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.