Worth Revisiting - Hoop Dreams (1994)

There are numerous opinions on what exactly turns a boy into a man. Whatever viewpoint one takes – be it a first love, first fight, move away from home – there is a common thread: the loss of innocence. Once it is lost it is fleeting and impossible to reclaim no matter how hard we may try.

When I first saw Hoop Dreams I was still relatively young and impressionable. Unsurprisingly, I approached it at face value: as a documentary about two young ball players, Arthur Agee and William Gates, on their way to high school, college and, hopefully, the NBA. What unfolded affected me to my core; the story of these wide eyed kids is unnerving, heartbreaking, and will continue to resonate with you long after the final frame.

Behind the film lies a deeper narrative, beyond basketball lore; at its core, Hoop Dreams is about what it means to be born in the lower classes of urban America.

While it’s not hard to see the appeal of NBA glory to young boys such as Agee and Gates, it’s alarming from the onset of the movie just how single-tracked their minds are. To a degree it’s endearing how blindly they hang on to their dream of following in Magic and Zeke’s footsteps, but the tragic thing is that, as the documentary progresses, we begin to see that they haven’t really considered other possibilities for their lives, it’s all or nothing. The story of Gates’s brother, Curtis, provides a cautionary tale: touted as one of the most promising high school prospects since Jordan, Curtis never adapted to the demands of college ball and ended up dropping out, running out the clock in a go-nowhere security job.

The boys are both accepted into the highly regarded St. Joseph’s High School on scholarship, whose varsity team once featured Detroit Pistons All-Star Isaiah Thomas. Both kids enthusiastically make the necessary sacrifices, every day waking up before dawn to make the long commute to the suburban school from the inner-city areas they grew up in. While it is a dream come true for both, the hard realities of life don’t take long to manifest.

Agee, for example, is forced to leave the school when his family can’t afford the tuition hikes his scholarship does not cover. His mother very acutely questions whether this would have become a problem if Arthur had been playing basketball at the level the school expected of him.

Gates fares better than Agee in the beginning. He excels on the school’s ball team, showing the potential to be the school’s next big star until a series of knee injuries robs him of court time and, more importantly, the youthful confidence which gave him such a formidable swagger come game time.

Life doesn’t get any easier for either: Agee’s family begins to fall apart and his relationship with his father becomes strained and emotionally taxing; Gates, besides struggling in class and dealing with the mental battle of coming back from injury, welcomes a daughter which he keeps secret from his coach for quite some time after her birth.

The toll their dreams of NBA-life have on them is increasingly palpable and becomes physically evident in both of their faces. It’s not long before the audience has to question whether or not basketball is even enjoyable anymore, or if they are clinging to the game out of sheer reflex.

Despite being thoroughly engrossing, the film is difficult to watch because of the uncompromising realities inherent in non-scripted life. We’ve been conditioned to expect certain things from the silver screen – even documentaries – but there are no easy answers offered here. I remember showing this movie to a friend a few years back who had to turn it off, saying it was far too depressing.

Hoop Dreams is cogent because it is so easy to see ourselves in Arthur and William; almost everybody’s life contains some degree of compromise because, as one ages, it becomes increasingly difficult to subscribe to the unflinching belief that everything will work out in the end. Be that as it may, there is still joy present here, and it’s definitely something I came away with. As the big picture becomes less like a Hollywood film and more like real life, the smaller things increase in importance: the bonds we share with the people who matter, and, no matter what the end result, the knowledge that, hey, we tried.