Until two months ago he was in prison, now a film about Boris Becker is showing at the Berlinale. The questions at the press conference were not only friendly.
Boris Becker, former tennis pro and protagonist, stands at the photo shoot for the film “Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker” as part of the Berlinale in front of the photo wall.Soren Stache/dpa
Shortly before the end of the press conference for the film “Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker” a Swedish journalist asks a question that is actually cheeky: Can Becker tell you again briefly what exactly brought him to prison. That wasn’t explained very well in the film. On the podium, director Alex Gibney is silently outraged, and the hostess resolves the situation by saying that this question might be better answered in a one-on-one interview.
The fact that this question was even possible shows that the documentation about the life of Germany’s biggest tennis star has sensitive gaps. The scandals of his life, the extramarital adventures on front pages and also the financial scandals – they are touched upon at best. First and foremost, the film is about the rise of an athlete.
For “Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker” has interviewed director Gibney Becker twice. Once just before the pandemic in 2019 and then in 2022, two days before his sentencing. Becker was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in London at the end of April 2022 because he had concealed assets worth millions from his insolvency administrators. He was released in mid-December after 231 days behind bars because of a special regulation for foreign prisoners. The film begins with a scene from this interview in which he is also crying.
Becker says he didn’t know at the time what the rest of his life would be like. “But I’m glad that I was able to get out safely after eight months and I’m grateful that I can start my new life with my family.” Especially in Germany, he says, “that’s often not allowed, because people don’t want to see that a person can change”. But he has changed and is now more modest. “Things went wrong for me and I paid a price for it.”
It’s clearly a press conference for a superstar. Many questions go to the tennis pro, most of them praising the film and politely asking “what tennis has given him” or what “his favorite film” is. Becker is also very vague in answering such questions (“I like films with Sean Penn”), apparently flattered to be a star at the Berlinale with a film made by an Oscar winner. He himself says that films have always been important to him, for him a good evening also includes a good film.
Becker also says that the past five years have been exhausting years. It sounds as if he sat in the editing room and made the decisions or conducted the interviews with companions like John McEnroe or Björn Borg himself. But Becker probably thinks that he has experienced a lot in the five years and has often been in the headlines with his financial problems. The prison from which he was released two months ago does not appear in the film.
“Life has its ups and downs,” says Boris Becker, “and my tennis career prepared me very well for that.” He was even able to learn something for prison through tennis. “You have a plan for the day and you realize that it won’t work out that way.” What is today says nothing about tomorrow. “You never know what’s lurking around the next corner.”
Becker is also asked about his pill addiction during his professional days. “Life as a winning tennis machine is a lot tougher than it looks,” says Becker. You always have to work. It is impossible to lead a normal life as a tennis pro. “Every player has a way of dealing with this, with these expectations. If I don’t win, Germans in particular will try to crucify me.”
He answers most questions in English, which fits because at one point in the film he says that he feels comfortable in the USA because he is not a tennis legend everywhere. But two questions at the press conference are put to him in German, and he then answers in German: The first is friendly and only asks how he is doing. The second is a bit mean and accuses him of leading a life of luxury again, even though he has just got out of prison.
His answers to both questions are similar: “It feels good to be free and we should all strive to be better people.” To the second question, he only says: “I’ve had critics for 37 years, people who don’t like my nose or my taste in women. I’ve never been able to please everyone.” He prefers to talk about tennis because he is a tennis player “from the bottom of his heart”.
