{"id":11466,"date":"2017-07-05T14:23:54","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T18:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=11466"},"modified":"2017-07-12T16:18:46","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T20:18:46","slug":"would-rocky-run-up-these-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2017\/07\/would-rocky-run-up-these-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"Would Rocky Run Up These Steps?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Fairmount Park Plaza – Municipal Art Center, William E. Groben, Architect, Department of Public Works [1911], detail. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>When architects first designed the far end of the parkway at Fairmount, the biggest challenge was to make an extravagant project palatable to taxpaying Philadelphians.<\/p>\n

In the Spring of 1907, street car magnate and would-be philanthropist Peter A.B. Widener proposed an art museum, acropolis-style, atop Fairmount. As architect Paul P. Cret first designed it, the steps would zigzag upward, emphasizing the verticality of Fairmount and ignoring the sweeping power of the parkway axis. In the Spring of 1911, William E. Groben\u2019s drawings, accompanied by a 30-foot model, would be centerpieces in a month-long exhibition at City Hall. These sold the public on the grand vision for the parkway, but the zigzag steps remained as proposed. It took several more years before architects extended the broad axis of the parkway up to the top of Fairmount. And it would take another six decades for the site to come alive with a narrative powerful enough to have mythical proportions.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019d have guessed the parkway\u2019s original references to ancient classicism would, so many decades later, become electrified in the public imagination by an emerging Hollywood action hero? That the parkway\u2019s magic sauce would be in the museum\u2019s steps?<\/p>\n

To facilitate this kind of animation, however, the scene would require wide granite steps sweeping upward to a plateau overlooking the city’s skyline. The original design wouldn’t have inspired Sylvester Stallone to write and produce his famous scene. The original steps defied Rocky\u2019s exuberant spirit and the scene\u2019s visual openness. Those steps<\/em> would have clashed with the sight and sound of Rocky bounding up at dawn, forging, in a cinematic crescendo, a spiritual connection with the film\u2019s protagonist and Philadelphia\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n

As redesigned and built, the steps merge axis and access, providing Stallone and Rocky<\/em> director John G. Avildsen a place to craft a scene for posterity. In de-industrializing Philadelphia, Rocky<\/em> brought the city\u2019s faux acropolis to life with a story worthy of ancient legend.<\/p>\n

To help pull that off, Avildsen brought in inventor Garrett Brown, who had \u201cdeveloped a harness to wear on his shoulders from which he could suspend a camera\u201d allowing it remain \u201cbalanced and stable (and) cushioned\u2026\u201d Brown\u2019s Steadycam enabled him \u201cto move with, and around, his subject while filming with a fluid intimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the musical score, Avildsen reached out to Bill Conti, a young graduate of the Juilliard School. Avildsen sat Conti down with a glass of red wine, showed him \u201ca few of the rough cuts of Rocky boxing Apollo Creed\u201d while playing Beethoven\u2019s Pastoral Symphon<\/em>y<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s the kind of sound I want, rather than a rock and roll,\u201d Avildsen told Conti. \u201cThis music makes boxing more important, almost more ethereal.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Michael Vitez, in Rocky Stories<\/em>, \u201cConti began his fanfare with \u201ca blast of trumpets\u2026 That brassy sound is what the Greeks and Romans want you to hear going into battle,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is the part that makes guys want to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019The genius of Rocky<\/em>,\u2019 film historian Jeanine Basinger once told Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em> movie critic Carrie Rickey, \u2019is how it used the Steadicam not merely to create movement, but to get us into Rocky\u2019s shoes and his skin.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a fairy tale,\u201d claimed Avildsen, albeit one tailored to a modern-day attention span. \u201cThis is the peak, a pinnacle that is accessible to people,\u201d said Brown, \u201cit’s not like climbing the damn Alps … It can be done in thirty seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can’t borrow Superman’s cape,\u201d agreed Stallone. \u201cYou can’t use the Jedi laser sword. But the steps are there. The steps are accessible. And standing up there, you kind of have a piece of the Rocky<\/em> pie. You are part of what the whole myth is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The as-built steps make<\/em> the scene, they enable<\/em> the myth. Together, claims Buzz Bissinger, the site and the myth make the steps \u201cone of the great architectural icons of the modern world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The architects weren’t the only ones who needed to tweak their original thinking for this to come together. Stallone\u2019s first idea for the scene had Rocky carrying his dog, Butkus, a 120-pound bull mastiff, up the museum\u2019s 72 steps. Just as the architects moved beyond their original zigzag design, Stallone, too, \u201cabandoned\u201d his original idea.<\/p>\n

And the Philadelphia story is better off for both changes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
[Fairmount Park Plaza – Municipal Art Center, William E. Groben, Architect, Department of Public Works, 1911] (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[Sources:\u00a0 David Brownlee,\u00a0Building the City Beautiful: The Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.<\/em>\u00a0(Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1989)<\/a>; Laura Holzman, \u201cA Question of Stature: Restoring and Ignoring Rocky<\/em>,\u201d Public<\/em> Art Dialogue,<\/em> October, 2014<\/a>; Michael Vitez and Tom Gralish, Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, and Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps<\/em> (Paul Dry Books, 2006)<\/a> .]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When architects first designed the far end of the parkway at Fairmount, the biggest challenge was to make an extravagant project palatable to taxpaying Philadelphians. In the Spring of 1907, street car magnate and would-be philanthropist Peter A.B. Widener proposed an art museum, acropolis-style, atop Fairmount. As architect Paul P. Cret first designed it, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}