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 The
sports documentary is a genre of its own, with many of the
techniques used by ESPN, Fox Sports and HBO, honed by years of the
segments produced for the Olympics where sports producers sharpened
their theory of soul for an audience that really could not care
anything for Olympic sports. These techniques work for the average
sports fan and perfectly for the non-believer who rarely watches
sports on TV.
These documentaries are a curious breed. They are each a template
for the other -- look alike, sound alike, and have the same pace.
The independent documentary filmmaker should not attempt to enter
this market. It has its own form of limited creativity, a formula
never deviated from that the masters of that universe are happy with
and will not change.
Sports Century on the ESPN Classic channel is ESPN’s answer to
Biography on A&E. They use many interviews in medium close up and
medium shot, with heavy shadowing on the subject’s face, usually in
heavy contrast, and a soft, non-descript background. There is a
minimum of narration, and the lower third identifiers have a flare
to them. The interviews mix in a minimum of actual archival footage
that shows the athlete playing his or her game. Having produced
films about athletes and other entertainers, I know how expensive
the actual footage is and how often limited budgets are. The
producers therefore rely on family photos, news clips and for ESPN a
studied method of using many elements in a single shot to form the
cutaways for the interviews and to break the monotony of the talking
head.
Many of those cutaways, the glue that holds these shows together,
have their origin in editing. What I call planted shots prevail,
meaning those created either in the field, or processed in the edit
room through the medium of dissolves, such as a football against a
barn door, hockey pucks neatly arranged against a newspaper
headline, a low angle shot of a basketball with the net in the
background in deep shadow. These are always in deep contrast with
sepia the dominant color, as if that gives the images serious
meaning. It is as if the producers and their clever tape editors are
saying that these lives in sports that we are portraying are indeed
serious because we are conveying them in deep earth tones. The
editing is crisp and combined with the processed images, the
interviews move well with a minimum of narration. Statistics drive
sports coverage. Sports fans are willing addicts so many statistics
fill the hour. The research is good, I like to think, with hardly
any detail left unmentioned.
The music always sounds the same with the tinny sound that comes
from using synthesizers rather than life musicians. Obviously, cost
is a factor because real musicians cost too much money. Thus the
mostly forgettable, especially when it is under the talking head’s
statements, thus fighting the words because it is often too loud or
too disconcerting.
Mostly the Sports Century shows are not critical of the athlete, and
are rarely controversial, though they do touch on the flaws in the
men and women they profile. But always with excuses about their
family life, the neighborhood they come from, their suffering
parents, or any other excuse. These shows, other than making money
for ESPN, serve a purpose because they try hard to humanize many of
these god-like figures. After all, ESPN’s audience is looking for
heroic feats in sports beyond what we mortals are capable of, so why
not entertain with a neatly controlled story. ESPN’s formula works
for well and the network will probably not change it. Sports fans
can relax.
Now to “Mantle” as presented by HBO Sports. My only question, is why
Mantle yet again? I do not know how many documentaries there have
been on Yankee great Mickey Mantle, but this last one was
unnecessary. Rarely have I endured as much reverence in tone and
execution in one hour toward Mantle in every phase of his life. He
is victim. He has no control of his faults. Almost everyone wonders
how great he could have been if not for his drinking and carousing.
He could not live up to his father’s expectations. Now that is
something new that probably none of us ever experienced. Hero. Feet
of clay. A wasted life.
 Veneration to the extreme in how the many interviewees talked about
his life. We all know the story. I will not repeat the outline of
his life and his public death. Some of the interviewees were
downright sweet. Here was Mickey, the country-boy, and the
man-child, making it large in the big city with the greatest sports
franchise in history. The subtext was that he was one of the best
despite his drinking and wasted life. Here is Mantle trying to
overcome the family curse, a silly euphemism for alcoholism. Call it
for what it is. I think we can handle it as grown-ups.
