What’s this? Will Harris is covering ESPN…? No, I haven’t become a sports fan overnight – if I did, my wife would possibly leave me, as I think one of my biggest selling points as a husband is my general indifference to watching baseball, basketball, football, and hockey – but sometimes you’re presented with a sports-related panel with a participant that transcends sports.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Spike Lee.
ESPN has this thing they’re calling their “30 for 30” initiative, “which will create 30 one-hour films by 30 filmmakers on a subject from the past 30 years in sports…and it’s totally and utterly a coincidence that the network is approaching its 30th anniversary, and suggestions to the contrary are absolutely ridiculous. (These programs won’t even begin airing
until September 2009, but the hype machine officially begins now.) In addition to contributing to the “30 for 30” initiative, however, Lee has also done a full-length documentary for ESPN Films: “Game Day with Kobe,” which – per the press release – “takes a look at the regular game day experience for the NBA great with unprecedented access.”
Given Lee’s well-documented love for the Knicks, it’s no surprise that his introduction to Kobe Bryant came about via the occasions when the Lakers came to New York…which only happens once a year. “We were mad the year before because right before the Lakers were coming, they suspended him for a game,” said Lee. “The only time the Lakers come, he gets suspended. And we were furious. The prices we pay and the way the team’s been going, you know, you want to see the Lakers. We stink, so the when the Lakers come, we want Kobe playing!”
The two really became friends, however, when Lee was in Rome, shooting – of all things – a commercial for a telephone company. “I was shooting at the Coliseum one early Saturday morning,” he said, “and we’re getting ready to do a shot, and somebody taps me on the back. I turn around…and it was Kobe. That’s really where the friendship started.”
The most obvious question would seem to be, “Why Kobe?” He is, after all, a guy who’s already had plenty of media exposure already. (If *I* know Kobe, you have to figure that pretty much everybody knows Kobe.) It apparently all stretches back to a documentary Lee saw at Cannes: “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait,” about French soccer player Zinedine Zidane.
“This film had amazed me,” said Lee, “because they had 20 cameras on Zidane. They never left him. I said, ‘Oh, shit. This would even work for basketball.’ So I went to Kobe. He’s a great soccer fan, too. So I handed him the DVD, the design piece, and he said, ‘Let’s go.’ Then we went to Genie Buss. Phil Jackson signed on-board the NBA. The commissioner, Adam Silver, ESPN, they got a lot of people involved because what we wanted to be different in the design piece…it was only on the field. But we wanted to go…we needed to go in the locker room. So Phil Jackson allowed us access to the locker room before the game, at half-time, and after. He’s never done that. You know, we were with Kobe the whole day, so we wanted to show…it’s about not just him but the preparation. These guys, I mean, you just don’t show up to a game and put on a uniform and play. I never heard about getting iced before the game, the tape. I mean, it was crazy. And then we had him miked. So I think it would give a unique look of the game…and there’s a great game of basketball. We had 30 cameras…and that’s not including ABC’s camera, because it’s a nationally televised game…so we have a tremendous amount of great footage.”
Just a quick closing anecdote from Lee: also on the panel was Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns – he’s doing his own film for “30 for 30” about Terry Fox) – and his presence next to Lee inspired a critic to say, “Steve, when I see you beside Spike, I can’t help but think you’ve been traded to the Knicks.” Lee’s dry response: “I wish it was true.”
Before we sign off from ESPN, let’s make a quick mention of their upcoming film about Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson. It’ll be a theatrical release, and Rickey will be played by…wait for it…Robert Redford. Nice, huh? Rickey’s grandson, Branch Rickey III, was in attendance, so it was inevitable that someone would ask, “So, did your granddad really look like Robert Redford?”
“I have to tell you, when that was first broached, I thought of my grandfather in the pre-Robinson years — he’s in his 60’s and probably a man who always looked like he was ten years older than he was — and I couldn’t possibly envision this ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ legendarily good-looking actor pulling off this older gentleman,” said Rickey. “But I’ve had occasion to meet with Mr. Redford and I have to tell you that what is most important to me, the ability my grandfather had to capture someone’s attention and some of the times he did that with what he didn’t say, but with a pause and an anticipated gesture he would make and I am so surprised to see the similarity. Robert Redford has an ability to freeze you, to stop you, to almost cause you to stop breathing as he’s right on the verge of making a point. The similarities to me in that chemistry were remarkable and I think the Rickey family probably today thinks how wonderful to have our grandfather captured by somebody such as Mr. Redford.”
