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Hoop Dreams

July 18, 2023

Hoop Dreams is a 1994 American documentary film directed by Steve James, and produced by Frederick Marx, James, and Peter Gilbert, with Kartemquin Films. It follows the story of two African-American high school students, William Gates and Arthur Agee, in Chicago and their dream of becoming professional basketball players.

Hoop Dreams
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySteve James
Written by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyPeter Gilbert
Edited by
  • Frederick Marx
  • Steve James
  • William Haugse
Music byBen Sidran
Production
company
Distributed byFine Line Features
Release date
  • October 14, 1994 (1994-10-14) (United States)
Running time
171 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$700,000[2]
Box office$11.8 million

Hoop Dreams was originally intended to be a 30-minute short film produced for PBS; the filming of the special led to five years of filming and 250 hours of footage. Hoop Dreams premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary. It won numerous other awards in the 1994 season, although it was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Despite its length (171 minutes) and unlikely commercial genre, it received high critical and popular acclaim, and grossed over $11 million worldwide.

Hoop Dreams was ranked #1 on the Current TV special 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die. In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Synopsis

In 1987, William Gates and Arthur Agee, two African-American teenagers, are recruited by a scout from St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominantly white high school with an outstanding basketball program. The team is led by Gene Pingatore, who coached National Basketball Association (NBA) Hall of Fame player Isiah Thomas when Thomas played at St. Joseph. Agee and Gates are both from poor African-American neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois: Gates lives in the Cabrini–Green projects, while Agee and his family reside in West Garfield Park. Both boys face 90-minute commutes to the school each way.

In their freshman year, Gates starts on the varsity team at St. Joseph and helps them win the sectional title, earning a mention from The Sportswriters on TV as possibly "the next Isiah Thomas", although St. Joseph is eliminated in the super-sectionals in a narrow loss to St. Francis de Sales High School. Meanwhile, Agee plays on the freshman team and struggles both on the court and in the classroom.

At the end of the year, Agee is kicked out of St. Joseph as his family is unable to pay his tuition; Gates's fees are covered by his sponsor, the president of Encyclopedia Britannica, who also helps him find a white collar summer job. Agee's rejection from St. Joseph damages his self-confidence, and he plays poorly for his public-school team at John Marshall High School, coached by Luther Bedford. In his sophomore year, Gates again starts on the varsity team. St. Joseph is eliminated by Gordon Tech in the sectional finals, and Gates struggles with the weight of expectations from his brother, Curtis, who was a talented player in his own right but never made it to the pros and has now transferred his unfulfilled aspirations onto his younger brother.

In their junior year, both boys face challenges. Gates suffers a knee injury that requires surgery and months of rehabilitation, while Arthur's mother, Sheila, loses her job and the family goes on welfare as Arthur's father, Bo, has walked out and become addicted to drugs. Bo later gives up drugs and returns to the family, and Sheila earns a nursing degree. During this time, the Agee household takes in Arthur's close friend, Shannon, who is escaping an abusive household.

On the court, Agee and John Marshall improve on their poor sophomore year record, including winning an upset victory over Dunbar Vocational High School. St. Joseph makes it to the sectional finals, where they once again face Gordon Tech. Gates plays timidly because of his injury. At the end of the fourth quarter, with seconds on the clock and trailing by one, St. Joseph wins two free throws. Gates—normally a clutch free throw shooter—steps up to take them, but he misses both and St. Joseph are knocked out of the play-offs.

Despite his injury, Gates is courted by many college basketball programs, especially Marquette University, and attends the Nike All-America summer camp at Princeton before his senior year (where Dick Vitale and Spike Lee make appearances). After returning from camp, Gates signs a letter of intent with Marquette, though he struggles to meet the minimum ACT test score to be eligible for an athletic scholarship. Meanwhile, Arthur, still playing in the public-school league, attracts far less attention from college recruiters, although a couple of junior colleges show interest in him.

In Gates's senior year, St. Joseph's season concludes early in a second-round play-off loss against Nazareth Academy, ending his hopes of "going downstate" for the state championship. Gates had been benched by Coach Pingatore at the start of the game for arriving late. John Marshall goes on an unlikely run through the city championship, largely thanks to Agee's excellent play. The team makes it to the state championship in Champaign, finishing third in the state after a semi-final loss to Manual High School.

At the end of the film, Gates has entered Marquette, and Agee is attending Mineral Area College in Missouri and still hoping to play for the NBA.

