It's a Lowell thing

The Boston Globe listed new DVD releases this weekend and The Fighter was one of them. Ever since I saw the movie last year, I've been meaning to write about it.

The movie was a huge draw for me, and still is. I not only grew up in the area of Lowell that was depicted in the film (The Highlands), I also was an unpaid extra in the early fight scenes. Could you see me? No. Although I plan to buy the DVD and slow-mo the part where I thought I'd appear on camera (in the background) and doublecheck.

Still, my voice and energy were in those scenes and I consider myself part of the film. An Oscar award winning film, at that. Check that one off the bucket list.

It was fascinating to be part of the filming for one day. I knew when I walked into the Tsongas Arena and was faced with Marky Mark in boxing trunks and gloves (and not much else) that this was all the payment I needed. It was a long day sitting in an arena with a bunch of extras doing the same take over and over and over. I think that the entire 7 hours I spent on the set resulted in 30 seconds of the movie playing time.

Watching the actors and all the supporting professionals like the makeup crew and even the guys who operated the smoke machines that got that 1980s boxing arena feel was awe-inspiring. I didn't miss a detail. And, although it now helps me understand the process while I watch a movie, I have to admit that it also took away the magic.

I never saw the director though I heard his booming voice all day instructing both the actors and the extras. Mark Wahlberg was incredibly gracious and thanked and joked around with the extras as much as he could to keep us from dying of boredom.

Christian Bale and Melissa Leo were there the entire day too but never acknowledged us. Which I thought was pretty classless. Sugar Ray Leonard had a cameo (that ended on the cutting room floor) and he got in the ring and chatted us up during a break. Micky Ward and Mickey O'Keefe also took to the ring and did some chatting with the crowd.

Maybe Bale and Leo were trying to stay in character. Or maybe that sort of pandering was beneath them. Either way, I left with a bad taste in my mouth for both of them, especially Bale who was and is a big name. Wahlberg seemed to be the regular, never-forgot-his-roots kind of guy that journalists love.

When I saw the movie, I was expecting really bad Lowell accents. The Highlands section of Lowell has a very unusual accent. Somehow, my siblings and I have managed to escape it (or maybe we have some of it but don't notice it). The accent is more pronounced than a Boston accent. It's not a Kennedy accent but is close. [Note to Martin Sheen: It's time to ditch the Kennedy accent when doing characters from Boston. No one in the world talks like that except the Kennedys.]

I remember once when I was in 6th grade, a classmate invited me to her house for a play date. It turned into a hot day and I told her I needed to bike back home and change into shorts. And I pronounced "shorts" exactly like that.

She and another playmate laughed and laughed and told me I was saying the word that means "men's underwear." Not knowing what they were talking about I asked what the difference was.

"It's pronounced 'shaahts'! Don't you know how to <taahk>?" So, I relearned the pronunciation and was very careful not to say it wrong for fear of being laughed at. Eventually, when I moved away from Lowell, someone asked why the heck I pronounced "shorts" so funny at which point I had to unlearn the wrong way and relearn the correct way. To this day, I have to remind myself to pronounce it the non-Highlands way.

I think Amy Adams did the best job with the accent. They all came very close but she nailed it. It's those sorts of details that can make or break a movie. Even Wahlberg didn't just go with his native Dorchestah accent. He understood that a well-executed local accent makes a character more believable and sets the stage for some deep character work.

Dicky Eklund went to school with me in 7th and 8th grade. I don't remember him and I moved to Andover (another accent for another day) before 9th grade. A friend told me Dicky dropped out after 8th.

I finally spent the time watching High on Crack Street after I saw The Fighter. One of the filmmakers is a distant cousin of mine. But then, I think all Irishmen in Lowell are cousins somehow with most of them coming over from County Cork around the same time.

If you've seen both movies, you know that some poetic license was taken with Dicky's story. The addict in Crack Street that they focused on was nicknamed "Boo" but his character morphed into Dicky's story in The Fighter. Boo was actually born and raised across the street from my grandparents and his family was very good to mine. I remembered that they had a son who was "trouble", as my grandparents put it, but we never held that against Boo's family.

So, there was a lot of familiarity in the movie that made me feel even more a part of it than just my being there for the fight scenes. They filmed on the street where I grew up. And they filmed in front of the house where my aunt and cousins lived. The opening scene starts in Cupples Square--the closest shopping area to my house when I was young.

The bar that appears in that first scene (The Highland Tap) was the bar I hung out at with my boyfriend when we were in college at UMass Lowell which happened to be around the time the story unfolded. Who knows, we may have even played pool or sat at the bar with Ward or Eklund. God knows we spent enough time there.

I hope Lowell can host another film crew. It's a great city with a big heart. Sure, it has its problems. What city doesn't? I'd be an extra again--paid or unpaid. Sitting in the darkened theatre with friends who survived that long day of filming with you as you watch for each other on the big screen is priceless.

And clapping with all the other Lowellians as the credits roll is a proud moment. After all, the city of Lowell was a character too.