Hoop Dreams – a dream come true

Mention the 1994 documentary movie “Hoop Dreams” to someone and nine times out of ten you’ll be met with a blank stare. The tenth person, meanwhile, will either say s/he absolutely loved it – or the opposite. It’s just that sort of movie.

But make no mistake, this is a masterful film in the art of making a documentary that covers a specific sport – that will be of huge interest to intelligent viewers with a social conscience and or an interest in social, cultural and even anthropological issues – but who have zero interest in the particular sport covered.

And that sport is basketball. This is another love it or hate it type of thing. On the one hand, basketball is hugely popular in the U.S. and reasonably popular in many other countries. But for those of us who don’t particularly like the game – it’s end to end boring stuff where one team beats the other by something like 150 point s to 148 after endless quarters.

In fact, for many of us, the only way to really enjoy a game is to have a punt on basketball and shout on that particular team. And the best way to do that if watching on TV is with an exchange like Betfair.

This is because you can continually back and lay teams during the game with relatively small stakes just to keep up your interest, because basketball games do tend to swing one way then the next. And as Betfair is the largest such exchange – there’s always a market for the bigger televised games.

But if even Betfair can’t make it fun – then forget about the real thing but don’t let your lack of enthusiasm for basketball put you off Hoop Dreams. In this movie, basketball is simply the “hook”. It’s a traditional way out of poverty, deprivation and sheer desperation for many young blacks in America, in a similar way to boxing, America football and other sports are.

The movie follows the fortunes of Arthur Agee and William Gates (and remember this is a documentary film). William and Arthur are two African-American teenagers who are very capable basketball players but who come from a very poor and predominantly African-American neighbourhood of Chicago. They’re recruited by a high school scout due to their abilities – but that school is a mainly white school called St. Joseph High School – based in Westchester, Illinois. The school has an excellent reputation for its basketball programme, and included amongst its former pupils one Isiah Thomas, former star of the NBA for the Detroit Piston team.

The boys have to commute to the school 90 minutes each way every day whilst working hard physically at developing their game and their fitness – and simultaneously having to cope with a completely new environment and set of friends and peers.
The movie follows their fortunes as they work hard to progress, with their respective families following them every step of the way.

Hoop Dreams is a true modern day classic docu-movie. It may well be the best ever such film. It couldn’t have been made at any other time in any other country and deals in the way that only a documentary can with the contemporary social issues facing the USA’s poorest neighbourhoods. Racial issues, socio-economic class, the education system and the over-reliance on sport as a way out of poverty are all examined in a subtle way through the lives and experiences of the boys.

All told, the movie covers five years of the boys’ lives as they mature into young men and face more highs and lows than most of us do in a lifetime.

This is a movie you really “ought” to see if you haven’t yet for any reason – whether or not you’re a lover of basketball!