You Must Read The Dissolve's Oral History Of 'Hoop Dreams'

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 16, 2014 5:30PM

A still of Arthur Agee in Hoop Dreams. (© 1994 New Line Cinema. All rights reserved.)

I’m over at the playground by my house and these three goofy white guys come out of, I think, a Volvo and started setting up cameras. I was just thinking, “I hope they don’t get robbed up here for their equipment.”

That was Arthur Agee's impression when he first met Steve James, who arrived at a West Side playground with cinematographer Peter Gilber to begin filming what would eventually become Hoop Dreams, the critically acclaimed, award winning 1994 documentary that followed the trials and tribulations of Agee and William Gates as they traveled from their West Side homes to St. Joseph High School in Westchester on basketball scholarships.

Hoop Dreams remains a high-water mark in American documentary filmmaking and it makes us feel old knowing it celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The Dissolve has an intense and detailed oral history on the making of the film where they spoke with James, Agee, Gates, Gilbert and others involved with or close to the making of it. If you want to know about how James and Kartemquin Films scrambled for the money to make the film and how what was supposed to be a 30-minute short morphed into a nearly three-hour masterpiece, bookmark this link and dive in at your leisure. You won't be disappointed.