ESPN Films’ 20-hour, six-week documentary “Basketball: A Love Story” more resembles a modern rom-com than your typical documentary. Rather than a chronological history lesson, it’s an episodic collection of anecdotes and stories that in some ways have more in common with “Love, Actually” than Ken Burns’ completist “Baseball.”
The film weaves through the heartbreaking story of paralyzed player Maurice Stokes and his dedicated teammate Jack Twyman to the bitter women’s basketball rivalry of Tennessee’s Pat Summit and Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma to tales of UCLA’s rise, the Dream Team, the Magic/Bird rivalry, the Aba and the emergence of international stars in the NBA with plenty of stops in-between.
“My film is not a history of basketball, because 20 hours is not even close to long enough,” says director Dan Klores. “But it’s historical so there is a lot of stuff that is not obvious. I...
The film weaves through the heartbreaking story of paralyzed player Maurice Stokes and his dedicated teammate Jack Twyman to the bitter women’s basketball rivalry of Tennessee’s Pat Summit and Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma to tales of UCLA’s rise, the Dream Team, the Magic/Bird rivalry, the Aba and the emergence of international stars in the NBA with plenty of stops in-between.
“My film is not a history of basketball, because 20 hours is not even close to long enough,” says director Dan Klores. “But it’s historical so there is a lot of stuff that is not obvious. I...
- 10/9/2018
- by Chris Parker
- Variety Film + TV
"When the time came, I knew how to give the crowd something to stand up for." Now here's a terrific short film for sports fans. Do or Die is a short doc made by Dan Klores, who's also making a 20-episode series titled "Basketball: A Love Story" for ESPN. It's a journey back to the 1977-78 NBA season. The scoring title came down to the final day of the season, between "San Antonio's silky-smooth forward" George Gervin, and "high-flying Denver showman" David Thompson. They realized it was "do or die" that final day, and so the "greatest shootout in NBA history" took place - even though they weren't on the same court. There's no footage of the games, so this animates their games and uses interviews to tell the rest of the story. Enjoy. The short was premiered by Vimeo Staff Picks. Original description for Do or Die from Vimeo...
- 9/26/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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