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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
The harder they shawl: The documentary "Orthodox Stance" explores the worlds of Dimitriy Salita, an undefeated boxer and observant Chasidic Jew.
By King Kaufman
Read more: Sports, Boxing, Movies, Jews, Judaism, Documentaries, King Kaufman, Sports Daily
Jan. 24, 2008 | I'm working on a theory that, given a minimal level of access and technical skill, it's damn near impossible to make a bad documentary about boxing. There are just too many interesting characters floating around, and the sport itself is so photogenic, its settings, tools and sounds so iconic.
Filmmaker Jason Hutt followed a Brooklyn junior welterweight named Dmitriy Salita around for three years, from the fall of 2002 to the summer of 2005, from age 20 to 23, from his ninth pro fight to his 23rd, from four-round undercard bouts in Las Vegas casinos to 10-round main events in front of roaring crowds of Chasidics in New York ballrooms. And he made a damn good boxing documentary.
It's called "Orthodox Stance." The hook is that Salita, 25, who immigrated with his family from Ukraine when he was 9, is not just an up-and-coming undefeated 140-pounder, he's also an observant Orthodox Jew, a member of the Chabad Lubavitch sect. He won't fight on the Sabbath or on Jewish holidays. A promoter in the film quotes Salita saying about Saturday fights: "Anyone who wants a good whuppin' from me is just going to have to wait until sundown."
He keeps kosher, even eating meals prepared in hotel rooms by his advisor and manager, Israel Liberow, when traveling.
"Orthodox Stance," like Salita himself, moves easily between his two worlds, Chasidic Judaism and secular pugilism. We see Salita wrapping his fists with tape and laying tefillin.
His trainers and most of his fellow pugs at the Starrett City Boxing Gym are black or Hispanic. The people closest to him and many of his fans are Chasidic Jews. He's as much a confluence of cultures as his friend Matisyahu, the Chasidic reggae singer and beat-box artist, who sings him into the ring for the climactic fight in the movie.
Even the movie's title bridges worlds. It's a reference to his religion, obviously. But it's also just a mundane boxing term, another way of saying "right-handed."
Most of what's interesting about boxing, especially in its current depressed state between the ropes, is outside of the ring, and "Orthodox Stance" is an unusually candid look at that. We see Salita, who has been something of a phenomenon for years -- the Washington Post profiled him at length in 2002, when he was 20, had a 7-0 record and was just about to start getting followed around by a filmmaker -- in tough contract negotiations with former HBO fight executive Lou DiBella's promotion company.
