57:39
(Mailer) 'Before the fight,
I saw a scene that was incomparable.
:57:44
'Ali's dressing room
was like a morgue.'
:57:47
It was like The Last Supper.
:57:50
And at a certain point Ali said,
:57:52
"Why is everyone...
:57:56
"so unhappy?
:57:58
"What is the matter with all of you?"
:58:01
The sense was that we were watching
a man who was going out to be...
:58:06
going out to the gallows.
:58:08
They all believed he was gonna get
defeated and they were terrified.
:58:13
They thought that with his pride
:58:15
he would take one of the world's
worst beatings ever
:58:18
and he wouldn't give up.
:58:20
And he was gonna be destroyed.
Killed or maimed, they knew not what.
:58:23
But they were deeply frightened,
:58:26
as if they were taking whatever fear
Ali might have had and absorbing it.
:58:31
After a while he looked at Bundini
:58:33
and said,
"We're gonna dance tonight."
:58:36
They said, "You're gonna dance!"
:58:39
Muhammad Ali was so funny
repeating this.
:58:42
"What am I gonna do?!"
They said, "Dance!"
:58:45
He said, "Yes!
And that man's gonna be bewildered!
:58:49
"I'm gonna dance and dance!"
:58:51
And they said, "You're gonna dance!"
I swear they were all crying.
:58:55
And he built them up to a degree
:58:58
so that for him
they became half-happy.