Gilbert Reveals Anxieties, Triumphs Over “Hoop Dreams”
The 1994 film Hoop Dreams is the product of uncompromising persistence and hard work from a very small group of people who made the success of the project possible. Directed by Steve James and Produced/Photographed by Peter Gilbert originally as a 30 minute segment for PBS, the cinema verite docu-drama turned into much more than the filmmakers had hoped for. The concept of the film which involves following two inner-city basketball players who hope to one day play in the N.B.A. was supported by a social documentary organization established in 1966 called Kartemquin, which produces films that follow and examine real people to serve as critical social commentary. Funding for the film came from the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS in the amount of just five thousand dollars. Over 250 hours of footage resulted and the filmmakers scrambled in the editing room to piece together a story for their main characters, William Gates and Arthur Agee.
The result: Hoop Dreams was nominated for an Oscar in the “Best Editing” category beside Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption, and Speed. It stirred controversy from critics who were surprised that the film was excluded from the “Best Documentary” and “Best Picture” categories.
Peter Gilbert lectures about social documentaries to the American University School of Communication.
I was able to catch up with Peter Gilbert at an event hosted by American University, a D.C. school with a reputation for embracing documentary filmmaking. The cinematographer and producer himself candidly discussed the challenges involved in creating Hoop Dreams.
CW: At which point during Hoop Dreams did you, Steve, and Fred realize that you were going to have something more than a short segment that people would see on PBS? When did you think it could be commercial…and that you would pursue a theatrical release?
PETER GILBERT: Never.
CW: Never?
PETER GILBERT: I can tell you that when Fred and Steve started out to make the film, they started out to make a thirty minute film. One street basketball court…like an inner city playground court. And basically they were gonna shoot for a couple weeks that summer. That was it. And that was gonna be the film. So when we got out there…one of the things…because I had come from making films over a long period of time with people…was that I think when we knew we had something really special was when we went out to St. Josephs with Arthur and his family after he’d been picked off the street, got bigger older and recruited, we went out with him and we had Pingatore telling us…this poor kid and this poor kid’s family, that “if you do what I want I promise that you’ll get into a Division I college and play basketball.” That was the moment when I went “Oh, this is a film.”
CW: Cause it’s so improbable…
PETER GILBERT: Not only improbable but like just the concept of it. Here’s a four year story. Here’s this great story. You’re pulling a kid out of the inner city and putting him in a suburban environment. I mean everything about it was improbable. So yeah, that’s when I knew we had a good film. I mean in terms of a commercial film? I never once thought it was commercial until it opened up in a movie theater. I mean we had no money. We had $5000 for the first four years. If I didn’t own gear we wouldn’t have been able to do it. We never thought…we would’ve been thrilled if it had played on PBS. I mean what happened to it none of us ever thought. I mean I think we thought there was a point…there’s always a point when you think you have the worst film ever. And that was an 8-hour cut of it. I had gotten home and wept on my wife’s shoulder. Cause I had thought I had put so much time into nothing. And then you know when it was added to actual time and stuff, there was that moment when I thought, “you know I’m really proud of this, this is interesting, now I’m curious if anyone will ever see it.”
CW: Some criticism of your film…in a 1999 article from the South Atlantic Review a writer named Kimberley Chabot Davis said that with regard to Hoop Dreams, “I am disturbed by the fact that Hoop Dreams’ subjects do not seem fully aware that the film represents their lives as tragedy or as fodder for irony.” She added that Arthur’s knowing of no other life except being a star in the NBA makes the film “exploitative.” Can you to respond to that?
PETER GILBERT: The thing that [critics] need to understand is that if we were doing a film about that—Arthur only being in the NBA and that’s his dream and that’s the only reason we were interested—is exploiting that aspect. We would’ve never filmed Arthur. Arthur was—you saw him at the beginning of the film. He’s a little rail of a kid. Would you have picked him and gone “oh my god he’s gonna be a Division I basketball player? He’s gonna end up at Arkansas State?”
