DIRECTOR Steve James WRITING Steve James and Frederick Marx PRODUCERS Peter Gilbert, Steve James, and Frederick Marx MUSIC Ben S

Home , Arthur Agee, At the Death House Door, Frederick Marx, Gene Pingatore, Hoop Dreams, Joe and Max

November 19: 2019 (XXXIX: 13) Steve James: HOOP DREAMS (1994, 170m) The version of this Goldenrod Handout sent out in our Monday mailing, and the one online, has hot links. Spelling and Style—use of italics, quotation marks or nothing at all for titles, e.g.—follows the form of the sources.

DIRECTOR Steve James WRITING Steve James and Frederick Marx PRODUCERS Peter Gilbert, Steve James, and Frederick Marx MUSIC Ben Sidran CINEMATOGRAPHY Peter Gilbert EDITING William Haugse, Steve James, and Frederick Marx

Willam Gates Arthur Agee George Pingatore

In 1995, the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best (2008), 30 for 30 (TV Series documentary) (2010), Film Editing. It won a Peabody Award in 1996. In The Interrupters (Documentary) (2011), Focus 2005, the National Film Preservation Board, USA, Forward: Short Films, Big Ideas (Documentary short) selected it for the National Film Registry. (2012), Head Games (Documentary) (2012), The Music Man (Documentary short) (2012), Life Itself STEVE JAMES (b. March 8, 1954 in Hampton, (Documentary) (2014), A Place Called Pluto Virginia) is an American film producer (23 credits), (Documentary short) (2014), We the Economy: 20 director (26 credits), and editor (12 credits) who has Short Films You Can't Afford to Miss (Documentary) been nominated for Oscars for Hoop Dreams (1994) (2014), The New Yorker Presents (TV Series and for Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016). These documentary) (2016), Abacus: Small Enough to Jail are some other films he directed: Stop Substance (Documentary) (2016), Frontline (TV Series Abuse (Documentary) (1986), Grassroots Chicago documentary) (2012-2017), and America to Me (TV (Documentary short) (1991), Higher Goals Series documentary) (2018). (Documentary short) (1993), Hoop Dreams (Documentary) (1994), Prefontaine (1997), Passing PETER GILBERT (b. 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, Glory (TV Movie) (1999), Joe and Max (TV Movie) USA) is a cinematographer (24 credits), director (8 (2002), Stevie (Documentary) (2002), The New credits), and producer (37 credits). He directed A Time Americans (Documentary) (2003), Independent Lens for Dancing (2002). These are some films he has done (TV Series documentary) (2004), Reel Paradise cinematography for: Chicago on the Good Foot (TV (Documentary) (2005), At the Death House Door Movie documentary) (1983), The Long Way Home (Documentary) (2008), Paradise Regained (Short) (TV Movie documentary) (1989), American Dream James—HOOP DREAMS—2

