One of the things I really appreciate the medium of cinema
for is being able to take subjects and ideas that I probably wouldn’t have
thought twice about on this side of the screen, and turn it into something
worth being invested in. Subjects like professional sports, about as far from
my hobbyist purview as a tea leaf is to the larger workings of the East India
Trading Company, and something I’ve looked at in past reviews like Concussion.
Not something I take much interest in personally, but with the right filmmaker,
I’m willing to give it a second glance. Steven Soderbergh has managed to do
just that.
Watching Holland’s Ray Burke at his trade as a talent
manager is to witness some playing the game above the game that is basketball,
manoeuvring through the higher-ups at the NBA, other agents and other prospects at clients, to maintain
his trade even when the industry is in the middle of a lock-out (think along the lines of the Writer’s Guild strikes that tear through
Hollywood every few years; no one wants to work under poor conditions).
What’s more, his initial machinations within the industry
take on an almost-populist tinge, with him taking advantage of an encounter
between his client, Melvin Gregg’s Erick, and another player at a charity event
to proffer something fresh: Organised games that exist outside the NBA’s
purview. Utilising what can charitably be called World Star marketing, with an
emphasis on audience-held smartphone cameras to capture the action that the NBA
would have people sued for recording ordinarily, he galvanises a lot of
real-world tensions between the players and the establishment to reveal some
interesting notions concerning one of America’s greatest pastimes.
In-between the use of interview footage of IRL NBA draft
picks like Reggie Jackson and Donovan Mitchell, and numerous allusions to
Christianity in regards to the sport that echoes some of Spike Lee’s musings
from He Got Game, the film creates an image of basketball as one of constant
tug-of-warring between those involved. It can be a major avenue for inner-city
youths to come up, but it still requires rowing to the beat of the (largely
white) higher-ups. As a result, it is shown as yet another business where the
almighty dollar is the final vote in what goes down… but also one that, if the
players only get involved for the bottom line, can make the initial joys of the
sport all too easy to forget amidst the shuffle.
Where things get really interesting with all this is
when all of this talk regarding industry and making power moves detached from
the major players is applied to the man who put this production together:
Soderbergh himself. As much a cinematic legend as he is reluctant to take the
limelight for himself for too long, he has been a vanguard of American
independent cinema for pretty much his entire career. And with how the
real-world cinema industry has been morphing in recent years, with Disney
furthering its thirst for a monopoly on pop culture, the place of filmmakers
like him only becomes even more vital to the landscape.
He understands the need to make cinema accessible to all,
not just relegated to critic-filled festivals and stuffy arthouse theatres. So,
when looking at this film, the second in his filmography to be filmed entirely using smartphones, all about the power of new technology in the world of
entertainment, it makes all kinds of sense why he would be the one who bring
this project forward.
When Ray Burke calls a press conference in regards to what
happened at the charity event, he says this to those in attendance: “What you
all saw on your smartphones and tablets… was raw. It was palpable and it was
real.” That is Soderbergh’s vision of cinema going into the future, and
if they keep looking this fucking good through tech that just about anyone has
ready access to, I have zero issue with that idea.
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