Production

Development

The initial idea for "a film about the culture of basketball in the black community" came to director Steve James, an amateur basketball player himself, in 1985 while watching basketball at the recreation center at Southern Illinois University. James reached out to his friend Frederick Marx, then in China teaching English, who liked the idea. The two agreed that both of them would produce the film, James would direct, and Marx would edit. James thought of the title Hoop Dreams very early in the development process; they also briefly considered calling it Hoopin'.[3]

In 1987, James received a $2,000 fellowship grant from the Illinois Arts Council to work on the film. James and Marx then pitched their idea to Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films. Initially, they planned to focus on a single playground for a 30-minute documentary they hoped would be aired on PBS. Quinn liked the idea and agreed to take the project on. Unable to raise any money besides James's grant, the pair decided to shoot on video instead of film (an unusual choice for the time), and they hired Peter Gilbert to do cinematography as he had his own gear.[3]

Filming

The filmmakers contacted coach Gene Pingatore of St. Joseph High School as he had coached Chicago native Isiah Thomas in high school. Pingatore introduced them to "Big Earl" Smith, a talent scout who was familiar with the inner-city playgrounds that the filmmakers wanted to shoot on. Smith brought them to several playgrounds, and at one of them he spotted a young Arthur Agee as a promising player. Agee agreed to be part of the film, and Smith helped arrange for him to attend Coach Pingatore's summer camp, where Thomas would be making an appearance.[3]

When the filmmakers interviewed Pingatore about Agee, he said it was too early to tell about him, but mentioned that another kid, William Gates, could be "the next Isiah Thomas". James, Marx, and Gilbert decided to include Gates in their film as well, and began to consider expanding the scope of their original vision.[3]

For two years, the three filmmakers continued to shoot intermittently and send demos out without raising any additional money. KTCA, a public television channel in Minnesota, heard about the film, and pledged $60,000, plus another $70,000 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to fund an hour-long film. While continuing to search for more funds, the filmmakers considered other ideas, including a segment on a female high school player and a comedy sketch starring Tim Meadows.[3]

With limited financial backing, James, Marx, and Gilbert could only manage 22 days of filming for the entire first two years, and each of the filmmakers worked on other projects at times during the filming of Hoop Dreams. By continuing to include Agee even after he was dropped from St. Joseph, they won the trust of him and his family, and the filmmakers began to delve deeper into the personal lives of the boys. 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.[3]

The filmmakers shot another 40 days during the boys' junior year. James was able to leverage a relationship with the vice president of the MacArthur Foundation into a $250,000 grant for the film, which allowed them to shoot 100 days from the end of junior year to the end of the film.[3] By the end of filming, they had captured 250 hours of footage.[4]

Post-production

Hoop Dreams spent three years in editing, during which it was cut down from a first assemblage of more than 10 hours, to a six-hour version, to a rough cut that they showed the boys, their families, and coach Pingatore. Per their original agreement, Marx handled the editing, but after two years he asked James and William Haugse to step in to help him. James and Haugse spent another year and a half editing. By the spring of 1993, they had a cut ready and began to consider releasing it in theaters.[3]

Release

Hoop Dreams premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary.[5] It ran on the closing night of the 1994 New York Film Festival, the first time a documentary film had ever closed the festival.[4] The filmmakers had previously had to turn down an appearance at the 1993 edition of the festival as the film was not yet ready.[3] Its appearance at Sundance helped it secure a distribution deal with Fine Line Features,[3] and the film opened nationwide on October 21, 1994.[4] It grossed $7.8 million domestically and $4 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $11.8 million.[6]

Reception

The film was widely acclaimed by critics. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "Two Very Enthusiastic Thumbs Up" on their show, with both critics naming Hoop Dreams the best film of 1994.[7] 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[7] and "one of the great moviegoing experiences of my lifetime."[8] In 2004, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.[9] The film has a 98% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes, based on 62 reviews with an average rating of 8.8/10. The website's critical consensus states, "One of the most critically acclaimed documentaries of all time, Hoop Dreams is a rich, complex, heartbreaking, and ultimately deeply rewarding film that uses high school hoops as a jumping-off point to explore issues of race, class, and education in modern America."[10] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 98 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[11]

The film was ranked #1 on the International Documentary Association's Top 25 Documentaries list, based on polling of members in 2007.[12] It was also ranked #1 on the Current TV special 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die.[13] In 2005, Hoop Dreams was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation.[14]

Year-end lists

Awards

Academy Awards controversy

Ira Deutchman, who helped distribute the film with Fine Line, advocated for the film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.[3] When the film, along with the equally acclaimed Crumb a year later, was not nominated in either the Best Picture or the Best Documentary categories, public outcry led to a revised nomination process in the category, led by Oscar-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple.[46] According to an angry 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 did not even make it to 20 minutes.[47] Siskel, while also objecting to Hoop Dreams being passed by for the nomination, said that it led to more widespread media coverage of the film.[48]

In response to the controversy, Bruce Davis, the Academy's executive director, asked accounting firm Price Waterhouse to turn over the voting results, in which each voter had given a rating from zero to ten to each of the eligible documentaries. According to Davis, "a small group of members gave zeros to every single film except the five they wanted to see nominated. And they gave tens to those five, which completely skewed the voting... There was one film that received more scores of ten than any other, but it was not nominated. It also got zeros from those few voters, and that was enough to push it to sixth place."[49]