(Documentary) (1990), Age 7 in America (TV Movie Still, twenty years after the movie surprisingly broke documentary) (1991), Hoop Dreams (Documentary) through at Sundance and changed the game, how does (1994), Missing Persons (TV Series) (1993-4), it hold up? Hoop Dreams has been minted and Prefontaine (1997), Pride Divide (Documentary) reminted as an essential touchstone and called one of (1997), Vietnam Long Time Coming* (Documentary) the greatest sports films ever made, but does it remain (1998), Stevie (Documentary) (2002), A Southern a vital work of cinema? Town* (TV Movie) (2003), Independent Lens (TV The first time I saw Hoop Dreams, I was Series documentary) (2004), With All Deliberate mesmerized and inspired. A few years earlier, I had Speed* (Documentary) (2006), There's No Place Like been a kid with bad knees and an awkward jump shot, Home* (TV Short) (2008), At the Death House Door* with teenage delusions that I could make it to the (Documentary) (2010), Burning Ice* (Documentary) NBA. Watching the film on the big screen, I was (2010), Brother Number One* (Documentary) (2011), entranced by the allure my favorite sport had for the Andrew Bird: Fever Year (Documentary) (2011), two young protagonists, William Gates and Arthur Living in the Overlap (Documentary short) (2014), Agee. By that point, my dreams had turned from Life After Hoop Dreams (Video documentary short) hoops to making films, and Hoop Dreams was also a (2015), and Searching revelation in that regard. for Mr. Rugoff That documentaries shot (Documentary) (2019). on video could be movies *Also directed stirred something in me and helped shape my life FREDERICK MARX and career going forward. is an Oscar-nominated Meanwhile, seeing film editor (15 credits), William’s and Arthur’s director (12 credits), ups and downs on-screen and producer (19 was intensely humbling, credits). These are the and it impressed upon me films he edited: Dream the power and necessity of Documentary (Short) (1981), House of Unamerican nonfiction cinema. Activities (Short) (1984), Dreams from China (Short) In America, Michael Moore’s Roger & Me had (1989), Hiding Out for Heaven (Short) (1990), Hoop demonstrated the commercial potential of Dreams (Documentary) (1994), Hoop Dreams documentaries five years before Hoop Reunion (TV Special) (1995), Joey Skaggs: Bullshit & Dreamsemerged, and MTV’s The Real World had Balls (Short) (1996), Tangled (1997), The Unspoken recently pointed to the pop culture allure of “real” (1999), Boys to Men? (Video documentary) (2006), people, but it was the epic tale of William and Arthur, Schooled (2007), The Films of Frederick Marx (Short) as captured and assembled by James and company, (2009), Journey from Zanskar (Documentary) (2010), that showed the world how sincere, smart, character- Rites of Passage: Mentoring the Future driven nonfiction portraiture could “play” for (Documentary) (2015), and Veteran's Journey Home: audiences. The filmmakers’ relatable approach made Kalani's Story (Documentary short) (2019). it look almost easy, so adept were they at wringing depth and pathos out of quick, observed exchanges. Robert Greene: “Hoop Dreams: The Real Thing” For twenty years, filmmakers have tried (and usually (Criterion Essays) failed) to conjure similar magic. That I’m able to write these words as a At the same time, the fact that the story’s working documentary filmmaker already speaks to the characters are inner-city black kids whose emotional broad and overwhelming impact of what Steve James, lives are being explored may be the film’s most vital Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert pulled off in 1994 contribution to culture. The movie made nearly eight with Hoop Dreams. Their film uncovered the dynamic million dollars at the box office and was seen storytelling and commercial possibilities of narrative countless times on television, and every one of its nonfiction and remains vastly influential in how we viewers was treated to a portrait that found depth and conceive of, create, and distribute documentary films. complexity where most media depictions find hurtful James—HOOP DREAMS—3 cliche?. There isn’t a better argument for the social For the purposes of this essay, I watched Hoop value of long-form nonfiction filmmaking than Hoop Dreams for the first time in nearly two decades, and I Dreams. And sports have never been put into such was immediately struck by how emphatically it careful context, where the dramatic power of winning announces itself as a movie in the opening minutes, and losing is woven into the narrative construction of with highly composed and gorgeously lit frames, characters’ lives rather than overwhelming it. Hitting action zooms, tracking shots, and a driving score. The a last-second layup matters, but only because these film quickly and entertainingly brings the viewer into boys’ dreams register as meaningful, intricate, and the inner city of Chicago just as a Hollywood movie real. There’s a reason Roger Ebert called it “the great might, setting up the discrepancies between the NBA American documentary.” and life in the projects by directly cutting between The idea for the dream world and dreamers. film came to James in Creating a big-time narrative 1985, while he was feel where story tensions and waiting to shoot hoops character motivations are as at a busy court at clear as they’d be in a Southern Illinois fictional movie was one of University, where he the filmmakers’ most was a film student. He influential gambits, and it still was apparently so pays off; the opening struck by the moments bristle with interactions on the cinematic urgency and scope. court that he almost From there, the film immediately reached settles into a more out to his buddy Marx conventional documentary about a project, with approach. There’s a residue the initial pitch being of the original, shorter that they create a thirty-minute short focused on the direction the film was going to take that one can sense subculture of a single playground, and on a single in the first hour. Expository information is doled out player. From there, the film’s other principal efficiently, with James’s even-tempered voice-over, collaborators came on board, including Gilbert and interviews with the main characters, and quick cuts Kartemquin Films producers Gordon Quinn and Jerry doing much of the work to explain who the characters Blumenthal. The plan was to shoot for six months. are and what they’re about. It’s functional and tight, Instead, they ended up sticking around for more than with a few potent observational moments (an five years, following Arthur and William from their extended shot of the fourteen-year-old Arthur’s freshman year at Chicago’s high school basketball searching eyes as he steps onto the court, for example, powerhouse St. Joseph to their first steps in college. or the revered St. Joseph coach, Gene Pingatore, Trials and tribulations on and off the court tightly holding in his meaty hands a lighter for his abound: Arthur’s struggling parents can’t pay for the signature pipe). There are aesthetic flourishes like tuition at St. Joe’s, and he must forge a new path, slow motion occasionally mixed in, yet there remains while William must contend with high expectations, a strong sense that the filmmakers are still finding internal ambivalence, and the pressures of having a their footing and working as economically as possible young family of his own. The boys’ shared goal is as they get deeper into Arthur’s and William’s worlds. clear: to make it out of the inner city and to the NBA. The brisk pace continues through the rest of But the story takes us into incredibly rich emotional the first half of the nearly three-hour running time, territory, as the filmmakers emphasize the ambiguities and while what’s on-screen is almost always of real human relationships over simplistic narratives. captivating, the hyperefficient scene construction The fullness of experience is felt; these boys’ dreams sometimes leaves less space for salient, intimate become high drama, with the endlessly replenishing observations. The strategy here is to create depth by metaphor of basketball always adding layers of way of breadth. The major story twist of Arthur meaning. moving to another school from his dream program at James—HOOP DREAMS—4

