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“How Would Frederick Wiseman Order This Procession of Images?”: Making Robert Kolodny’s The Featherweight
#image_title Robert Kolodny’s Venice-premiering The Featherweight is the dramatic story of real-life boxer Willie Pep as he exits retirement to attempt a comeback in the ring — all as he’s shadowed by a documentary crew. The film’s action occurs two decades after Pep’s 1940s heyday, with Kolodny and his team, who include producer and screenwriter Steve Loff and editor Robert Greene, convincingly replicating the look and rhythms of 1960s verite documentary to meditate on both the past as well as the boxing film’s durability in the present. Wrote The New Yorker’s Richard Brody in his review, “It’s an instant classic of a boxing movie, with its closeup view of the inseparable agonies and passions of a sport that’s shadowed with death.”
With The Featherweight currently playing in New York and Los Angeles theaters, the filmmakers shared with Filmmaker this abridged oral history of its making.
James Madio (“Willie Pep”): My father called me. East coast Italian-American boxing fan…he said, “You have to look into the life of featherweight champ Willie Pep. You’d be perfect as him, it’ll change your career.”
Steve Loff (producer, screenwriter): I asked if he wanted my help developing the project and we started doing the work… knocking on doors. Then I wrote a long draft in 2009 and we went from there.
Ron Livingston (“Bob Kaplan”): James asked if I could read the script and would I maybe consider the part of his manager. I told him, listen, I’ll read it, but if you get this going and I’m free, of course I’ll do it.
Loff: At some point I was struck with the idea of centering the film around Pep’s comeback in 1965. I also conceived of telling it in a found footage manner: What if the Maysles brothers had caught word of Pep’s comeback and gone to Hartford to document the weeks leading up?
Steve James (executive producer): I came aboard as director. Steve and I worked on the script together over the next three years while trying to get the film green-lighted.
Loff: Steve James’s contributions really fortified the use of this faux doc approach as not just a gimmick but a key component of the storytelling.
James: Alas, by the time the financing happened, I had other commitments. I suggested Robert Greene as a possible director, who thought of Robert Kolodny, which ended up being a brilliant choice.
Robert Greene (producer, editor): I immediately talked to Bennett [Elliott] and had her read it. And, we were like, “What do you think about Rob as the director?”
Bennett Elliott (producer): We both agreed that Rob would be the right person to helm this film. It was a no-brainer. I was producing a nonfiction boxing film that he was directing at the time.
Robert Kolodny (director): I had fallen into the world of documentary cinematography completely by accident, but in my heart, all I’d ever wanted was to be directing fiction, working with actors, be a part of thatmagic.
Loff: My time working with Robert on the script built on my work with Steve James. With Robert, it was even more about the narrative and the characters—he’s is a true artist.
Kolodny: The people and places reminded me so much of my New Jersey hometown. I knew the taste and texture. I was excited to work with Madio. Moreover, I knew the perfect actor to play Linda.
Ruby Wolf (“Linda Papaleo”): This was my first ever role in a feature film. I come from theater. Rob felt strongly that it was important to use an actor without a recognizable profile, because he believed it would add a degree of authenticity to the performance.
Keir Gilchrist (“Billy Papaleo”): I first connected with Rob over the phone. I felt an immediate connection on a deep level. We started by talking about music and Mary Shelley. I attached myself immediately after the call.
Livingston: After Kolodny was on board, I read their latest draft, and was kind of blown away with the take. Still…a period sports drama, it’s your director’s first feature, and your lead’s not a bankable star…
Kolodny: A month before we were scheduled to shoot, COVID happened. Instead of being crushed I allowed that time period to be an extended pre-production stage. Two years later we moved up to Hartford.
Donna Collins (executive producer): During development, the team spent weeks in Hartford, researching the city, community and how Willie lived.
Elliott: After many fits and starts in getting this production off the ground, welcoming the whole team to Hartford was a huge relief. It’s always important to make sure that the team dynamic is functioning as a family unit.