Legacy

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. Gates played three seasons of college basketball at Marquette University before quitting the program, but he graduated from the university in 1999 with a communications degree. Agee went on to play at Arkansas State and later in the United States Basketball League and the International Basketball Association.[50] The producers gave both Gates and Agee almost $200,000 in royalties from the film, although they were barred from accepting the money until after college due to National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.[4] In 2001, Gates practiced with Michael Jordan ahead of a try-out for the Washington Wizards, but he fractured his foot and decided to retire from basketball permanently.[51]

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 became the senior pastor at Living Faith Community Center in Cabrini–Green, where he worked at the Kids' Club.[52] The families of both men have experienced losses since the release of the film. Agee's half-brother DeAntonio was killed on Thanksgiving morning 1994, and Gates's older brother, Curtis, was shot to death in Chicago Lawn in September 2001. Agee's father, Bo, was murdered in 2004.[52]

Unofficial sequel

An unofficial sequel not made by the original filmmakers, Hoop Reality (2007), explores what happened during the decade after Hoop Dreams. Patrick Beverley from Chicago's hardscrabble West Side appears as a struggling potential star also at John Marshall Metropolitan High School and is mentored by Agee and basketball coach Lamont Bryant. Beverley entered the 2009 NBA draft, and was selected with the 42nd overall pick by the Los Angeles Lakers.[53]

