# He Got Game (1998)

### reviewed by
Omar Odeh

It would be pointless for me not to admit at the outset that I have always held great esteem for Spike Lee and his films. And just in case I have left anyone in doubt, that means I find it extremely difficult to provide objective evaluation in this regard. It is some thing I have proven incapable of time and again, despite good advice on this subject from Christian Metz. Nonetheless I am going to try to make a convincing and unbiased case for He Got Game as one of the best films of the year. Lee is one fo the more prolific filmmaker's working today having released virtually a film a year since his first feature. This is neither good nor bad, although it might be an indication of a type of inferiority complex Lee has alluded to regarding the facility white director's have in marshalling finacing. His trajectory over the years has had peaks (Do The Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues) and valleys (Clockers). I am still convinced that keeping faith after being denied accolades for Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X at various venues (the two films he considers to be his best) was not an easy task; something that clearly showed in his filmmaking post-Malcolm X. With He Got Game, however, Lee truly impresses as he once did.

It has been implied that an important reference point for He Got Game is Hoop Dreams. This comparison seems to miss the point. Lee's film transcends both the situation as well as the shortcomings of the latter film. (These are well treated in Cineaste Vol. XXI, No.3) He Got Game introduces viewers to Jesus Shuttlesworth, the number one highschool basketball prospect. The film chronicles the decisions he faces and the contradictions and hypocrisies people begin to contrive in view of his potentially lucrative situation. The film is an essay on the dignity and poise needed to go through circumstances such as the ones Jesus is in. It is clearly not to relate in a realistic or naturalistic way the pressures Jesus is under, or the cruelty of the recruiting system. Nor is it as mundane a venture as simply 'fictionalizing Hoop Dreams'. Lee makes this clear from the opening frames shot in slow motion, alluding to basketball as a heroic almost spiritual experience. His intentions are reinforced by the scrrenplay wahich proposes one of the most ludicrous setups in recent memory. Clearly this is not a setting or situation that is meant to be taken literally but rather a grotesque carricature designed to provoke an interrogation by the viewer. For those still unconvinced, consider the scenes in which Lee overtly undermines the narrative either through his patented direct address scenes or the roll call sequence. These scenes reaffirm an intention not to adress the spectator through the narrative itself but through what this hyperbolic scenario alludes to.

The photography colludes perfectly to complement this intention. Two things are made very clear. the first is that Lee has gotten very comfortable shooting commercials, the second is that he has somehow also maitianed his poise as a craftsman. The style of the basketball scenes with multispeed photography and luminescent colours presents the TV commercial aesthetic as a parodic device. The players are a marketing tool before the first contract is even signed or the first TV camera ever arrives. In shooting the basket ball scenes this way the associations between what is happening on the court, in the players minds (projecting themselves as sports celebrities) and in the viewers' minds is collapsed. There is something almost sinister in this depiction in marked contrast to those that graced the opening titles. Lee mixes styles to deliver such effects several times. The light on the Milla Jovovich character is rarely motivated and almost angelic despite some clear shortcomings of the character. The high-contrast look to the team introduction sequence is yet another example. There is nothing transparent or understated about the camerawork, just as there is nothing naturalistic or 'real' about the screenplay. It is a very apt marriage of style and content to make the point that it is beneath the situations or events that the real discussion is happening in this film. It is a very eleagant way to give the material some weight; a difficult task in films that center on sports.

In fact much more than a 'sports film', He Got Game is truly tragic. The scenes between Jesus and his Sister, or The Sister and the Father, ring with a certain intensity that I am not ashamed to admit had me fighting back tears. This tragedy is woven into the very texture of the film: In spite of any good fortune that may befall Jesus Shuttlesworth, the cost at which it has come is truly horrific. -- -Omar Odeh http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/3920

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