Austinist Interview: Hoop Dreams Director Steve James [Hoop Dreams @ Alamo Drafthouse this Wednesday]

How did you choose Arthur and William to be the main subjects of your film?
Pure serendipity. Just as you see in the film, we discovered Arthur when street scout Big Earl Smith discovered him. We started following that story, which led us out to the St. Joseph’s summer basketball camp. There, coach Pingatore told us about William. So we decided to follow both kids, hoping that at least one of them would turn out to be an interesting story. With no money, two guys was all we could consider following. And of course, Hoop Dreams would not be the film it is if we’d only followed one of them.

The movie works at so many levels, from the battle of individuals fighting for an almost impossible dream to the painfully honest mosaic it paints of some of our most deep-seated sociological issues. Was your intent to just follow these boys and see what the struggle meant to them and their families or did you know you were eventually getting at something much bigger with this film?
If you read some of our early (failed) attempts at funding proposals, you will see that we had some of these themes in mind. But it read more like “capital T” Themes, instead of flesh and blood experience. The act of making Hoop Dreams was one of continual discovery and revelation. We all had played and loved basketball and we were smart guys. But making the film revealed the world of these families and a corner of American life in ways we couldn’t know. It was like living inside a Dickens novel, except that it was all true.

Did the Agee or Gates families receive any compensation for their appearance in the film? Did they ask for compensation?
We told them from the beginning not to do this for money. Documentaries never make money anyway, we said, but if by some stroke of luck the film did, we would share its profits with them. I tell that to all principal subjects because fame and fortune are never good reasons to be in a documentary. You want that, go be on Reality TV. Arthur and William did the film for all the right reasons. And when the film did make money, we sat down with them and their families and worked out equitable compensation. I would venture to say that we were more fair with them in splitting the pie than any documentary film I know of. They became full partners in the film’s profitability.

With regard not only to Hoop Dreams, but also “Stevie” and, really, any intimate documentary film, how do you remove yourself emotionally from the “characters?” Does the filmmaking process do more to embolden your appreciation for the human condition or does it somehow sap you or wear on you? Or both?
That’s a very good question. Because we don’t consider ourselves journalists, we don’t feel compelled to maintain an objective distance from our subjects. They become more than just “characters” in a film. That’s what allows for the trust that yields such intimacy. But on the other hand, there are real contradictions in trying to be friend and filmmaker. When things go wrong in their lives, you really discover just where that line is and it can make you feel like a leech on their lives. Stevie was about that, among other things.

But I would certainly say that doing these films gives me a greater appreciation and understanding of the human condition and all its messy contradictions. These are hard films to do, but what better calling is there in filmmaking?

Do you keep in touch with Agee and Gates?
Yes. William is currently a pastor in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood he grew up in. He and Catherine (his girlfriend from the film) are married with four children and live on the West side of Chicago, not far from me. Arthur kicked around trying to play semi-pro ball for years. For the past six years he’s been trying to launch a Hoop Dreams sportswear line. He has our blessing and hopefully a breakthrough is in the near future.

Many people, myself included, believed “Hoop Dreams” to be the best film of 1994, documentary or otherwise, but come Oscar time you guys were snubbed in the Best Picture and Best Documentary categories. The absence of your film in the best documentary category some blamed on a general consensus that it would be nominated in Best Picture; regardless, the episode revealed the inane process and methodology by which the Academy made their nominations for documentaries. If I am not mistaken, documentarians are now integral to the nomination process, whereas previous to your film’s release they were not. Can you speak to the uproar surrounding your film’s place in the Academy Awards process? Were you hurt by the exclusion from the major categories? Were your spirits buoyed by the public outcry?
It’s pretty simple. If Hoop Dreams had been nominated for Best Documentary, everyone would have yawned and said, “Of course, what did you expect?” That we got snubbed (except in Editing) was the next best thing to getting nominated for Best Picture. The outcry made the film a commercial success. We loved that, but not so much because we wanted to stick it to the Academy. It meant that the film would finally crossover out of the art house ghetto and be seen by a larger audience, including the African-American audience that largely avoids art house films like the plague. Can you blame them?