20th anniversary restoration

A digital restoration of the film, created by a partnership of the Sundance Institute, UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Academy Film Archive and Kartemquin Films, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival for the film's 20th anniversary. The restoration used the original analog video masters to create a high-definition digital master that was higher-quality than the cropped and transferred version that was released commercially.[54] The Criterion Collection released the restored Hoop Dreams Blu-ray on March 31, 2015.[55]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Hoop Dreams (12)". British Board of Film Classification. March 28, 1995. from the original on May 6, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2014.
  2. ^ "Hoop Dreams". The Numbers. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Guerrasio, Jason (January 15, 2014). . The Dissolve. Archived from the original on April 7, 2022. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d James, Caryn (October 7, 1994). "Hoop Dreams: Dreaming the Dreams, Realizing the Realities". The New York Times. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  5. ^ a b "1994 Sundance Film Festival". Sundance Film Festival. from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  6. ^ "Hoop Dreams". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
  7. ^ a b Ebert, Roger. . Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on September 8, 2006. Retrieved January 2, 2014.
  8. ^ Ebert, Roger (October 21, 1994). "Hoop Dreams". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved June 16, 2015.
  9. ^ "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". The New York Times. April 29, 2003. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
  10. ^ "Hoop Dreams (1994)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  11. ^ "Hoop Dreams". Metacritic.
  12. ^ White, Thomas (December 2007). "IDA's Top 25 Documentaries". Documentary.org. Retrieved January 9, 2012.
  13. ^ Hale, Mike (August 29, 2011). "The One Must-See Documentary?". The New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  14. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved October 30, 2020.
  15. ^ Siskel, Gene (December 25, 1994). "The Year's Best Movies". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  16. ^ Ebert, Roger (December 31, 1994). "The Best 10 Movies of 1994". Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  17. ^ a b Turan, Kenneth (December 25, 1994). "1994: YEAR IN REVIEW : No Weddings, No Lions, No Gumps". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  18. ^ Hunter, Stephen (December 25, 1994). "Films worthy of the title 'best' in short supply MOVIES". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  19. ^ Bates, Mack (January 19, 1995). "Originality of 'Hoop Dreams' makes it the movie of the year". The Milwaukee Journal. p. 3.
  20. ^ Maslin, Janet (December 27, 1994). "Critic's Notebook; The Good, Bad and In-Between In a Year of Surprises on Film". The New York Times. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  21. ^ Persall, Steve (December 30, 1994). "'Fiction': The art of filmmaking". St. Petersburg Times (City ed.). p. 8.
  22. ^ Travers, Peter (December 29, 1994). "The Best and Worst Movies of 1994". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  23. ^ Armstrong, Douglas (January 1, 1995). "End-of-year slump is not a happy ending". The Milwaukee Journal. p. 2.
  24. ^ Denerstein, Robert (January 1, 1995). "Perhaps It Was Best to Simply Fade to Black". Rocky Mountain News (Final ed.). p. 61A.
  25. ^ Anthony, Todd (January 5, 1995). "Hits & Disses". Miami New Times.
  26. ^ P. Means, Sean (January 1, 1995). "'Pulp and Circumstance' After the Rise of Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood Would Never Be the Same". The Salt Lake Tribune (Final ed.). p. E1.
  27. ^ Howe, Desson (December 30, 1994), "The Envelope Please: Reel Winners and Losers of 1994", The Washington Post, retrieved July 19, 2020
  28. ^ Strauss, Bob (December 30, 1994). "At the Movies: Quantity Over Quality". Los Angeles Daily News (Valley ed.). p. L6.
  29. ^ Mills, Michael (December 30, 1994). "It's a Fact: 'Pulp Fiction' Year's Best". The Palm Beach Post (Final ed.). p. 7.
  30. ^ Lovell, Glenn (December 25, 1994). "The Past Picture Show the Good, the Bad and the Ugly -- a Year Worth's of Movie Memories". San Jose Mercury News (Morning Final ed.). p. 3.
  31. ^ Dudek, Duane (December 30, 1994). "1994 was a year of slim pickings". Milwaukee Sentinel. p. 3.
  32. ^ a b "The Year's Best". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. December 25, 1994. p. K/1.
  33. ^ Clark, Mike (December 28, 1994). "Scoring with true life, 'True Lies' and 'Fiction.'". USA Today (Final ed.). p. 5D.
  34. ^ Arnold, William (December 30, 1994). "'94 Movies: Best and Worst". Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Final ed.). p. 20.
  35. ^ Simon, Jeff (January 1, 1995). "Movies: Once More, with Feeling". The Buffalo News. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  36. ^ Pickle, Betsy (December 30, 1994). "Searching for the Top 10... Whenever They May Be". Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 3.
  37. ^ Movshovitz, Howie (December 25, 1994). "Memorable Movies of '94 Independents, fringes filled out a lean year". The Denver Post (Rockies ed.). p. E-1.
  38. ^ Elliott, David (December 25, 1994). "On the big screen, color it a satisfying time". The San Diego Union-Tribune (1, 2 ed.). p. E=8.
  39. ^ "Past Awards". National Society of Film Critics. December 19, 2009. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  40. ^ . Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Archived from the original on June 29, 2017.
  41. ^ "Awards". New York Film Critics Circle. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  42. ^ "1988-2013 Award Winner Archives". Chicago Film Critics Association. January 2013. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  43. ^ "Awards / History / 1994". Directors Guild of America. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  44. ^ "The 67th Academy Awards". Oscars.org. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 1995. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  45. ^ "Hoop Dreams". Peabody Awards. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  46. ^ Harrington, Rob (April 1, 2009). . Independent Weekly. Archived from the original on April 14, 2009. Retrieved April 3, 2009.
  47. ^ Ebert, Roger (November 5, 2009). . Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on June 24, 2011. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
  48. ^ "The Brady Bunch Movie, Just Cause, Billy Madison, Mr. Payback, 1995". Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews. Retrieved July 28, 2019. Event occurs at 16:22-19:39.
  49. ^ Pond, Steve (2005). The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards. Faber and Faber. p. 74. ISBN 9780571211937.
  50. ^ Davis, Seth (July 12, 2004). "Reality Show Ten years ago Hoop Dreams briefly turned two childhood pals from Chicago into American idols, but a Hollywood ending has proved elusive". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved August 29, 2017.
  51. ^ "Looking Back At Broken 'Dreams'". The Washington Post. July 4, 2004. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  52. ^ a b Dardick, Hal (December 17, 2004). "'Hoop Dreams' father slain". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved January 15, 2022.
  53. ^ Scoop Jackson (July 2, 2009). "Documentary film 'Hoop Reality' gets dream postscript". ESPN. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
  54. ^ "Hoop Dreams". Kartemquin.com. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  55. ^ "Hoop Dreams". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved January 2, 2015.

