| Hoop Dreams | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Steve James |
| Produced by | Steve James Peter Gilbert Frederick Marx |
| Written by | Steve James Frederick Marx |
| Starring | William Gates Arthur Agee |
| Music by | Ben Sidran |
| Cinematography | Peter Gilbert |
| Editing by | Steve James Frederick Marx William Haugse |
| Studio | Kartemquin Films |
| Distributed by | Fine Line Features |
| Release date(s) | October 14, 1994 |
| Running time | 170 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $700,000 |
| Box office | $11,830,611 |
Hoop Dreams is a 1994 documentary film directed by Steve James, with Kartemquin Films. It follows the story of two African-American high school students in Chicago and their dream of becoming professional basketball players.
Originally intended to be a 30-minute short produced for the Public Broadcasting Service, it eventually led to five years of filming and 250 hours of footage. It premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary. Despite its length (171 minutes) and unlikely commercial genre, it received high critical and popular acclaim. It was on more critics' top ten lists than any other film that year, including Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, and Forrest Gump.
It ended its run in the box office with $11,830,611 worldwide.
Contents |
The film follows William Gates and Arthur Agee, two African-American teenagers who are recruited by a scout from St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominantly white high school with an outstanding basketball program, whose alumni include NBA great Isiah Thomas. Taking 90-minute commutes to school, enduring long and difficult workouts and practices, and acclimating to a foreign social environment, Gates and Agee struggle to improve their athletic skills in a job market with heavy competition. Along the way, their families celebrate their successes and support each other during times of economic hardship caused from the school change.
The film raises a number of issues concerning race, class, economic division, education and values in contemporary America. It also offers one of the most intimate views of inner-city life to be captured on film. Yet it is also the human story of two young men, their two families and their community, and the joys and struggles they live from their recruitment in 1987 through their college freshman year (1991-92).
Seed money for Hoop Dreams came from several sources, including the National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, and PBS member station KTCA in Minnesota. Kartemquin Films of Chicago is credited as a production organization along with KTCA. The film was given as an example to defend the level of U.S. government funding of PBS, which was reduced in the following years.
The film was originally intended by filmmakers Peter Gilbert, Steve James, and Frederick Marx to be a 30-minute short, shot in three weeks, to be aired on PBS, focusing on one playground court and its young players.[1] The filmmakers followed the children back to their homes, and after nearly eight years, and with over 250 hours of raw footage, a 30-minute PBS special turned into a three-hour feature film on the lives of Gates and Agee, while grossing $7.8 million.
At one point, the electricity was turned off in the Agee home; the filmmakers continued filming and (off-camera) provided money for the lights to be turned back on.[1]
According to Roger Ebert, reliable sources said members of the Academy's documentary 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 didn’t even make it to 20 minutes.[2] When the film, as well as equally acclaimed Crumb were not nominated in the Best Documentary category of the Academy Awards, public outcry led to a revised nomination process in the category, led by Barbara Kopple.[1]
The film was acclaimed by critics. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "Two Thumbs Up" on their show and both Siskel and Ebert named Hoop Dreams the best film of 1994.[3] Ebert in his initial television review proclaimed "This is one of the best films about American life that I have ever seen", and later called it the best film of the decade.[3] In 2004, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.[4] The film currently has a 98% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, with only one negative review (against 43 positive). It has a 92% rating from the RT community.
The film is ranked #1 on the International Documentary Association's Top 25 Documentaries list, which was compiled from a poll taken to commemorate the organization's 25th anniversary. Members selected from a list of over 700 films. [5]
In 2007, the International Documentary Association named Hoop Dreams as its selection for the all-time greatest documentary.[1]
Neither Agee nor Gates were drafted into the NBA. Nonetheless, both young men were able to turn the film's success and their subsequent fame into a better life for themselves and their families. They took the money generated from the film and bought better housing. Additionally Arthur Agee, the younger of the two basketball players, launched a foundation promoting higher education for inner city youth and began the "Hoop Dreams" sportswear line in 2006. Gates has also risen above his earlier circumstances while giving back to the community as senior pastor at Living Faith Community Center in Cabrini–Green, where he works at the Kids' Club.[6]
The families of both men have experienced losses since the release of the film. On Thanksgiving morning 1994, Agee's older half-brother, DeAntonio, was gunned down at Cabrini–Green. In September 2001, Gates' older brother, Curtis, 36, was shot to death in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood. Arthur's father, Bo Agee, was murdered in 2004.
The actual story behind Hoop Dreams was not over even after the film was released. Cable TV channel TNT planned to make a remake of the story as a fictional movie for television. A book based on transcripts from all of the interviews conducted was also released in the spring of 1996. After the release of the film, William went on to play basketball at Marquette University, while Arthur went to play at Arkansas State. However, the National Collegiate Association (NCAA) ruled in 1994 that neither the boys nor their families may receive any money from the sale of the film because they would lose their amateur status and scholarships. [7]
A series of events to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Hoop Dreams took place in Chicago in October and November 2009.[8]
|
|||||||||||