What’s Happening? Film Series: William Greaves’ “The Fight” at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts -Bruno Walter Auditorium – New York, NY

In the first months of 1971, William Greaves, a documentary filmmaker based in New York, accepted an offer from promoter Jerry Perenchio to make a feature film of the upcoming boxing match between Joe Frazier and Muhammed Ali.  Greaves immediately pulled together three film crews with twelve cameramen to follow Ali, Frazier, the coterie of promoters and trainers, and to record public sentiment about the upcoming bout.  The resulting film, a Direct Cinema epic which not only showed the finesse and brutality of boxing but questioned the nature of sports promotion in relation to the Black men who are competing, was rejected by the producers.  They wanted marketable content.  Greaves complied.  And yet, he kept working on that original vision of a film that could document much more than boxing.  

On November 19th, we are screening the result of that vision, William Greaves' THE FIGHT (1973).  This rarely seen director's cut is the product of The New York Public Library's 6-year restoration of the film in partnership with the Criterion Collection and The Film Foundation, with funding from the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. 

What's Happening is a film series dating back to 1972 that centers on new and historic films in the Reserve Film and Video Collection at the Library for the Performing Arts. Screening a selection of curated titles from the collection—including documentaries, animations, and even films never commercially released—the series provides information on timely and public topics, in order to spark conversation with the audience and with special guest panelists.

Photo Credit: Film still from the 2026 restoration of THE FIGHT (1973), courtesy of William Greaves Productions.

SEATING POLICY | Programs are free and open to all, but registration is requested. Check-in line forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. Five minutes before the advertised start time, all seats are released, regardless of registration, to our patrons in the stand-by line. If you arrive after the program starts, you will be seated at the discretion of our front-of-house staff.

STANDBY LINE | If registration is sold out or has ended, do not fret! We welcome you to come to the Library regardless of registration status and wait in our standby line, which forms 45 minutes before the advertised start time. Five minutes before the program starts, all remaining seats are released. While this is not guaranteed, we will do our best to get you into any of our programs.

ASSISTIVE LISTENING AND ASL | ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.

BRUNO WALTER AUDITORIUM POLICY | Please note that any unoccupied seat will be released five minutes before the show begins and holding seats for anyone beyond that is prohibited. There is no food or drink allowed inside the venue.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING | Programs may be photographed and recorded by and at the discretion of the Library for the Performing Arts and will post signs indicating as such. If you would prefer your image not be captured, please let us know and we can seat you accordingly. Attending any program indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any and all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS | Please send all press inquiries to Alex Teplitzky at alexteplitzky@nypl.org. Please note that all recording, including professional video recordings, are prohibited without expressed consent from the Library.