External links

July 18, 2023
hoop, dreams, 1994, american, documentary, film, directed, steve, james, produced, frederick, marx, james, peter, gilbert, with, kartemquin, films, follows, story, african, american, high, school, students, william, gates, arthur, agee, chicago, their, dream, . Hoop Dreams is a 1994 American documentary film directed by Steve James and produced by Frederick Marx James and Peter Gilbert with Kartemquin Films It follows the story of two African American high school students William Gates and Arthur Agee in Chicago and their dream of becoming professional basketball players Hoop DreamsTheatrical release posterDirected bySteve JamesWritten byFrederick Marx Steve JamesProduced byFrederick Marx Steve James Peter GilbertStarringWilliam Gates Arthur AgeeCinematographyPeter GilbertEdited byFrederick Marx Steve James William HaugseMusic byBen SidranProductioncompanyKartemquin FilmsDistributed byFine Line FeaturesRelease dateOctober 14 1994 1994 10 14 United States Running time171 minutes 1 CountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget 700 000 2 Box office 11 8 millionHoop Dreams was originally intended to be a 30 minute short film produced for PBS the filming of the special led to five years of filming and 250 hours of footage Hoop Dreams premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary It won numerous other awards in the 1994 season although it was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Despite its length 171 minutes and unlikely commercial genre it received high critical and popular acclaim and grossed over 11 million worldwide Hoop Dreams was ranked 1 on the Current TV special 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die In 2005 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally historically or aesthetically significant Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Production 2 1 Development 2 2 Filming 2 3 Post production 3 Release 4 Reception 4 1 Year end lists 4 2 Awards 5 Academy Awards controversy 6 Legacy 6 1 Unofficial sequel 7 20th anniversary restoration 8 See also 9 References 10 External linksSynopsis EditIn 1987 William Gates and Arthur Agee two African American teenagers are recruited by a scout from St Joseph High School in Westchester Illinois a predominantly white high school with an outstanding basketball program The team is led by Gene Pingatore who coached National Basketball Association NBA Hall of Fame player Isiah Thomas when Thomas played at St Joseph Agee and Gates are both from poor African American neighborhoods in Chicago Illinois Gates lives in the Cabrini Green projects while Agee and his family reside in West Garfield Park Both boys face 90 minute commutes to the school each way In their freshman year Gates starts on the varsity team at St Joseph and helps them win the sectional title earning a mention from The Sportswriters on TV as possibly the next Isiah Thomas although St Joseph is eliminated in the super sectionals in a narrow loss to St Francis de Sales High School Meanwhile Agee plays on the freshman team and struggles both on the court and in the classroom At the end of the year Agee is kicked out of St Joseph as his family is unable to pay his tuition Gates s fees are covered by his sponsor the president of Encyclopedia Britannica who also helps him find a white collar summer job Agee s rejection from St Joseph damages his self confidence and he plays poorly for his public school team at John Marshall High School coached by Luther Bedford In his sophomore year Gates again starts on the varsity team St Joseph is eliminated by Gordon Tech in the sectional finals and Gates struggles with the weight of expectations from his brother Curtis who was a talented player in his own right but never made it to the pros and has now transferred his unfulfilled aspirations onto his younger brother In their junior year both boys face challenges Gates suffers a knee injury that requires surgery and months of rehabilitation while Arthur s mother Sheila loses her job and the family goes on welfare as Arthur s father Bo has walked out and become addicted to drugs Bo later gives up drugs and returns to the family and Sheila earns a nursing degree During this time the Agee household takes in Arthur s close friend Shannon who is escaping an abusive household On the court Agee and John Marshall improve on their poor sophomore year record including winning an upset victory over Dunbar Vocational High School St Joseph makes it to the sectional finals where they once again face Gordon Tech Gates plays timidly because of his injury At the end of the fourth quarter with seconds on the clock and trailing by one St Joseph wins two free throws Gates normally a clutch free throw shooter steps up to take them but he misses both and St Joseph are knocked out of the play offs Despite his injury Gates is courted by many college basketball programs especially Marquette University and attends the Nike All America summer camp at Princeton before his senior year where Dick Vitale and Spike Lee make appearances After returning from camp Gates signs a letter of intent with Marquette though he struggles to meet the minimum ACT test score to be eligible for an athletic scholarship Meanwhile Arthur still playing in the public school league attracts far less attention from college recruiters although a couple of junior colleges show interest in him In Gates s senior year St Joseph s season concludes early in a second round play off loss against Nazareth Academy ending his hopes of going downstate for the state championship Gates had been benched by Coach Pingatore at the start of the game for arriving late John Marshall goes on an unlikely run through the city championship largely thanks to Agee s excellent play The team makes it to the state championship in Champaign finishing third in the state after a semi final loss to Manual High School At the end of the film Gates has entered Marquette and Agee is attending Mineral