All through the film I think the film is very, um, there are people telling him not to believe in his dream. It’s Arthur who believes in his dream. I can’t make a subject not believe in something he wants to believe in. And he honestly believed in that dream–to the point that he believed it into his thirties. He kept trying to play ball. You know, professionally. So I mean I think that’s a very off-based comment…because I think Arthur was very aware that it was a dream.
Steve James (left), Peter Gilbert (center), and Fred Marx filming "Hoop Dreams."
But the difference was he wanted to live it. He knew. He knew that there’s…he saw William. William had shattered dreams. And so he knew the odds. And the other thing I think that that person doesn’t understand is that if what we were interested in was Arthur as an NBA player, that exploitation…that when Arthur left school, you know he was at St Joes. But both kids go to St Joes. And Arthur leaves. He gets kicked out by Coach Pingatore because he’s not good enough basically. And he was gonna have to pay half the tuition. Couldn’t afford it. The thing that really isn’t in the film…because it’s between us…is that we couldn’t find Arthur. You know it was before cell phones, we couldn’t find him, he wasn’t home, we couldn’t find Sheila, we didn’t know what was going on. No one told us he had left. So we didn’t know.
So a couple weeks later we find him. And he goes “why are you guys here?” And we go “what do you mean why are we here?” And he goes, “I’m not at St. Joes anymore. I’m not gonna be…you know… a star basketball player. And I’m back at Marshall…blah blah blah…” I’m like “Arthur. We’re interested in you. We’re not interested in you being a star basketball player. We want to film you.” That was the relationship we had.
CW: How did it feel when you discovered the Oscars had snubbed Hoop Dreams for “Best Documentary” and “Best Picture” even though many critics had put your film in their Top-10 lists? And did you watch the ceremony?
PETER GILBERT It was kind of funny that because of the publicity we all had to be at Kartemquin. And there were all of these news crews there cause they thought it was gonna be nominated. I’m…you know the whole way that the Oscars nominate documentaries has changed.
CW: It’s different because of your film, right?
PETER GILBERT: I’m now on that board. The thing that was interesting was that I was a judge that year at Sundance after the guy at the time, he was running the documentary board, said “you know you’re not even nominated. We won’t let it happen.” So I knew we were not gonna get nominated. Now what was surprising…which…and the documentary was a huge to-do when the documentary people said “you know it’s too long. It’s boring.” But it got nominated for Best Editing. It’s the only documentary that’s ever been nominated for any other category in the Academy Awards. So it was like up against Forest Gump…so that says it all to me. You know what I mean?
CW: Not too bad.
PETER GILBERT: So it was…disappointing. And I’ll tell you the most disappointing thing was after we didn’t get nominated with that, we called and said, “ya know we don’t give a shit about that. But would be really nice is…for a year, that film played in theaters. For over a year. For a year these families have really given their lives to everybody. Can we just have them at the Oscars? Let’s have them there. Let them give an award. Just let people…cause they were…it was a phenomenon. Just let them know that people acknowledge them.” And no.
CW: Weren’t even invited?
PETER GILBERT: No. And when I told Curtis, William’s brother that…he’s like, “why would they invite me?” That killed me. And we did go to the Oscars. And I made jokes about it. You should get the tape. David Letterman went nuts on it.
CW: Very briefly…can you talk about the title of the film? And what Hoop Dreams means to you? Roger Ebert actually said that William and Arthur’s “Hoop Dreams” did come true. Do you agree with this?
PETER GILBERT: Um, that’s complicated. The title comes from…Steve came up with the title…Steve James. And it was actually written on the court…there was somebody wrote…you know how people do graffiti…and then he came up with the title from there. I agree with Roger in the sense that if you statistically looked at what was supposed to happen to those kids, the statistics probably for William, even though he was a prodigy, to make it to the level that he made it to was probably 1 in 75,000.
