"Hoop Dreams," a film about two inner-city kids and their dreams to play in the NBA, went through many obstacles and accomplishments to become one of the most popular American documentary's ever made.
The director of "Hoop Dreams," Steve James, answered questions from students after his film was shown in McKenna Theatre Wednesday afternoon.
The idea for the film originated while James was playing basketball in graduate school at Southern Illinois University where he received his master's in fine arts.
"We wanted to explore the basketball dream and how it related to the American dream of inner-city kids," James said.
Arthur Agee and William Gates were chosen for the documentary because they lived in the inner-city and both had big dreams of becoming NBA players.
"We picked those kids because they had a dream, we didn't care if the basketball dream came true or not," James said.
According to James, many blacks were skeptical about going to see the film because they were concerned about two things; it was made by whites and it was about basketball and blacks. But later, after viewing the film, many expressed to James they felt the treatment of the subjects was fair and sympathetic.
"Everyone in this film overcomes a stereotype and it was capable because it took more than four years to make. If you spend the time with people, it overcomes the stereotype," James said.
The audience sees and emotionally experiences Agee and Gates going through both high and low points in their lives in terms of school, family and basketball.
"It was eye opening to understand them, learn about their lives and see my own prejudices exposed and to see their prejudices exposed," James said.
If the film had only taken a month of the life of Agee as opposed to the four and a half years it did take, the crew would have only caught Agee's low point when his father leaves the family for drugs. Then it would have supported the white image of the poor, urban black family, according to James.
James started with only $2,500 for the first two years of filming, but ended with a film that cost $400,000. Money was received through grants during the duration of the filming.
"It's easier to get money down the road because you can show someone what you have," James said.
The film was nominated at the Academy Awards for best editing, but created an upset when it was not nominated for best documentary.
"Everyone assumed we'd get the best documentary," he said.
According to James, he was told by insiders at the academy that his film was sixth from best picture, only shy of 40 votes, and seventh from best documentary.
"There is a history of nominating films that are safe, and the length didn't help either," James said.
The film made $7.5 million at the box office and recently sold 133,000 copies for the video market -- an all time record for a documentary.
"It passed Madonna's 'Truth or Dare' so it must be going somewhere," he said.
James says he plans to do his next documentary about the experiences and hardships of immigrants who come to the United States to better their lives.