There is a sequence in Million Dollar Baby that brings all of director Clint Eastwood’s artistic elements together in glorious harmony. Frankie (played by Eastwood) is at home, watching a fight on his television set. A voiceover explains boxing, its reasoning and how it’s the opposite of everything the fighter is brought up to believe. As the voice speaks, Frankie sits tensely on his couch, half in the darkness, his fists clenched, held up and ready to strike. The voiceover tells us about footwork, and how a punch comes from the toes. Frankie turns his foot, comes out into the light and throws a punch. The boxer on the television set twists his foot, and he too throws a punch. The boxer then withdraws, and Frankie sits back and once again dissolves into the darkness. The effect is breathtaking, especially for anyone who has even a rudimentary understanding of the “Sweet Science.” Eastwood’s understanding of boxing and his abilities as a filmmaker create a mesmerizing interpretation of the sport, demonstrating not only its art, but its mechanics.

But Million Dollar Baby is not a movie about boxing. While Eastwood’s virtuosity is evident in this scene, and many others like it that fill the two hours of screen time, it’s his sensibility that makes the film something more than a simple genre piece.

For someone of an age at which most people have settled into a life of leisure and reflection, Eastwood is at the top of his game. In two years, he’s directed and produced two important, innovative American films, starred in one of them, and wrote the musical score for both. He turns 75 in May of this year.

He lends his steely glare to Frankie Dunn, the owner of a rundown gym. He is a manager/trainer, a cut man and he studies Gaelic poetry. His gym is run by Eddie “Scrap” Dupris (Morgan Freeman), an old time fighter and Frankie’s best friend. Scrap also narrates the film and introduces Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a 31-year-old waitress that dreams of becoming something more, of achieving greatness with her hands. Maggie tries to convince Frankie to train her, telling him that people think she’s tough. “Girlie,” Frankie growls, “tough, ain’t enough.”

It probably goes without saying that Frankie eventually takes on Maggie as a pupil, and they will begin a road to glory. But it’s a slow process, organic, delicate and intimate. We learn to care about Maggie and why she has her dream. We understand why Scrap gives her a couple of pointers, and we understand why Frankie agrees to train her. All have motivations that extend from their personalities and experience, motivations that are not requirements placed on them by a story. Eastwood reinterprets the underdog sports drama, crafting it to ascend beyond the plot-driven trappings of the genre to become something else entirely. This is a film about three people, who are boxers.

The script was adapted from Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner, a collection from former fight manager Jerry Boyd. It is smart enough to know about the realities and troubles of the boxing world, and doesn’t allow for uncomplicated escapes. Its dialogue is economic and prosaic; there are no unnecessary words, but the lines have dignity and reverence. The obligatory training scenes are hushed and purposeful, concentrating more on the métier than the flashiness of the sport. Eastwood is careful to use every element of the film, from the music to the lighting, to articulate what’s on screen. Everything is calculated to get an audience to live for these characters, to feel the pain and the rush of their emotions.

It’s a process that has clearly been laid out in seriatim of Eastwood’s best films, beginning with Unforgiven and continuing with Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. All three films are entries into well-established genres, but rise above the story elements required of them. All three depend on an aesthetic featuring interplay between light and darkness, a slow, carefully placed camera, and subdued, Methodic performances. It would be an oversimplification to call Unforgiven an anti-Western and Mystic River an anti-police procedural. Neither film disregards either genre’s perfunctory conventions. Rather, by finding the humanism in his characters, by coaxing astonishing performances from his actors and by using a subtle visual language, Eastwood creates films that are Shakespearean tragedies.

Million Dollar Baby is no different. Maggie’s rise in the female boxing circuit, despite her age and rawness is nothing new. Her tribulations and successes are expected from this sort of film. Eastwood, however, is smart enough to explore the bond that develops between fighter and trainer, how the pain and injury of the character’s pasts inform their present, and how Frankie, previously unwilling to do anything for Maggie, becomes willing to do everything for her. This is a compelling, magnificent film, made by an artist that seems only to get better with age.

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