You gotta remember that William could hardly read when he got into the high school. The fact that he made it is amazing. The fact the a 15 yr old…he’s fifteen years old, he has a daughter…ya know the whole thing. And where he lived. The fact that Arthur was able to…the pain that he went through with his family…that he was able to pull himself up enough to be able to do that was amazing. So in that regard, yes, they had some of their hoop dreams. Were they enough? They weren’t enough for Arthur. Just being able to go to college wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more. And for William I think there was always that moment in his head that “I coulda done it.” Cause he coulda.
CW: Injuries kind of just plagued his career…
PETER GILBERT: William was that close. I mean he really was. He was a phenomenal player. And anyways I think that as the years went by I think one of the things you find out about is even though they had this dream, we helped them get there. You know college, all that stuff gives them a sort of posture in the community. Because of being a ball player, the fact is that they still could’ve escaped what happens to unfortunately way too many black Americans and families. Especially…Arthur’s dad was murdered. William’s brother was murdered. And so…you know I think that if Roger looked at that in the big picture, I’m not so sure [if their dreams came true]…
CW: Would you consider Coach Pingatore the antagonist of the film?
PETER GILBERT: Um. No.
CW: Any reason why? He certainly seems to be portrayed in that manner. I guess maybe if you wanna talk about your relationship with him?
PETER GILBERT: Well it’s hard for me to consider him an antagonist because…he’s a real, living, breathing person. He’s not someone I wrote to…
CW: It’s hard to not think of him as doing his job…
PETER GILBERT: Right. He’s a coach. And he had his own goals…which is he wanted to win a state basketball championship very badly. And you know a couple years ago he did. So I never looked at Gene as being this evil guy who was trying to suck the blood out of these kids. But I did look at him as a somewhat cautionary tale in the sense where I think some people would say that Gene’s helped a lot of kids and some people would say that…lets his own coaching dreams get in the way of other…of some of the kids. So it’s a tough question in that regard. And you know I think I have respect for Gene in many ways in the sense that when he was …when a player like William came in and he needed that kid to step it up academically and be there for that kid, he was. And the sad thing is… I guess is when Arthur was having problems in school and was not able to make payment…basically they cut his scholarship…and the only thing I say that I have problems with is that it wouldn’t have happened to William. If William had had issues with money, being the player that he was as a freshman, it would’ve been cleared up. Also that being said, if Pingatore had any idea how good Arthur was gonna be by his senior year it would’ve never happened.
So that’s my problem… I guess is that. And I guess where you see that most in the film is…the only time I ever got mad at him was… where he says to William “you had an okay career.” That killed me. Because in my mind William had an unbelievable career. That kid was going full ride to Marquette University where his brother wanted to play. After going through what that kid went through growing up, and to say that to him because basically he didn’t get his championship was just brutal to me. To me he should’ve hugged him and said “you had an unbelievable career. I’m proud of ya.” And that should’ve been it. So that’s my…you know, my gut there.
CW: Sounds a little heartless if you ask me…
PETER GILBERT: But just so you know, William’s kid goes to summer camp there. William still stays in touch with Ping. I don’t think his kid will go to high school there but Ping will be recruiting him like mad. So it’s not…it’s a mixed bag for William…and I think William feels…you can sometime call him…I think he feels that if he had played in a freer, open system that he would’ve been a totally different ball player. What happened to him…just as an example…to talk hoop dreams…dreams in basketball as you know…a lot of them have to do with having the right people behind you at the right time. So Ping was a great person to have behind at that time to a certain point. I don’t think that William ever played a freer game as he could’ve played. I saw that kid play his sophomore year of high school in the summer and he was killing pro players. Anything he shot went in. He was at that place that people don’t get at. It was one of the only times I ever believed like, “damn this kid’s gonna go to the NBA.” This kid…it’s just nuts how good he is. And then he had his injury. And with people who know basketball or who know these dreams…they’re just so hard to fulfill.
CW: Thanks so much for your time, Peter.
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Charlie Wachtel is a Senior Writer for The Film Crusade and Founder of www.filmcrusade.com.
