HOOP DREAMS
A film review by Jeffrey Graebner
Copyright 1995 Jeffrey Graebner
The lives of real people can sometimes be far more interesting than anything that a screenwriter can imagine. Because of this, it is completely possible for a good documentary to be as dramatic and engrossing as any fiction film. HOOP DREAMS is a strong example of what can be accomplished with the documentary form.
HOOP DREAMS follows two Chicago inner-city youth through their high school years. At the beginning of the film, we meet William Gates and Arthur Agee, two fourteen-year-old kids getting ready to begin high school. Both are extremely talented basketball players that are recruited by St. Joseph High School, a small private school that includes NBA-star Isiah Thomas among its alumni. Both Gates and Agee are recruited from inner-city playground basketball courts and are given scholarships to help them attend the expensive private school. The film follows them through their high school graduation, ending as both are leaving for college.
Filmmakers Steve James, Fredrick Marx and Peter Gilbert originally conceived this project as a short subject for PBS (it is partially financed by KTCA-TV out of Minneapolis with additional financial support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting). Over time, it became obvious that they had a much bigger story here. The result is a fascinating 3-hour-and-45-minute examination of the lives of Gates and Agee. Over the course of the film, we truly feel that we come to know these kids and their families. It left me wanting to know more about what happens to these people.
The makers of this film were very fortunate to have chosen Gates and Agee as their subjects. There are some parallels to their lives, but for the most part, they go in widely different directions. The different lives of the two boys allow the filmmakers to show a wide variety of experiences. The film is extremely well edited, smoothly cutting from one boy to the other. Often, the film is deftly edited to compare and contrast their experiences.
As we first meet them, Agee and Gates seem to be starting from the same point. The film makes it completely clear that the St. Joseph administration invited both boys to attend based on their potential on the basketball court. Gates quickly lives up the school's expectations and the school bends over backwards to provide him the financial help needed to continue attending. The St. Joseph coach frequently points out a similarity between Gates and Isiah Thomas, leading him to believe that Gates is another chance for the school to generate a star.
Agee, on the other hand, does *not* initially prove to be a basketball star. Because of this, the school essentially abandons him. Shortly into his sophomore year, he is forced to drop out of St. Joseph when his family can no longer afford tuition. As shown in the film, it looks very much like both boys were "hired" to play for St. Joseph. When Agee's playing didn't live up to the school's lofty expectations, they essentially "fired" him. The rest of the movie follows Agee's experiences at Marshall High School, an inner-city public school. At Marshall, Agee eventually comes into his own as a basketball star.
Basketball plays a key role in this film, but the film isn't really about the sport itself. Instead, the sport represents opportunity for both Gates and Agee. They see it as their ticket to a better life. As the film explores the other people in their life, we also see that some people see the chance to live vicariously through the boys. In particular, Agee's father and Gates' brother both are looking to the boys for a "second chance" to fulfill their own dreams of a basketball career.
Isiah Thomas is frequently mentioned in the film as the ultimate example of someone who escaped from inner-city life to NBA stardom. Both families and the St. Joseph coach frequently express a desire for Agee and/or Gates to become the next Thomas. The film subtlely suggests that both boys might have been better off if they had been pushed to be *themselves* instead of trying to get them to emulate Thomas' success.
For the most part, director Steve James stays in the background allowing his subjects to tell their own stories. Where necessary, James does provide some understated narration, but he also knows when elaboration is not necessary. The narration never overshadows the events being shown or the words of the people being interviewed.
The film also benefits a great deal from the adept camerawork. The filmmakers have a good instinct about what to photograph, resulting in them showing some very key moments in the kids' lives. Of course, persistence is also a big contributor to this success. The filmmakers reportly shot well over 100 hours of footage allowing them to choose from a wide variety of material. The ambition of the project definitely pays off in the finished film.
The fact that the film is showing the lives of real people provides HOOP DREAMS with a very refreshing unpredictability. Real life doesn't have standard formulas like most fiction films. There are numerous surprises in the film thanks to the fact that we are being shown real events as they actually happened. This unpredictability is most evident during the basketball scenes. In most fictional movie sporting events, it is easy to predict whether or not the heroes will win the big game. In this movie, the sporting events are all real with an equal likelihood of winning or losing.
As good as this film is, it isn't perfect. At times, the filmmakers seemed a little too interested in the basketball games. It certainly was necessary to show a lot of footage of the boys' playing, but the filmmakers often feel that the games speak for themselves. It eventually begins to seem repetitive. The later basketball sequences were the only times that I found myself noticing the film's length. The movie really needed to elaborate on what these games *meant* to the people involved. I would have liked to have heard Gates, Agee, and their family *commenting* during some of the game sequences. Instead, we get nothing but James providing dry, purely descriptive commentary on what is happening.
Another problem is probably inherent to the documentary form. The subjects are clearly aware of the presense of the camera and are understandably unwilling to show some of their more unhappy experiences. There are hints of certain key events that clearly didn't happen while the camera was present. In particular, we are given some sketchy details about problems with Agee's father. We are told that he has a drug problem and that he left the family a couple times, but there is a definite feeling that many of the details were kept from the cameras. We learn a lot about these people, but it is hard not to feel that there was a lot going on that we *don't* learn.
The film's origin as a TV project causes a major technical problem when seeing it in a movie theater. Most of the footage was shot on videotape which does not transfer extremely well to 35mm film. The whole film is visibly blurred, making it a bit difficult to watch. The blurring particularly made it difficult to follow many of the basketball sequences. The cathartic effects of seeing this film with a crowd makes it worth seeing in a theater, but this is a very rare case of a film that will *look* considerably better on video.
In the long run, these flaws do not take much away from the power of this film. HOOP DREAMS provides a fascinating look at some pivotal events in some very real lives. This is a very special film that allows the viewer to meet some very special people. It is an absolute must-see film.
-- Jeffrey P. Graebner Columbus, Ohio
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