St. Joseph is treated with a matter-of-factness that is Sundance the same year that James, Marx, and Gilbert characteristic of the overall approach. This occurrence were being honored for Hoop Dreams’s twentieth was earth-shattering in the way it cleaved Arthur’s anniversary, works. By the end of the movie, the boys trajectory from William’s more stable one, yet the we’ve come to care so deeply about are young men, filmmakers reject melodrama in favor of and a humble movie about urban basketball has understatement. Story points are never oversold, transformed into a vital work of lasting cinema. The which makes each micro-movement feel profoundly film’s freshman-to-senior-year structure couldn’t be unmanufactured. The images may not stand out as more appropriate. By tethering form and filmmaking especially striking, and the editing may seem a little choices to the turbulent, unpredictable lives of real too by-the-numbers at times, but once we reach the people, documentaries can become something like ninety-minute mark, we’ve been firmly planted in a living things themselves, growing and breathing and real place and uniquely positioned to understand the learning as the characters on-screen do. Twenty years complexities of these characters’ lives. after it changed the nonfiction world, Hoop Then, almost without warning, the filmmakers Dreams indeed remains vigorously, forcefully alive. execute an extraordinary, unparalleled edit, and the film hits another gear. The tensions between William and Coach Pingatore have started to show when both board a bus to go to a game. The St. Joseph bus is quiet, almost solemn, and the faces are nearly entirely white. Pingatore dominates the frame, instructing his players, “Now, remember, think about the ball game.” Suddenly, we match cut to an identical front-of-the- bus angle on Arthur’s almost all-black transport, whose atmosphere is decidedly less disciplined, Coach Bedford present but silent and clearly not in control. With that one cut, the diverging roads of our two protagonists are made powerfully clear. Many buzzwords like immersive and present- Seth Davis: “Reality Show Ten Year Ago Hoop tense that are applied to the more cinematically Dreams Briefly Turned Two Childhood Pals fro ambitious documentaries of today can be used to Chicago into American Idols, But a Hollywood describe the astonishing second half Ending has Proved Elusive” (Sports Illustrated, of Hoop Dreams. Close-ups become more precisely July 2004) framed, camera movements more noticeably Tupac can be heard blaring from the gray interested in creating spatial depth, and the feeling of Pontiac Grand Am long before Arthur Agee rolls into scenes happening as we watch more apparent. Nearly a parking lot in Cabrini Green, the notoriously tough every scene is tense and electric, the expository work Chicago neighborhood in which he grew up. As of the first half paying off brilliantly. Arthur plays a he steers into a space, Agee peers out the window and pickup game with his father, and the scene has the bobs playfully to the beat. A blue towel is draped over cadence and expressive power of an epic showdown, his head; a wide, impish smile covers his face. "That while still maintaining the film’s unfussy style. Later, boy a fool," says William Gates, standing nearby and William and Coach Pingatore have what might be the shaking his head. ¬When Agee steps out of the car, most bittersweet final scene in documentary history, he's giddy. "S'up, big boy?" he shouts. "Who dat and the viewer experiences a raw emotional ambiguity is?" Gates replies, locking his old pal into a tight that is unique to great nonfiction. In fact, it might be embrace before laying on a schoolmarmish guilt trip. said that by employing narrative strategies from "Haven't heard from you, can't find you, don't know fictional cinema, James showed the distinctive where you are. I hear you're playing SlamBall, I hear emotional depth possible only in documentary. about the clothing line. It's all third- What we have, then, is a film that grows up as party information." its characters do. This is not unlike the way Richard Linklater’s masterful Boyhood, which premiered at James—HOOP DREAMS—5