Area College in Missouri and still hoping to play for the NBA Production EditDevelopment Edit The initial idea for a film about the culture of basketball in the black community came to director Steve James an amateur basketball player himself in 1985 while watching basketball at the recreation center at Southern Illinois University James reached out to his friend Frederick Marx then in China teaching English who liked the idea The two agreed that both of them would produce the film James would direct and Marx would edit James thought of the title Hoop Dreams very early in the development process they also briefly considered calling it Hoopin 3 In 1987 James received a 2 000 fellowship grant from the Illinois Arts Council to work on the film James and Marx then pitched their idea to Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films Initially they planned to focus on a single playground for a 30 minute documentary they hoped would be aired on PBS Quinn liked the idea and agreed to take the project on Unable to raise any money besides James s grant the pair decided to shoot on video instead of film an unusual choice for the time and they hired Peter Gilbert to do cinematography as he had his own gear 3 Filming Edit The filmmakers contacted coach Gene Pingatore of St Joseph High School as he had coached Chicago native Isiah Thomas in high school Pingatore introduced them to Big Earl Smith a talent scout who was familiar with the inner city playgrounds that the filmmakers wanted to shoot on Smith brought them to several playgrounds and at one of them he spotted a young Arthur Agee as a promising player Agee agreed to be part of the film and Smith helped arrange for him to attend Coach Pingatore s summer camp where Thomas would be making an appearance 3 When the filmmakers interviewed Pingatore about Agee he said it was too early to tell about him but mentioned that another kid William Gates could be the next Isiah Thomas James Marx and Gilbert decided to include Gates in their film as well and began to consider expanding the scope of their original vision 3 For two years the three filmmakers continued to shoot intermittently and send demos out without raising any additional money KTCA a public television channel in Minnesota heard about the film and pledged 60 000 plus another 70 000 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to fund an hour long film While continuing to search for more funds the filmmakers considered other ideas including a segment on a female high school player and a comedy sketch starring Tim Meadows 3 With limited financial backing James Marx and Gilbert could only manage 22 days of filming for the entire first two years and each of the filmmakers worked on other projects at times during the filming of Hoop Dreams By continuing to include Agee even after he was dropped from St Joseph they won the trust of him and his family and the filmmakers began to delve deeper into the personal lives of the boys 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 3 The filmmakers shot another 40 days during the boys junior year James was able to leverage a relationship with the vice president of the MacArthur Foundation into a 250 000 grant for the film which allowed them to shoot 100 days from the end of junior year to the end of the film 3 By the end of filming they had captured 250 hours of footage 4 Post production Edit Hoop Dreams spent three years in editing during which it was cut down from a first assemblage of more than 10 hours to a six hour version to a rough cut that they showed the boys their families and coach Pingatore Per their original agreement Marx handled the editing but after two years he asked James and William Haugse to step in to help him James and Haugse spent another year and a half editing By the spring of 1993 they had a cut ready and began to consider releasing it in theaters 3 Release EditHoop Dreams premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary 5 It ran on the closing night of the 1994 New York Film Festival the first time a documentary film had ever closed the festival 4 The filmmakers had previously had to turn down an appearance at the 1993 edition of the festival as the film was not yet ready 3 Its appearance at Sundance helped it secure a distribution deal with Fine Line Features 3 and the film opened nationwide on October 21 1994 4 It grossed 7 8 million domestically and 4 million internationally for a worldwide total of 11 8 million 6 Reception EditThe film was widely acclaimed by critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film Two Very Enthusiastic Thumbs Up on their show with both critics naming Hoop Dreams the best film of 1994 7 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 7 and one of the great moviegoing experiences of my lifetime 8 In 2004 The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list 9 The film has a 98 approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes based on 62 reviews with an average rating of 8 8 10 The website s critical consensus states One of the most critically acclaimed documentaries of all time Hoop Dreams is a rich complex heartbreaking and ultimately deeply rewarding film that uses high school hoops as a jumping off point to explore issues of race class and education in modern America 10 Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 98 out of 100 based on 19 critics indicating universal acclaim 11 The film was ranked 1 on the International Documentary Association s Top 25 Documentaries list based on polling of members in 2007 12 It was also ranked 1 on the Current TV special 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die 13 In 2005 Hoop Dreams was included in the annual selection of 25 motion pictures added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress being deemed culturally historically or aesthetically significant and recommended for preservation 14 Year end lists Edit 1st Gene Siskel The Chicago Tribune 15 1st Roger