Adam Kolodny (director of photography): In so many ways, Rob and I have been preparing to make this film for our entire lives. We found our shared love of filmmaking as kids shooting miniDV films that Rob directed in the forest and fields surrounding our parent’s house.
Naomi Wolff Lacher (costume designer): By watching footage of real Willie Pep fights I was able to have boxing shorts custom made to as closely as possible match the original. The challenge was to replicate soexactly the archival, that it and our filmed sequences could blend seamlessly.
Sonia Foltarz (production designer): We had 50 locations total with 19 exteriors, which all had to be historically accurate. We needed to find places that would have period-appropriate architectural finishes; windows, moldings, etc.
Kolodny: Many of our locations were real locations from Willie’s life. The exterior of his home was the real building where he lived in 1964. Gyms, event halls, social clubs – they all were actual locations.
Diego Quecano (property master): We were able to source real props from the era; magazines, press accreditations, signed pictures, even the espresso machine.
Max Cooke (sound recordist): The challenge in recording The Featherweight was going to be striking a balance between modern quality and maintaining the documentary aesthetic. Even though we were shooting a fictional feature, philosophically, we were shooting a documentary.
Ray Cintron (makeup department head): We wanted every effect to be subtle and hyper-realistic. We used simple pros-aide transfer pieces to shape the aged scarring around his eye from fights past. We used rubber fillers inside his nose to make it appear wider.
Kolodny: Lawrence Gilliard Jr., whom I adored, had come aboard to play Sandy Saddler. One real issue remained; however, we still hadn’t cast the role of Bill Gore, Pep’s trainer. I had my heart set on Stephen Lang, so I appealed to him directly.
Stephen Lang (“Bill Gore”): Kolodny wrote a concise and clearly sincere letter to me. Basically it said “This is the movie I am about to direct. You would be terrific as Bill Gore. Please join me”. The start date was pretty immediate, and his need was immediate. It seemed a good opportunity to do a good thing for an emerging filmmaker. So…why say no?
Imma Aiello (“Mama Papaleo”): My husband and I had a catering business in Hartford, and he had a barbershop. He cut Willie Pep’s hair a few times, and I served him lunch at my luncheonette. One day Robert and Steve came over.
Kolodny: We had gone to scout the barbershop. While there, a distinctive voice called from the back room. It was the barber’s wife, Imma. She invited us in for espresso. I turned to Steve and said “That’s our Mama.”
Madio: Outside the ring, Willie is failing. I think he had a complex. He never wanted to let on that he was struggling internally. I cherry picked some sensitive stuff that I went through in my life and reflected that into my performance.
Livingston: At one point, Robert gave me this little antique address book for my character. He handed it to me like it came from the Louvre. I couldn’t think of a scene we were doing where I needed it. Later, I opened it up, and he had filled it with little Easter egg entries, a ton of detail, much of it hilarious. And it made me realize what kind of a filmmaker he was.
Kelly Saxon (costume supervisor): While carrying in loads of wardrobe kit, this young guy asked if I needed a hand. I said sure. When we both got inside and dropped our armloads, I stuck out my hand and said, “Thanks so much. I’m Kelly. I’m the costume supervisor for this film.”
He said, “Hi, I’m Rob.”
I said, “It’s so nice to meet you. What is your job on the film?”
He said, “Oh, I’m the director!”
I was gobsmacked. I knew then that this would be a unique experience.
Elliott: It’s crucial to create an easygoing environment. For me that meant waking up two hours prior to call to make pots of coffee (superior to hotel lobby coffee), hosting Sunday night pasta dinners, or having everybody watch movies in my room after wrap, so the team could all be together.
Kolodny: It’s probably worth saying…we only had 18 days to shoot the entire picture.
Wolf: We would shoot, prior to the start of every scene, unscripted interviews where Rob would assume the role of the fictional documentarian.
