Movies |
Glory Road
directed by James Gartner
By
Published: Jan 01, 2006
Category:
Drama
Glory Road
directed by James Gartner
At a tech conference last year, I watched Bill Gates launch the Xbox. Naturally, there was a demo, and, naturally, it was of a game — one of those kill-or-be-killed contests that I always think ought to be called "Weekend in Fallujah." It was really ugly; afterward, Gates looked embarrassed. Me, I had a familiar reaction: This is the stuff we send around the globe as a representative of American culture?
It would be a whole lot smarter — and more useful to our image abroad — if we carpet-bombed the conflict zones of the world with DVDs of ‘Glory Road.’ But that doesn’t make it sound very appealing to smart, sophisticated readers, does it? Ho hum, another ‘inspirational’ film that Hollywood cranks out for mid-winter audiences.
The thing is, mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer is better at making this kind of film than any filmmaker in the history of Hollywood. Yes, he’s got a formula that tugs at your heart: ‘the emotion of triumph,’ he’s called it. And this time around, he’s got a mostly true story that delivers on the promise of the formula: In 1966, the coach of a girls’ high school basketball team gets a job at a third-rate Texas college and assembles a team of mostly black players that makes it all the way to the college finals, where it beats lily-white Kentucky for the national championship. Put that in the theaters on the weekend when we celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., and you’ve got an instant, easy hit.
But it’s not just black audiences that cheer for this movie. Josh Lucas delivers a totally credible performance as Don Haskins, the West Texas coach who cares more about winning than about racial balance. The script moves briskly; not only do we really get to know the players, we come to care about them. That makes the racism they confront — raw, direct, violent racism, in the decade that was racism’s last stand in sports— all the more infuriating. And then there is Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp (Jon Voight, in one of his signature bad-guy performances — you hate him from the second he comes on screen.)
It’s the racism that takes the film to a higher level. Blood smeared on motel room walls, threats in stadiums, beatings, hate mail to the coach’s wife — it’s hard to remember that it could be like this, and not just in the South, just 40 years ago. You quickly grasp that this isn’t a sports film. It’s a soul film — a close look at a brotherhood of athletes whose easiest tests were on the courts.
How accurate is it? In fact, Texas Western had been recruiting black players since the 1950s, and when Haskins arrived, there were three black players waiting for him. As for Adolph Rupp, he now says, "I knew Negroes could help my program, and wanted them to, and anyone who says I didn’t is wrong. How badly did I want? Not enough, I concede, to become a civil rights leader and take on the whole South and lots of other areas too. We played in the Southeastern Conference. Look around. Who else in our conference had colored players at the time? No one…"
It’s easy to get discouraged in this world of ours, and to think that the fix is in and the bad guys always win. It’s harder to think that about sports, which is why we love them — the game occurs in real time, with an unpredictable ending. But for sports bringing about social change? You can count the moments: Pee Wee Reese going over to put a hand on Jackie Robinson’s shoulder, Muhammad Ali announcing "No Vietnamese ever called me ‘nigger.’"
That was then. Now the great battles in sports have been settled; it’s hard to feel them fresh. ‘Glory Road’ strips history away, and shoves us back to l966 and a group of unknown black kids and their never-say-die coach. It delivers ‘the triumph of emotion,’ alright.
Better, it reminds us that things do change. And that we have the power to make change. Getting that information in a way that pumps you up is, for the price of a movie ticket, a great bargain. Bet you’ll leave the theater, like me, wishing that all the people who hate America could see this warts-and-all beauty of a film.
To buy the DVD of ‘Glory Road’ from Amazon.com, click here.
