PASSING GLORY A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
In 1994, director Steve James's mesmerizing documentary HOOP DREAMS was on the top of my best of the year list as well as on the top of both Siskel's and Ebert's. This year, James comes back to the basketball courts with a film, the nicely named PASSING GLORY, based on a real story of a black basketball team. Set in the not yet integrated South of 1965 (when I graduated from high school in Texas), the movie tells the poignant story of a championship black basketball team with a singular vision, to play the winner of the city's white league.
Set in heavily Catholic New Orleans, the teams in the film are all from Catholic high schools. Rip Torn plays Father Grant, the sometimes-rebellious headmaster of a black high school. Father Grant tried before to integrate the league but was shot down by the Archbishop. His teams regularly win the championship of the "Negro" league but can never play any white teams.
Unlike many other films examining that era's racial strife, GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI for example, PASSING GLORY keeps the focus on the blacks and their struggle, rather giving most of the screen time to white racists. The prejudice of most of the whites in the area is compellingly presented, but they are not allowed to dominate the picture. Frequently the hero in these films is some white anti-segregation activist, usually from the North. This time, the protagonist does come from the North, but he is a black priest named Father Verrett. ("Why would a brother want to become a father?" one of the perplexed black basketball players asks rhetorically.)
Steve James, who was at our screening when PASSING GLORY closed San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival, said that when he read the script, he immediately saw André Braugher as the perfect choice to play Father Verrett. He was amazed and gratified to find that the studio, Turner Pictures, was already planning on casting him in the role. Braugher so naturally fits the part of the real-life Father Verrett, that he gives the picture an almost documentary realism. He brings strength, idealism and humanity to the part. A man who, for a time, becomes persona non grata to white and black parents alike for his willingness to shake up the system, Father Verrett is the epitome of a role model, and Braugher acts like he was born to play the part.
Hired as a history teacher, Father Verrett will not let the athletes in his classes be given the special treatment that they've been used to. "I teach history," he informs the headmaster when asked to take over the suddenly vacant position of basketball coach. "I believe sports are overemphasized." Moreover, coming from the North, he can't understand why star black athletes don't go to the best white colleges, as they should. "Down here, 'should' and 'is' is a long ways apart," the dad (Bill Nunn) of the team's star informs him.
The film includes many tangible examples of the racism then present. The blacks have to go to a separate "coloreds only" line at fast food outlets, and ordering a meal in the wrong place can and does get you thrown in jail. (I can remember the "coloreds only" signs from my childhood, although, where I grew up, they were taken away a half decade earlier than in this movie.) The simple but powerful script by Harold Sylvester -- James said that John Sayles helped with one of the rewrites -- is filled with lines of honest beauty. "Son, if you sit in the back of the bus too long, you'll think you belong there," Father Verrett lectures one of his reluctant players.
Although most of the action in the movie happens off the courts, the basketball sequences are masterfully and excitingly presented. In the inevitable big game that ends the movie, there is an extremely controversial edit. I asked the editor, Paul Seydor (TIN CUP), about the edit, and he immediately knew the cut I meant. With a big grin, he said that when he read the script he thought this works great in print but cinematically it'll never work. An editor with tremendous pride in his craft, he confessed that this was one time he was glad to be proved wrong. The director thought the cut was essential to his vision, and Paul said the director was right. The director's whole movie is "right." I can't wait for Steve James's next picture.
PASSING GLORY runs a fast 1:30. It is not rated but would perhaps be PG-13 for some profanity and mature themes and would be excellent for kids around 12 and up.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
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