Kolodny: Putting a little work into who the documentary crew were and making it playful was important. Adam and I came up with a fictional duo of documentarian brothers, the Zupan’s. I was Herman, Adam was Murray.
Adam Kolodny (DP): I based Murray’s style largely on Pennebaker’s camerawork in “Don’t Look Back” – the frenetic energy of zooming and rarely settling on a static frame.
Josh Kirkland (script supervisor): Rob and actors made each character easy to understand; so when something was improvised, it never felt like a surprise. A balance of consistency and spontaneity.
Madio: In training, I worked on what I was capable of controlling: the jump rope, the speed bag, the jogging. Physically, I was in good shape, but no one can truly emulate Pep’s footwork. There’s a good reason he won so many fights. He never got hit.
Kellan Hayley Marvin (assistant editor): The Kolodny’s have such strong documentary instincts. Their camera captures that sense of discovery and when the unexpected happens, you feel their energy lean in, and it draws you into what they’re seeing.
Greene: We had to nail the Direct Cinema aesthetic. It was all about the limitations of documentary filmmaking of the time. So coverage doesn’t exist. In the fictional film world, you have coverage. We had coverage, because it was smartly directed and produced, but we had to limit how much we used it.
Kolodny: How would Frederick Wiseman order this procession of images? When do we need a jump cut? When do we show the ragged edges? All of the construction of how things flow was very intentional.
Greene: We turned my edit room into this fully free creative space. We’d cut a major thing that we both loved and do a little ceremony for it. Rob really proved his directorial chops in the there. It was his attention to detail in the structure…he was willing to rethink everything, which is the only way you can really approach a film like this.
Will Felker (music supervisor): Rob Kolodny is very decisive. My objective as music supervisor was to enhance our film’s mid-’60s setting with songs that felt true, cuing from radios or passing cars as we spotted the film.
Retail Space (composers): The main goal with the score was to write music that the characters would have actually listened to. When crafting this authentic ‘60s atmosphere, our tape machines and analog gear took on new significance as these tools were born from the era in which we were recreating.
Kolodny: I wound up doing a number of additional jobs while we were in post, some out of necessity but most out of obsession. I designed all of the titles, recorded sound-alike versions of songs, built the end credits. I even came up with my own DIY process for de-aging for the first fight scene.
Ryan Price (rerecording mixer, supervising sound editor): The film had to sound correct for the technical limitations of the period, but we also wanted to utilize modern methods. I operated under the premise that this was a restoration mix. We made rules and then decided when to break them. I built tracks of added on-set camera noise—mic bumps, gear handling, Nagra clicks and pops—all things I’d usually try to remove in a final mix.
Sam Daley (colorist): When the Kolodny brothers reached out to me with a cut of the movie, I knew exactly what they were looking for and I knew I was the right colorist for the job. Early in my career, I worked on dailies for several by Albert Maysles. Rob and Adam did their homework, too—the lens choices, the shooting style, the archival replication—they created the ideal canvas for me for grading The Featherweight.
Livingston: Jimmy was born to play this part. He brings so much of himself to this role, and it’s seamless as to which parts are Willie and which parts are Jim.
Lang: Kolodny – passion combined with experience. Sometimes it’s good to be in the weave of other people’s dreams.
Wolf: I feel so beyond fortunate that this was my first feature and hope this cinematic family continues to make future films together for years to come.
Madio: It felt pretty damn special to finally finish the film. I’m glad I was able to assist in etching Pep’s name in cinema for audiences to understand the man who Willie Pep was.
Loff: We kept punching all of those years because we always believed.
Kolodny: There’s something that François Truffaut said, which I’ve adopted as my personal mantra – it’s even inscribed in the credits; “the film of tomorrow will be an act of love” – above all things, I believe this. I will continue to make films, and I will dedicate my life to cinema, but The Featherweight will always be my first film. I am profoundly proud of that.
