In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from my local public library.
The Criterion Collection doesn’t include many documentaries, but they do have one of the most successful documentary films of all time, Hoop Dreams, which gave rise to a new category of commercial film embodied in a seemingly endless series of ESPN and Netflix sports documentaries and documentary series. The original is much better than the many imitators that followed, as is typically the case, plus this is a Kartemquin film directed by Steve James so you know it’s going to have something unique to offer.
Hoop Dreams traces the high school basketball careers of two young African Americans in Chicago, Arthur Agee and William Gates. As eighth graders (age 14), both are recruited to play at St. Joseph High School, a predominantly white suburban school whose most famous alumnus may be NBA star Isiah Thomas. It’s a real culture shock, academically as well as socially, and their stories begin to diverge almost immediately: William quickly catches up in the classroom and is a varsity starter, while Arthur experiences more struggles both academically and on the court. He transfers to William Marshall, a public school, but finds St. Joseph won’t release his transcript (meaning he would lose a year of credits) until his tuition balance is paid. Both continue playing basketball, in high school and then college, their separate paths punctuated by injuries, disappointments, and triumphs.
The case of the delinquent tuition provides a good example of how the same event is viewed differently by the different parties involved and demonstrates James’ choice to let each side have their say and let the viewer make up their own mind. The Agee family seems to have misunderstood that Arthur was awarded only a partial scholarship and felt that he was being penalized for not doing as well as expected on the basketball court. The school, which relies on tuition payments to stay in operation, felt the Agee family was trying to take advantage of them by receiving the benefit of a private education without paying their share. Looking in from the outside, I think this episode also demonstrates the over-valuation of sports in American high schools as well as the unreasonable expectations of many young athletes and their families that showing some talent in a sport means a guaranteed path to success in life.
There’s plenty of basketball action in Hoop Dreams and it’s nicely edited to create a coherent story with an obvious end goal, so those watching for the sports angle won’t be disappointed. What’s more interesting about this film is how it takes you inside the lives of the people involved and gives you some sense of what it means to live an existence so precarious that the loss of a job leads to your utilities being cut off, or to attend public schools so bad no one notices you are reading four years below grade level. Members of the Agee and Gates families may have their faults but they are also dignified human beings mostly doing the best they can in difficult circumstances.
The families featured in Hoop Dreams are imperfect, as are most families, but the film doesn’t judge them, instead giving you the chance to see things from their point of view. The institutions featured are also imperfect and receive harsher scrutiny (St. Joseph sued, claiming the film portrayed it in “a harsh and untrue light before the public”), but I think the film is ultimately fair and places more emphasis on misunderstandings than malice. It’s also important to take the film in historical context: the main story takes place 1987 to 1992 and some of the behaviors displayed (like coaches berating their players or unofficial recruiters steering talented young athletes to particular high schools) were more accepted then than they are today. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 289
Technical details: 172 min.; color; screen ratio 1.33:1; English.
Edition reviewed: Blu-ray
Extras: audio commentary with filmmakers Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert; audio commentary with Arthur Agee and William Gates; Life After Hoop Dreams, a 42-minute documentary that catches up with the Agee and Gates families; six clips from Siskel & Ebert; cut scenes; music video for the film’s theme song; two trailers; booklet with essays by author John Edgar Wideman and filmmaker and critic Robert Greene.
Fun Fact: Hoop Dreams grossed over $11 million worldwide, which is remarkable for any documentary, but particularly for a 1994 film that’s over two hours long and centers on the peculiarly American world of high-pressure, big business high school basketball.
Parting Thought: The fact that Hoop Dreams was not even nominated for an Oscar, plus a truly wild story by Roger Ebert about the decision-making process at the time, led to reforms in how documentaries were evaluated by the Academy. The rules have changed several times since then: have they resulted in the nominated and winning documentaries being more reflective of the best the genre has to offer?