Was the success of Marshall High School that year something that was anticipated or was it a boon of good fortune?
A gift from the documentary gods. Luther Bedford at Marshall was a highly respected coach in the Chicago area, but the last Marshall team to go down state was something like 30 years earlier. This year, incidentally, Marshall got downstate for the first time since the Hoop Dreams year. They lost in the quarterfinals.

The music used in the film is amazing. What was your involvement in the musical choices of the film? I know Ben Sidran, who has very few film credits was the composer, how did you get involved with him?
Peter Gilbert (producer/cinematographer) really made that happen. He’d known Ben for years and Peter’s a musician himself. With Ben, we decided to go the jazz route because it is a much more timeless music, with obvious deep roots in the black experience. I think it contributes to the film feeling fresh today and not dated.

What do you think of the NBA’s decision to put in place an age requirement for kids entering the league?
Well, its good for the college game. And I think in general, its good for the game and the players because many of those that have tried to make the leap have failed. And getting young players to focus even a little on college as an option is probably a good thing. But a kid like Greg Oden, the “next big thing” in high school right now – people say he could be the starting center for every NBA team this year except the Pistons. I hope he doesn’t hurt himself at Ohio State next year. And there is a bias of sorts against basketball when it comes to professional sports. Nobody is wringing hands over Michelle Wie, the teenage golfer, or the next 15 year-old tennis prodigy. There is definitely a race component to the moral outrage over teenagers jumping to the NBA.

Which organization do you think is stronger right now, the NCAA or the NBA?
I don’t watch much ball except during March Madness and the NBA play-offs. I think both organizations have a pretty firm grasp on the, uh, business plan, as it were. The business of basketball has only grown bigger since we made Hoop Dreams, and it’s reaching down to the high school ranks in a way that dwarfs what we captured in the film.

Do you think colleges profit off of their athletes to the extent that collegiate athletes should be paid, beyond their current scholarships?
It’s a tricky situation, but there’s no doubt that colleges and the NCAA profit enormously from the toil of collegiate athletes. Paying the athletes something beyond the scholarship would be more fair, but that means acknowledging the reality that this is a big business and sharing the profits – something we did on Hoop Dreams, but the NCAA is loathe to do.

I would imagine that despite your other work people still associate you with Hoop Dreams. If you were to always be most-remembered as the director of Hoop Dreams, would you be fine with that?
I got no choice, and its better to be known for something than nothing at all. But you would be surprised at how many people have written me or told me that Stevie was a more powerful and memorable film for them. Hoop Dreams will always be the “people’s choice” but there’s other work that I feel equally proud to have done. The New Americans was a great series we made at Kartemquin with a large group of talented filmmakers. Not many people know about it because it came and went on PBS, but I would also put that up right along Hoop Dreams in terms of quality. And it won the 2005 IDA Award for Best Limited Series, along with other awards.

Not to speak in hyperbole, but I believe the film changed the way Americans receive documentaries. The film brought a new audience to the documentary medium. I believe it changed the wide-held belief that documentaries were for PBS fanatics or people who wanted to see a concert film. It also sparked a discussion of race and class and sport that had been bubbling at the surface for years. What legacy do you think the film leaves?
Well, I like what you said, but a number of films have helped pave the way including Michael Moore’s and Erroll Morris’s work (obviously) and films like Crumb. But Hoop Dreams has also been credited with being an early forerunner for Reality TV, so maybe the legacy isn’t all positive. Personally, one its best legacies is when young filmmakers come up to me to say that the reason they went into film was to become a documentary filmmaker after seeing Hoop Dreams. I like that fact that the film is playing some small role in inspiring the next generation of documentary filmmakers.

One last question, James Madison meets the Salukies in the NCAAs – who do you support?
No comment.

Hoop Dreams (with Director Steve James in attendance)
Wednesday, 6:30pm @ Alamodrafthouse Downtown
Tickets