Ebert Chicago Sun Times 16 1st Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times 17 1st Stephen Hunter The Baltimore Sun 18 1st Mack Bates The Milwaukee Journal 19 2nd Janet Maslin The New York Times 20 2nd Steve Persall St Petersburg Times 21 3rd Peter Travers Rolling Stone 22 3rd Douglas Armstrong The Milwaukee Journal 23 3rd Robert Denerstein Rocky Mountain News 24 3rd Todd Anthony Miami New Times 25 3rd Sean P Means The Salt Lake Tribune 26 4th Desson Howe The Washington Post 27 4th Yardena Arar Los Angeles Daily News 28 6th Michael Mills The Palm Beach Post 29 9th Peter Rainer Los Angeles Times 17 10th Glenn Lovell San Jose Mercury News 30 Top 7 not ranked Duane Dudek Milwaukee Sentinel 31 Top 10 listed alphabetically not ranked Eleanor Ringel The Atlanta Journal Constitution 32 Top 10 listed alphabetically not ranked Steve Murray The Atlanta Journal Constitution 32 Top 10 listed alphabetically not ranked Mike Clark USA Today 33 Top 10 listed alphabetically not ranked William Arnold Seattle Post Intelligencer 34 Top 10 listed alphabetically not ranked Jeff Simon The Buffalo News 35 Top 10 not ranked Betsy Pickle Knoxville News Sentinel 36 Top 10 not ranked Howie Movshovitz The Denver Post 37 Honorable mention David Elliott The San Diego Union Tribune 38 Awards Edit 1994 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary 5 1994 National Society of Film Critics Best Nonfiction Film 39 1994 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Non fiction Film 40 1994 New York Film Critics Circle Best Documentary 41 1994 Chicago Film Critics Award Best Picture 42 1994 Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary 43 1994 Academy Award nomination Best Editing 44 1995 Peabody Award 45 Academy Awards controversy EditIra Deutchman who helped distribute the film with Fine Line advocated for the film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards 3 When the film along with the equally acclaimed Crumb a year later was not nominated in either the Best Picture or the Best Documentary categories public outcry led to a revised nomination process in the category led by Oscar winning documentarian Barbara Kopple 46 According to an angry 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 did not even make it to 20 minutes 47 Siskel while also objecting to Hoop Dreams being passed by for the nomination said that it led to more widespread media coverage of the film 48 In response to the controversy Bruce Davis the Academy s executive director asked accounting firm Price Waterhouse to turn over the voting results in which each voter had given a rating from zero to ten to each of the eligible documentaries According to Davis a small group of members gave zeros to every single film except the five they wanted to see nominated And they gave tens to those five which completely skewed the voting There was one film that received more scores of ten than any other but it was not nominated It also got zeros from those few voters and that was enough to push it to sixth place 49 Legacy EditNeither 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 Gates played three seasons of college basketball at Marquette University before quitting the program but he graduated from the university in 1999 with a communications degree Agee went on to play at Arkansas State and later in the United States Basketball League and the International Basketball Association 50 The producers gave both Gates and Agee almost 200 000 in royalties from the film although they were barred from accepting the money until after college due to National Collegiate Athletic Association rules 4 In 2001 Gates practiced with Michael Jordan ahead of a try out for the Washington Wizards but he fractured his foot and decided to retire from basketball permanently 51 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 became the senior pastor at Living Faith Community Center in Cabrini Green where he worked at the Kids Club 52 The families of both men have experienced losses since the release of the film Agee s half brother DeAntonio was killed on Thanksgiving morning 1994 and Gates s older brother Curtis was shot to death in Chicago Lawn in September 2001 Agee s father Bo was murdered in 2004 52 Unofficial sequel Edit An unofficial sequel not made by the original filmmakers Hoop Reality 2007 explores what happened during the decade after Hoop Dreams Patrick Beverley from Chicago s hardscrabble West Side appears as a struggling potential star also at John Marshall Metropolitan High School and is mentored by Agee and basketball coach Lamont Bryant Beverley entered the 2009 NBA draft and was selected with the 42nd overall pick by the Los Angeles Lakers 53 20th anniversary restoration EditA digital restoration of the film created by a partnership of the Sundance Institute UCLA Film and Television Archive the Academy Film Archive and Kartemquin Films premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival for the film s 20th anniversary The restoration used the original analog video masters to create a high definition digital master that was higher quality than the cropped and transferred version that was released commercially 54 The Criterion Collection released the restored Hoop Dreams Blu ray on March 31 2015 55 See also EditList of basketball films List of films shot over three or more years Abacus Small Enough to Jail the 2016 documentary film that earned Steve James his first Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature nominationReferences Edit Hoop Dreams 12 British Board of Film Classification March 28 1995 Archived from the original on May 6 2019 Retrieved November 17 2014 Hoop Dreams The Numbers Retrieved April 28 2023 a b c d e f g h i j k Guerrasio Jason January 15 2014 An oral history of Hoop Dreams 20 years after its premiere The Dissolve Archived from the original on April 7 2022 Retrieved April 6 2022 a b c d James Caryn October 7 1994 Hoop Dreams Dreaming the Dreams Realizing the Realities The