"You can always call Bo, man, you know communications major, became the first member of that," Agee says, referring to his father, who lives in his family to earn a college degree. Berwyn, Ill., a Chicago suburb. After working for three years in Chicago as It's been more than a year since Agee and director of the Community Economic Development Gates have spoken and 10 years since their lives were Association, Gates was laid off. His financial situation chronicled in Hoop Dreams, the acclaimed Steve soon grew dire, and his young family suffered. "We James documentary about inner-city basketball. After were homeless and poor," Gates says. "I went it won an Audience Award at the 1994 Sundance to McDonald's, grocery stores, tried to do some pest Film Festival, Hoop Dreams scored a major control. I'm thinking, I've got a degree from distribution deal from Fine Line Cinema and, that Marquette, I've got a movie, and I can't find a job? October, became the first documentary to close the Life had really changed." prestigious New York Film Festival. By the time Gates and Agee made nearly $200,000 apiece its theatrical run ended in the spring of '95, Hoop in royalties from Hoop Dreams, and now Gates's share Dreams was the highest-grossing documentary in U.S. was gone. In early 2003 he approached a Chicago history. church about starting a ministry in Cabrini Green, and Agee, 31, and thus the Living Faith Gates, 33, are still close Community Church was friends, as they have been born. With his $40,000 since childhood. That salary, he moved his bond—barely addressed in family into a new home the three-hour film, in last January. "There's food which they appear on the table these days," he together for about says. a minute—was evident While Gates long ago last month when they abandoned his quest for a reunited for a photo shoot basketball career, Agee's to commemorate the hoop dreams died much movie's 10th anniversary. harder. He attended "It could be four years Arkansas State for 3 1/2 since we saw each other, years before beginning an but when we get together, it's like we talked odyssey that took him to the United States Basketball yesterday," Agee says. "We've gone down different League and the International Basketball Association paths, but we'll always be connected." but, alas, never to the NBA. His mother, Sheila, Gates's path brought him back to Cabrini has derided his pro quest as "time wasted," but Agee Green, where he is the senior pastor of a church and argues that those cameos enabled him to continue the director of its after-school program for at-risk cashing in on his quasi-fame. He does concede that he kids. He lives on Chicago's West Side with could have handled his celebrity more responsibly; his wife, Catherine, and their four children, Alicia, 15; much of his money, for example, has gone toward William Jr., 9; Jalon, 6; and Marques, eight months. child support for the four children he fathered out of For several years Gates went out of his way to avoid wedlock--Anthony, 12; Ashley, 11; Deja, 8; and the neighborhood, especially after his brother Curtis Chandler, 8. In Chicago he stays with his girlfriend, or was murdered near there in a 2001 carjacking. "This Bo and Sheila in the four-bedroom house he bought was not in the plan," he says of his return to Cabrini for them with his Hoop Dreams royalties. He Green. frequently visits Los Angeles, where he spent By the end of Hoop Dreams, Gates had made six months this year playing SlamBall, a made-for-TV it out of Cabrini Green, landing a basketball dunkfest on trampolines. He has used his celebrity to scholarship to Marquette. After averaging 3.7 points build a network of business associates who have in three college seasons, however, he quit assisted him in projects ranging from the Arthur Agee the program, but not school, and in 1999 Gates, a Role Model Foundation, which provides scholarships to underprivileged kids, to a clothing line. Five years James—HOOP DREAMS—6 in the works, The Hoop Dreams Sportswear/Control longer story. And so we are allowed to watch the Your Destiny line is scheduled to roll out in August at subjects grow up during the movie, and this palpable Magic Marketplace, the fashion industry's largest sense of the passage of time is like walking for a time trade show. in their shoes. At the end of Hoop Dreams, Gates says, They're spotted during playground games by a "When somebody says, 'When you get to the NBA, scout for St. Joseph's High School in west suburban don't forget me.' I should say to them, 'If I don't make Westchester, a basketball powerhouse. Attending it, you don't forget about me.'" Ten years later, their classes there will mean a long daily commute to a NBA dreams long expired, the two old friends are a school with few other black faces, but there's never an little less visible, but no less happy. "I have no instant when William or Arthur, or their families, regrets," says Gates. "Hoop Dreams was about more doubt the wisdom of this opportunity: St. Joseph's, we than basketball. It was about life. Even now, I still hear time and again, is the school where another have dreams. They've just changed a little bit." inner-city kid, Isiah Thomas, started his climb to NBA stardom. One image from the film: Gates, who lives in the Cabrini Green project, and Agee, who lives on Chicago's South Side, get up before dawn on cold winter days to begin their daily 90-minute commute to Westchester. The street lights reflect off the hard winter ice, and we realize what a long road - what plain hard work - is involved in trying to get to the top of the professional sports pyramid. Other high school students may go to "career counselors," who steer them into likely professions. Arthur and William are working harder, perhaps, than anyone else in their school - for jobs which, we are told, they have only a .00005 percent chance of winning. We know all about the dream. We Roger Ebert: “Hoop Dreams” (1994) watch Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas and the A film like "Hoop Dreams" is what the movies others on television, and we understand why any kid are for. It takes us, shakes us, and make us think in with talent would hope to be out on the same courts new ways about the world around us. It gives us the someday. But "Hoop Dreams" is not simply about impression of having touched life itself. basketball. It is about the texture and reality of daily "Hoop Dreams" is, on one level, a existence in a big American city. And as the film documentary about two African-American kids named follows Agee and Gates through high school and into William Gates and Arthur Agee, from Chicago's inner their first year of college, we understand all of the city, who are gifted basketball players and dream of human dimensions behind the easy media images of someday starring in the NBA. On another level, it is life in the "ghetto." about much larger subjects: about ambition, We learn, for example, of how their extended competition, race and class in our society. About our families pull together to help give kids a chance. How value structures. And about the daily lives of people if one family member is going through a period of like the Agee and Gates families, who are usually trouble (Arthur's father is fighting a drug problem), invisible in the mass media, but have a determination others seem to rise to periods of strength. How if and resiliency that is a cause for hope. some family members are unemployed, or if the lights The movie spans six years in the lives of get turned off, there is also somehow an uncle with a William and Arthur, starting when they are in the big back yard, just right for a family celebration. We eighth grade, and continuing through the first year of see how the strong black church structure provides college. It was intended originally to be a 30-minute support and encouragement - how it is rooted in short, but as the filmmakers followed their two reality, accepts people as they are, and believes in subjects, they realized this was a much larger, and redemption. James—HOOP DREAMS—7

