Director Dan Klores' new project with ESPN, “Basketball: A Love Story,” premieres tonight and "will appear over five Tuesdays stretching into November, four hours a night, for a total of 20 hours," according to Neil Best of NEWSDAY. Klores "interviewed 122 people," and "journalists helping him spoke to another 43, and he found himself with 550 hours of footage on many of the sport’s most important living figures." Klores said the project is "not a history" of basketball and is "not" similar to Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary. Klores' project is 62 short stories "related to aspects of the game at every level, including, yes, its history." It also covers how the sport has "impacted societal issues such as the civil and women’s rights movements, and explores technical aspects of the game, such as LeBron James explaining in detail his signature drives to the basket." Klores said it is "not chronological" and is "like opening a book of short stories." The challenge in some cases is "finding something new to say about events that have been covered many times by journalists and documentarians." Two of the "few noticeable personalities missing are Michael Jordan and Bob Knight, both of whom declined to participate," but there are "segments on both men nonetheless" (NEWSDAY, 10/9). Klores said he “tried to get Michael for years and he declined” without giving a reason. Klores pointed to Jordan's "involvement producing his own 10-hour documentary" called "The Last Dance,” which is a Netflix and ESPN collaboration "set for next year" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 10/9).
IMPACT ON WOMEN EXAMINED: USA TODAY's Jeff Zillgitt writes Klores "came across aspects of the game he did not anticipate, specifically the impact basketball has had on women and the impact women have had on basketball." He said, "I’ve always thought this, and I don’t want to overstate it: in some ways, basketball parallels race relations in the United States. My work is always about the underdog, but the first time I listened to Val Ackerman’s interview and when I read the transcript, I closed my eyes and I realized, ‘My gosh, the woman is the outsider. She’s been the outsider for decades.’ Now, the film is bigger than race. I wasn’t going to box women into one scene. There’s women throughout the entire piece.” Ackerman, the current Big East Commissioner and the first WNBA President, "shared her story for the documentary." Ackerman: "I knew whatever he touched, he’d do it right. I know he’s been hard at work, gathering interviews, assembling this montage of sound bites, footage and photos and overlaying it with this thoughtfulness about stories that have been told but also stories that have not been told. Anybody who cares about the game of basketball, this is must-see television” (USATODAY.com, 10/9).
THE GOOD & BAD: SLATE's Jack Hamilton notes Klores has a "light touch and is drawn to punchy color and fast-paced fun." The "best parts of 'Basketball: A Love Story' find their target with style and real purpose." “The Witch Hunt,” which "tells the story of the trumped-up point-shaving scandal that sidetracked the career of New York schoolboy legends Roger Brown and Connie Hawkins, is a crisp and clear-eyed recounting of one of the sport’s great historical injustices." “The W,” on the "early years of the WNBA, offers an unvarnished look at some of the early marketing missteps of the women’s pro league, replete with some hilariously salty commentary" from Phoenix Mercury G Diana Taurasi. Still, there are "too many moments when the documentary’s breezy, up-tempo approach misfires, shirking nuance and complexity in favor of maintaining the status quo." A short on Knight is "bafflingly set to lighthearted, zany music as Knight hurls invective at his players and chairs at officials, his legendary abusiveness passed off as quirky antics" (SLATE.com, 10/9).
