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Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off

2022; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 49; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5406/21558450.49.2.04

2155-8450

Tolga Ozyurtcu,

Digital Games and Media

Whether on the VHS tapes of yesteryear or in contemporary digital formats, the “skate video” has been the dominant medium of skateboarding for the better part of four decades. Skate videos are nonfiction accounts of the sport—documents—but it is a stretch to call them documentaries. With the notable exception of the late 411 Video Magazine series, skate videos almost exclusively focus on the action and performance of the sport, not on biography, critique, commentary, history, or any similar themes one expects from the documentary format. For the hundreds of skate videos that have appeared over the years, there are precious few good documentaries about skateboarding, making the recent Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Come Off a very welcome addition to this limited canon.As the title suggests, the film takes a deep dive into the life and career of Tony Hawk. Hawk is the greatest skateboarder of all time and the only athlete in the sport that approaches the status of a household name. But given that Hawk's career began in the early 1980s, the film also offers a general history of skateboarding; the life and times of Tony Hawk are the life and times of the sport. Skateboarding has endured a series of booms and busts, and Hawk entered the sport at the tail end of one of these busts, arguably helping to usher the mid-1980s boom.The film captures this era beautifully, employing archival footage alongside interviews with many of Hawk's contemporaries in the sport, as well his siblings. In these years, Hawk was dominant in organized competition, but in the weird world of skateboarding, formal competitive success is not always celebrated. Skateboarding prefers the anti-hero and the rebel; the fresh-faced, clean-cut Hawk was the anti-anti-hero. He won most of the trophies and his signature skateboard model was the perennial top seller. He was popular, but to many in the hardcore inner circles of skateboarding, he committed the sin of winning, and thus the sin of being uncool. It did not help that his father, Frank, a gruff Navy veteran, took it upon himself to launch the National Skateboard Association, which organized most of the competitions Tony was winning. This tension, between success and resentment, between staying true to his goals and struggling to belong, is artfully captured in the film. In his own interviews, Hawk speaks candidly of coping with all of this while only a teenager. A surprising star of the film is Duane Peters, the archetype of the punk rock anti-Hawk skater, who was the dominant force in competition in the pre-Hawk years. Peters still harbors resentment for being dethroned by Hawk, but also cannot help but respect both Tony the skater and Tony the person; it's all very human.As fun as the first half of the film is, things get more interesting and cerebral as the years pass. As the 1980s wore on, the popularity of skateboarding waned. But Tony Hawk kept skating, kept progressing. Thus, when the sport roared back to life in the 1990s, in large part due to ESPN's X Games, Hawk was ready to be the face of an underground sport thrust into the mainstream. By the end of that decade, Hawk had parlayed this recognition into the top-selling Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video game series, further cementing his legacy. In the decades since, Hawk has kept going, still skating, still progressing. For the nonskater, the film's exploration of Hawk's relentless pursuit of innovation and perfection in the sport he has long since objectively dominated is likely to be the most interesting feature. The viewer is offered an up-close view of an obsessive craftsman; one need not know what a frontside heelflip is to appreciate that Hawk's success has been built on the type of dogged physical and intellectual investment required for excellence in anything, sporting or otherwise. Hawk attempts to unpack his process and we arguably get a better understanding of him than from his autobiography, Hawk: Occupation Skateboarder, but the best insights arguably come from the interviews with other skaters. Two in particular are of note: Hawk's longtime contemporaries Lance Mountain and Rodney Mullen. From Mountain, we get a visceral sense of what it means to commit to something with every ounce of your being. He effectively suggests that both he and Hawk will die on their skateboards and that that is OK. Mullen, the skater who has invented the most tricks in the sport, is considered by most the true savant of skateboarding. He articulates well the decades-long relationship and appreciation that he and Hawk have had for each other. Skating in different modalities (Mullen in freestyle, Hawk largely in vertical), the two men never really had to compete with each other, allowing for a mutual understanding of the skater's creative process: all that matters is the next trick and once you have got that one, you need to get to work on the next one.Hawk's single-minded focus on his sport has not been without consequences. If the film can be faulted for anything, it is that we do not get much more than a cursory acknowledgment of Hawk's flaws. He briefly mentions the infidelity that led to the end of his first marriage, and some struggles with substances are implied but not explored. This is not surprising, as it's safe to assume Hawk had some creative control in the project. But still, for a film that ultimately excels as a psychological study, the viewer is left without a complete picture of Tony Hawk the person.In all, this is a commendable film, a solid study of a high performer with strong production values, great use of archival footage, and fluid narrative pacing. It is essential viewing for historians of skateboarding and other lifestyle sports. Those looking for historical introductions to skateboarding should likely start with Stacy Peralta's pair of documentaries, Dogtown and Z-Boys and Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, the latter of which features a healthy dose of Hawk. If left wanting more, Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Come Off is a perfect follow-up.