And how some people never give up. Arthur's Joseph suit reveals understandable sensitivity, because mother asks the filmmakers, "Do you ever ask not all of the St. Joseph people come out looking like yourself how I get by on $268 a month and keep this heroes. house and feed these children? Do you ever ask It is as clear as night and day that the only yourself that question?" reason Arthur Agee and Yes, frankly, we do. But William Gates are offered another question is how scholarships to St. Joseph's she finds such in the first place is because determination and hope they are gifted basketball that by the end of the players. They are hired as film, miraculously, she athletes as surely as if they has completed her were free agents in pro ball; education as a nursing suburban high schools do assistant. not often send scouts to the "Hoop Dreams" inner city to find future contains more actual scientists or teachers. information about life as Both sets of parents are it is lived in poor black required to pay a small part city neighborhoods than any other film I have ever of the tuition costs. When Gates' family cannot pay, a seen. member of the booster club pays for him - because he Because we see where William and Arthur seems destined to be a high school all-American. come from, we understand how deeply they hope to Arthur at first does not seem as talented. And when he transcend - to use their gifts to become pro athletes. has to drop out of the school because his parents have We follow their steps along the path that will lead, both lost their jobs, there is no sponsor for him. they hope, from grade school to the NBA. Instead, there's a telling scene where the school The people at St. Joseph's High School are not refuses to release his transcripts until the parents have pleased with the way they appear in the film, and have paid their share of his tuition. filed suit, saying among other things that they were The morality here is clear: St. Joseph's wanted told the film would be a non-profit project to be aired Arthur, recruited him, and would have found tuition on PBS, not a commercial venture. The filmmakers funds for him if he had played up to expectations. respond that they, too, thought it would - that the When he did not, the school held the boy's amazing response which has found it a theatrical future as hostage for a debt his parents clearly would release is a surprise to them. The movie simply turned never have contracted if the school's recruiters had not come scouting grade school playgrounds for the boy. No wonder St. Joseph's feels uncomfortable. Its behavior seems like something out of Dickens. The name Scrooge comes to mind. Gene Pingatore, the coach at St. Joseph's, is a party to the suit (which actually finds a way to plug the Isiah Thomas connection). He feels he's seen in an unattractive light. I thought he came across fairly well. Like all coaches, he believes athletics are a great deal more important than they really are, and there is a moment when he leaves a decision to Gates that Gates is clearly not well-prepared to make. But it isn't Pingatore but the whole system that is brought into question: What does it say about the values involved, when the pro sports machine reaches right down to out to be a masterpiece, and its intended non- eighth-grade playgrounds? commercial slot was not big enough to hold it. The St. James—HOOP DREAMS—8

