FRANKIE. [...] I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, and a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made...And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.
MAGGIE. You gonna build a cabin, boss?
FRANKIE. Me?
MAGGIE. You know, when you quit all this.
FRANKIE. Never gona quit. I'd miss the stink.
MAGGIE. Think that's true? Cause I could see you there, real easy, with your books and lemon pie.
FRANKIE. ...You wanna live in a cabin?
MAGGIE. I could learn how to bake.
FRANKIE. Maybe I'll start looking then.
MAGGIE. I can't be like this, Frankie. Not after what I done. I seen the world. People chanted my name. Well, not my name, some damn name you gave me, but they was chanting for me. I was in magazines. You think I ever dreamed that'd happen? I was born at tow pound one and a half ounces. Daddy used to tell me I fought to get into this world and I'd fight my way out. That's all I wanna do, boss. I just don't want to fight you to do it. Only two people in this world I ever wanted to be proud of me. You are one. You proud of me, boss?
FRANKIE. You have to ask?
MAGGIE. I got what I needed, boss. Got it all. Don't let em keep takin' it away from me. Don't let me lie here till I can't hear those people chanting no more.
FRANKIE. ...I can't do it. Please don't ask me.
MAGGIE. I am asking.
FRANKIE. I can't.
FRANKIE. Now all she wants to do us die, and all I want to do is keep her with me. And God forgive me, but it feels like I'm committing a sin by doing it. By keeping her alive, I'm killing her. How do you find your way out of that?
FATHER HORVATH. You don't. You step aside, Frankie, you leave it with God.
FRANKIE. She's not asking for God's help. She's asking for mine.
"Mo Cuishle. It means 'my darling, my blood.'"
No one ever sees the last quarter of Million Dollar Baby coming. This is not the film we start with—the boxing story, the scrappy girl fights her way to the top, the cranky old trainer gets to see his protege win the title. But maybe we should have seen it coming in some way or form: the darkness that permeates the film, the Los Angeles we never get to see outside of the HitPit, Maggie's small and dingy apartment, the young black, Latino, and white men (and women) beating on each other for a shot at a title and the money and opportunity it offers, a trio of protagonists who have suffered and persevered. It's not a coincidence that we see poor Danger badly beaten—the other fighters watching, some cheering, none intervening—and then Maggie and Billie beating each other for the pleasure of an upscale crowd. This is as deliberate a movie as you'll ever see, and as controlled as Scrap is when he takes his one eye into the ring and beats Shawrelle.
1. Your reaction to today's viewing?
2. Some have complained that what you saw today is a totally different movie that what you saw the previous two days. I disagree. And if the movie works—if you see it as complete and agree that it's controlled and deliberate—then you have to acknowledge that Maggie's tragedy and Frankie's ultimate sacrifice are connected to the first part of the movie. That the film is thematically consistent. Is it for you—is the film thematically consistent? If so, how? How does today's viewing support or expand on what has come before? And if not—why not? Why doesn't this last third work with what comes before it?
Address each other's responses here—agree and/or disagree with something one of your classmates writes.
3. What would you do if you were Frankie and Maggie asked you what she asks of Frankie? Or what would you do if you were Maggie in that bed?
Just to let you know it's just a movie:
