October 13, 2004

Friday Night Lights is a unique piece of postmodern narrowcasting, a film almost in the nature of the book more than the cinema.

It is the strength and the weakness of the film that Peter Berg, who also took over co-screenwriting duties in adapting his cousin's (Buzz Bissinger) book of the same title, decided not to chase the traditions of film so much as the feel of reading a good story. There is a different level of intimacy in both forms. And by the end of Berg's film, you have that fuzzy memory that you get when you have just digested a book. While a movie fades over time, two hours of consumption leads to a lot of immediate retention. But a book, as you work your way through a few hundred pages, lots and lots of characters, plot lines flying about, leaves you with a reflection of just a few specific ideas, but a depth of conceptual thoughts.

I was particularly struck by this at the end of Friday Night Lights, as four of the characters say goodbye to one another, a reflection of the core of four that was set up at the start of the film. The coach, Billy Bob Thornton, is on a completely different narrative track - again, more like a book than what we expect in a movie. He is part of their story, but so much of it is about his own sense of where he stands and his connection to his family.

Friday Night Lights reminded me tonally of my favorite football film of all time, North Dallas Forty. (The Longest Yard has great football in it, but it's a prison comedy far more than a football movie.) NDF is far more traditional as directed by Ted Kotcheff. But it breaks traditional filmmaking rules throughout. NDF focuses on one particular week in a football season, starting with the night after the game one Sunday and ending on a Tuesday afternoon following the Monday Night Football game that was the next game. FNL has more games, covering a whole season and post-season, but this movie just flies past a lot of games, only really interested in selected moments. The football is not shot brilliantly here. North Dallas Forty shot its football all in close-up, avoiding exposure of the fact that they were at the end of their shooting schedule and were working in an empty stadium.

But my point was that FNL selects its key moments. In one case, I had the feeling that the story of "The Preacher," Ivory Christian, was held back for maximum effect in the ultimate game, the character being a near mute through most of the film until he gives a big speech, which no one seem surprised to be hearing.

Of our four central players, we really don't get the much of the home life of Jay Hernandez or Lee Jackson, leaving the story to Lucas Black's Mike Winchell, Garrett Hedlund's Don Billingsley and the outsider/superstar of the group, Derek Luke's Boobie Miles.

All three of the characters Berg chose to focus on were children in single parent situations. One with an abusive father, one with a supported and slighty-older-than-normal mother and the third with a loving uncle. (If there is one perfect performance in this film, it is Grover Coulson as L.V., followed closely by Derek Luke, showing real movie star quality as his nephew, Boobie.) And that is typical of what is fascinating and limiting about this movie… where is the happy family with a kid in football? For that matter, where is the true love of football in this film? Someone had to be playing for a reason other than (or more complex than) escape from Odessa!

There is a hint at the idea of how young men in that community grow up, obsessed with high school football. But what is really missing from this movie is that context. I love the way, for instance, football players and their families eat free in town simply because they are players. But what is the sociological notion behind it? What are the people who are giving away their food thinking? Is it just tradition… pride… short-term excitement… a need to be part of things… what is it?

The film is unusually intense for a PG-13, but early on it really cried out for a R. There was a coyness to the partying and sex that followed. Do all football players get laid? Is it just the cute guys? Is there a local morality about it? Are there drugs being taken? So the police look the other way? And what happens to the popular girl who gets together with the quarterback and never turns up in the movie again? Was she trophy f-ing?

There are interesting racial overtones at various times in the film. But they never seem to go anywhere with our core group. The all black team the kids play late in the film is more racist than anyone we know from Odessa.

But all that complaining done, I really did like this film and am quite interested in going back again. It is crazed cutting and ShakyCam throughout… but I thought that it was effective. And when they get to "The Big Game," the football works. You spend a lot of time just watching these kids behave and it develops its own depth as the movie goes along. Everyone is watchable and while the Boobie twist in the late first act is signaled with signals the size of dancing elephants, his story still ends up bringing emotion to the movie more than any other.

Truth is, I would love to see a six hour mini-series of this story, directed by Berg, taking the time to fill out the voids. It's not there isn't enough here to satisfy. But as I consumed, I wanted more and more.

READER OF THE DAY: THE MENDEL BOMB writes: "In relation to Mr. Reeves, what sadness I feel is no more or less than anyone who has died after spending such a long time in such a virtual tomb. It is a passing fear of mine and I have sympathy for anyone is such a cruel
joke of a situation. There are two things worth noting about Reeves'
passing.

First of all, I can't imagine he would have been happy with all the obituaries making Superman references and puns. He WAS NOT Superman, he didn't want to be Superman, and it was his fear of being typecast that caused him to pass up many a worthwhile part (like Mel Gibson's Bounty role), which caused his career to go into flux, which in the end, of course, caused him to be known only for Superman. Sure, he did make 3 other worthwhile movies (the flawed Somewhere In Time, Death Trap, and Street Smart, which I will always treasure for introducing the majority to Morgan Freeman), but to anyone and everyone, he IS Superman to them. And that's a damn shame,far worse than the irony of Alec Guiness being eulogized as Obi Wan, tripled in death.

Second of all, all of this talk of heroism is wrongheaded and misses a vital point. He did not choose to become a parapalegic and thus he simply did the best with the hand he was dealt. Heroism by its nature requires a degree of choice and involves one person helping someone else. And Mr. Reeves would probably agree. One of the things I respected most about him was his blunt honesty about his "selfish" motives. He made no bones about it, all of his activism was about how HE wanted to walk again and how HE wanted to be cured. He never pretended to be happy about his situation. He openly talked about how he missed walking, missed riding, running, and missed
having sex with his wife. He was upbeat, but he never tried to hide his
annoyance with his lack of freedom. Just as Michael J Fox talks about curing himself first, so did Reeves in his quest for a cure for HIS
condition. There is nothing wrong with that, and I liked his honesty.

In the end, Chris Reeve was not Superman nor even a super man. He was just a nice, talented actor who really wanted to walk again"

And this from A FRIEND writes: "David, David please. Please don't fall to the curse of calling Reeve or Horn heroes. The term hero has been blurred over the years in journalism -- especially recently. Everybody is a hero these days, from my neighbour to the guy who runs the Japanese karaoke restaurant 20 mins from my workplace.

A hero is someone who has put their life on the line to save another person, or to better society. If you want a looser definition, it's someone who is courageous (most often of mythological status). Neither men chose the situation they are in, so they aren't putting their life on the line to help others. I also find it hard-pressed to call them courageous because they chose to live. Sure, it makes their situation sound romantic when we call them survivors, but if we cut the bullshit the truth is evident. There are thousands of people across the world who are faced with similar situations each month and often don't have the cash flow to hire the best of the best to make them better. Even they shouldn't, by definition, be heroes. But at least they seem a step closer to reality.

Please don't toss around "hero"; it's losing its meaning."

E-ME: I think we are all heroes. The notion that we need a bigger stage in order to qualify kind of disheartens me. Is it more heroic to put yourself on the line in a wartime situation or to raise a 13-year-old girl? Life is context and by bettering ourselves, by loving others, by seeking truth and justice, are we not capable of heroic acts on a daily basis?