But the film is not only, or mostly, about such Ever list.[9] The film has a 98% approval rating issues. It is about the ebb and flow of life over several from Rotten Tomatoes, based on 55 reviews with an years, as the careers of the two boys go through average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical changes so amazing that, if this were fiction, we consensus states, "One of the most critically would say it was unbelievable. The filmmakers (Steve acclaimed documentaries of all time, Hoop Dreams is James, Frederick Marx and Peter Gilbert) shot miles a rich, complex, heartbreaking, and ultimately deeply of film, 250 hours in all, and that means they were rewarding film that uses high school hoops as a there for several of the dramatic turning-points in the jumping-off point to explore issues of race, class, and lives of the two young men. For both, there are education in modern America."[10] reversals of fortune–life seems bleak, and then is The film was ranked #1 on the International redeemed by hope and sometimes even triumph. I was Documentary Association's Top 25 caught up in their destinies as I rarely am in a fiction Documentaries list, based on polling of members in thriller, because real life can be a cliff-hanger, too. 2007.[11] Many filmgoers are reluctant to see When the film, along with the equally documentaries, for reasons I've never understood; the acclaimed Crumb a year later, was not nominated in good ones are frequently more absorbing and the Best Documentary category of the Academy entertaining than fiction. "Hoop Dreams," however, is Awards, public outcry led to a revised nomination not only a documentary. It is also poetry and prose, process in the category, led by Barbara muckraking and expose, journalism and polemic. It is Kopple.[5] According to an angry Ebert, reliable one of the great moviegoing experiences of my sources said members of the Academy's documentary lifetime. nomination committee had a system in which one would wave a flashlight on screen when they gave up on the film. When a majority of the lights flashed, the film was turned off. Hoop Dreams did not even make it to 20 minutes.[12] Siskel, while also objecting to Hoop Dreamsbeing passed by for the nomination, said that it led to more widespread media coverage of the film.[13] The Academy's Executive Director, Bruce Davis, took the unprecedented step of asking accounting firm Price Waterhouse to turn over the complete results of the voting, in which members of the committee had rated each of the 63 eligible documentaries on a scale of zero to ten. "What I found," said Davis, "is that a small group of members gave zeros to every single film except the five they wanted to see nominated. And they gave tens to those five, which completely skewed the voting. There was Reception and the Oscar scandal (Wikipedia) one film that received more scores of ten than any The film was universally acclaimed by other, but it was not nominated. It also got zeros from critics. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film those few voters, and that was enough to push it to "Two Thumbs Up" on their show, with both critics sixth place."[14] naming Hoop Dreams the best film of 1994.[7] Ebert in his initial television review proclaimed "This is one We don’t have space to include it here, but we of the best films about American life that I recommend Jason Guerrasio’s terrific “An oral have ever seen", and later called it the best film of the history of Hoop Dreams, 20 years after its decade [7] and "one of the great moviegoing premiere” (Dissolve) experiences of my lifetime." [8] In 2004, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies

James—HOOP DREAMS—9

JUST TWO MORE IN THE FALL 2019 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS (SERIES 39)

Nov 26 Alfonso Cuarón Roma 2018 Dec 3 Baz Luhrmann Moulin Rouge 2001

BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS SPRING 2020, SERIES 40

Jan 28 Chaplin City Lights 1931 Feb 4 Lloyd Bacon 42nd Street 1933 Feb 11 Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943 Feb 18 Billy Wilder Sunset Boulevard 1950 Feb 25 Henri-Georges Clouzot Wages of Fear 1953 Mar 3 Lucino Visconti, The Leopard 1963 Mar 10 Maskaki Kobayashi Kwaidan 1965 Mar 24 John Schlesinger Midnight Cowboy 1969 Mar 31 Alan Pakula Klute 1971 Apr 7 Robert Altman McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971 Apr 14 Martin Scorsese King of Comedy 1983 Apr 21 Pedro Almodóvar All About My Mother 1999 Apr 28 Wim Wenders Land of Plenty 2004 May 5 Wes Anderson, Isle of Dogs 2018

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