New York Times Retrieved January 2 2015 a b 1994 Sundance Film Festival Sundance Film Festival Archived from the original on November 7 2012 Retrieved April 6 2022 Hoop Dreams Box Office Mojo Retrieved April 10 2022 a b Ebert Roger Ebert s 10 Best Lists 1967 present Chicago Sun Times Archived from the original on September 8 2006 Retrieved January 2 2014 Ebert Roger October 21 1994 Hoop Dreams RogerEbert com Ebert Digital LLC Retrieved June 16 2015 The Best 1 000 Movies Ever Made The New York Times April 29 2003 Retrieved May 21 2010 Hoop Dreams 1994 Rotten Tomatoes Fandango Media Retrieved April 10 2018 Hoop Dreams Metacritic White Thomas December 2007 IDA s Top 25 Documentaries Documentary org Retrieved January 9 2012 Hale Mike August 29 2011 The One Must See Documentary The New York Times Retrieved April 4 2022 Complete National Film Registry Listing Library of Congress Retrieved October 30 2020 Siskel Gene December 25 1994 The Year s Best Movies Chicago Tribune Retrieved July 19 2020 Ebert Roger December 31 1994 The Best 10 Movies of 1994 Retrieved April 4 2022 a b Turan Kenneth December 25 1994 1994 YEAR IN REVIEW No Weddings No Lions No Gumps Los Angeles Times Retrieved July 20 2020 Hunter Stephen December 25 1994 Films worthy of the title best in short supply MOVIES The Baltimore Sun Retrieved July 19 2020 Bates Mack January 19 1995 Originality of Hoop Dreams makes it the movie of the year The Milwaukee Journal p 3 Maslin Janet December 27 1994 Critic s Notebook The Good Bad and In Between In a Year of Surprises on Film The New York Times Retrieved July 19 2020 Persall Steve December 30 1994 Fiction The art of filmmaking St Petersburg Times City ed p 8 Travers Peter December 29 1994 The Best and Worst Movies of 1994 Rolling Stone Retrieved July 20 2020 Armstrong Douglas January 1 1995 End of year slump is not a happy ending The Milwaukee Journal p 2 Denerstein Robert January 1 1995 Perhaps It Was Best to Simply Fade to Black Rocky Mountain News Final ed p 61A Anthony Todd January 5 1995 Hits amp Disses Miami New Times P Means Sean January 1 1995 Pulp and Circumstance After the Rise of Quentin Tarantino Hollywood Would Never Be the Same The Salt Lake Tribune Final ed p E1 Howe Desson December 30 1994 The Envelope Please Reel Winners and Losers of 1994 The Washington Post retrieved July 19 2020 Strauss Bob December 30 1994 At the Movies Quantity Over Quality Los Angeles Daily News Valley ed p L6 Mills Michael December 30 1994 It s a Fact Pulp Fiction Year s Best The Palm Beach Post Final ed p 7 Lovell Glenn December 25 1994 The Past Picture Show the Good the Bad and the Ugly a Year Worth s of Movie Memories San Jose Mercury News Morning Final ed p 3 Dudek Duane December 30 1994 1994 was a year of slim pickings Milwaukee Sentinel p 3 a b The Year s Best The Atlanta Journal Constitution December 25 1994 p K 1 Clark Mike December 28 1994 Scoring with true life True Lies and Fiction USA Today Final ed p 5D Arnold William December 30 1994 94 Movies Best and Worst Seattle Post Intelligencer Final ed p 20 Simon Jeff January 1 1995 Movies Once More with Feeling The Buffalo News Retrieved July 19 2020 Pickle Betsy December 30 1994 Searching for the Top 10 Whenever They May Be Knoxville News Sentinel p 3 Movshovitz Howie December 25 1994 Memorable Movies of 94 Independents fringes filled out a lean year The Denver Post Rockies ed p E 1 Elliott David December 25 1994 On the big screen color it a satisfying time The San Diego Union Tribune 1 2 ed p E 8 Past Awards National Society of Film Critics December 19 2009 Retrieved April 6 2022 20th Annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards Los Angeles Film Critics Association Archived from the original on June 29 2017 Awards New York Film Critics Circle Retrieved April 6 2022 1988 2013 Award Winner Archives Chicago Film Critics Association January 2013 Retrieved April 6 2022 Awards History 1994 Directors Guild of America Retrieved April 6 2022 The 67th Academy Awards Oscars org Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 1995 Retrieved October 29 2021 Hoop Dreams Peabody Awards Retrieved April 6 2022 Harrington Rob April 1 2009 Dreams don t cost a thing Independent Weekly Archived from the original on April 14 2009 Retrieved April 3 2009 Ebert Roger November 5 2009 The Great American Documentary Chicago Sun Times Archived from the original on June 24 2011 Retrieved November 29 2010 The Brady Bunch Movie Just Cause Billy Madison Mr Payback 1995 Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews Retrieved July 28 2019 Event occurs at 16 22 19 39 Pond Steve 2005 The Big Show High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards Faber and Faber p 74 ISBN 9780571211937 Davis Seth July 12 2004 Reality Show Ten years ago Hoop Dreams briefly turned two childhood pals from Chicago into American idols but a Hollywood ending has proved elusive Sports Illustrated Retrieved August 29 2017 Looking Back At Broken Dreams The Washington Post July 4 2004 Retrieved April 4 2022 a b Dardick Hal December 17 2004 Hoop Dreams father slain Chicago Tribune Retrieved January 15 2022 Scoop Jackson July 2 2009 Documentary film Hoop Reality gets dream postscript ESPN Retrieved April 22 2015 Hoop Dreams Kartemquin com Retrieved January 2 2015 Hoop Dreams The Criterion Collection Retrieved January 2 2015 External links EditHoop Dreams at IMDb Hoop Dreams at the TCM Movie Database Hoop Dreams at AllMovie Hoop Dreams at the American Film Institute Catalog Hoop Dreams at Box Office Mojo Hoop Dreams at Rotten Tomatoes Hoop Dreams at Metacritic Hoop Dreams at Kartemquin Films Hoop Dreams at Warrior Films Hoop Dreams an essay by Daniel Eagan in America s Film Legacy The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry A amp C Black 2010 ISBN 0826429777 pp 814 815 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Hoop Dreams amp oldid 1162012432, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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