The opening sequence or tease was so good that I expected more of
the hour to be the same. It was not. It was as if all the producer’s
energy and effort went into that few minutes designed to suck you in
if the Mantle name had not already done the job. Then came the rest
of the profile, and except for the excellent archival research into
stills, film and newspaper and magazine clips, I almost expected the
large cast of on-camera participants to genuflect at the thought of
Mickey swinging the bat and making a remarkable catch in
centerfield. But HBO Sports gives its producers big budgets because
sports teams and their leagues charge heavy fees to use their
product on the air.
The phony, predictable, studied shots on the farm were clearly that,
phony. The way the producers framed other shots of a baseball bat in
various positions against barn walls were unnatural. The viewer
deserved better. I would have rather seen the farm in a more natural
setting. By the way, the farm was too neat, not muddy or dusty,
unlike any I saw over the many years when I covered political
primaries and national elections.
I believe the producers and HBO had a love affair with Mantle and
allowed the idea to get ahead of their good judgment to produce the
film, and then put together a film that would be lasting instead of
fleeting. Think, HBO, of all the important docs you could produce.
The recruitment of athletes from the time they are children and how
that affects the lives of all who touch them. Steroids and other
performance enhancing drugs in all sports and their effect on all of
us. College athletes and how the schools use them to create huge
revenues and do not seem to care about the individual athlete. Where
are the college super stars now considering that even few of them
make the pros? Sports medicine and do doctors really conform to the
teams wish and the coaches wish that the team must come before the
athlete. Race in sports, a hidden illness. These are a few and some
of the more obvious ones. HBO Sports should know better that to
waste our time with the likes of “Mantle.” HBO has the power to
influence its audience. With all its money, it is a shame to waste
it the way it did on a film that revealed nothing new about an icon
whose time has come to finally rest.
At one time, I followed boxing closely. I watched it regularly on
TV, went to St. Nick’s Arena and Sunnyside Gardens to see fights in
person. Not anymore. I had head of Bernard Hopkins but I knew very
little about him. After watching "Beyond The Glory: Bernard Hopkins"
on FSN, I now know more and, I am glad of it. He is a fascinating
character. His is a compelling story. It is about the rise of a kid
from the ghetto, his five years in prison, and then his struggle to
become a successful champion in his division.
The interviews, shot in close up without over modeling, meaning the
faces were not hidden in deep shadow showed care in the setup. The
usual soft, non descript background or occasional limbo shot
completed the look. Obviously, the interviewer listened to what the
interviewees said. I will discuss that more in a moment. Original
shooting of Hopkins in his old neighborhood, talking to troubled
teens, and an emotional return trip to prison were good additions.
The fight footage filled in well where necessary. The graphics were
simple, almost too simple at times, but I did not mind that because
they did not distract from overuse, and that is important to the
continuity of the film. Often the overuse of graphics means there
not much footage is available, whether new or old, and using stills
and newspapers stories helps cover the lack of other visuals.
The music was unfortunately, forgettable. It is a problem with all
sports documentaries. It is as if natural sound or even silence is a
sin. Here the music strove to lead us too often with obvious cues
rather than the more subtle ones required for documentary film
music. Music in a documentary should form an underpinning for the
film and not be more than the film itself. It should not overpower
the viewer. It is not Hollywood where the music often dominates a
film because the story, the acting and the execution is weak.
The toughest part of any documentary, especially those made for TV,
is to be free of a narrator. Most cable executives have little
respect for their audience and believe it needs help in getting from
one point to another. To its credit, this story of Bernard Hopkins
achieved its goal with the benefit of a narrator. It managed to keep
my interest through the interviews and how the producers strung them
together to tell a story. That takes effort and a good sense of
design to build a narrative track through only interviews. It means
the interviewer must pay particular attention to everything said by
everyone so he can then mesh image and sound to create a narration
that makes sense. It is easier to add narratyion to cover a point
not covered in the interview, but that changes the tone of the
documentary. There were times in Hopkins when the story required a
leap, but mostly this small sports film succeeded well with a
narrator.
I understand that Fox cancelled “Beyond The Glory. That is too bad.
I liked Bernard Hopkins for not trying to be more than what it was:
a portrait of a boxer seeking his place in a very tough world. .” If
sports fans want to see more of these that have already aired, I am
sure that Fox Sports, the same as all cable channels will find ways
to repeat them.
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At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002. |
