I ponder the question as I weigh "Hoosiers" against another arguably quite fine basketball movie. I'm considering "One On One" from 1977. Robby Benson had a "run" in cinema and then seemed to disappear, at least from the screen. He had a chick magnet image and was focused on sports. He was showcased in "Running Brave" and "Ice Castles" in addition to "One On One."
"Running Brave" was the story of Native American middle-distance runner Billy Mills. I covered Mills' visit to UMM when I was with the Morris newspaper. "Ice Castles" showed us hockey. "One On One" was the basketball showcase and it got favorable reviews. But it hasn't entered the pantheon of classics, not like "Hoosiers."
It should be against the law for anyone to be as talented an actor as Gene Hackman, eh? He was born for the profession, and he has branched out to write novels. At present he evidently doesn't favor playing older men. Some actors/actresses take to the transformation, e.g. Barbara Stanwyck, some don't.
You remember the story of "Hoosiers": a somewhat older man with a blemished background as hoops coach gets a fresh chance thanks to an old college friend who's in charge of a small Indiana high school. Barbara Hershey starts out as the antagonist but the friction ends up fading so much, they kiss! Some movie watchers such as myself found the kiss to be ill-fitted. The explanation is with deleted scenes: a couple of these had shown the affection building.
Robby Benson in "One On One" has a squeeze too: Annette O'Toole. She is assigned to him as tutor so he can survive school, i.e. get good enough grades to stay on the basketball team. He is highly recruited to the fictional Western University in California. Benson co-authored the script which means he could tell the story of himself being hero at the end!
Ah, but what kind of hero? This is a 1970s movie so it has to be nuanced. Everything in the '70s was nuanced so there appeared to be no simple answers, no clear delineation of right vs. wrong, virtuous vs. non-virtuous. Maybe we feared clear delineation because then we'd have to admit that the USA's involvement in the Vietnam war was an abject failure. That's the verdict now as we have achieved some emotional distance.
But in the '70s I think we were befuddled to a degree. There were forces tugging at us for equivocation. So we began equivocating about lots of things. Shall we simply enjoy a winning basketball team? Or should that impulse be tempered by the reality of big-time college basketball being cold, exploitative or too influenced by money? Even the best players are, in their essence, mere 19-21 year-olds with vulnerabilities that are universal for that age.
So, Robby Benson comes into his role as the accomplished but naive player who is bound to have some tough sledding. And surely he does. Is he really the hero in the end? In a way yes. After all his travail, the young man is called on to replace an injured player, only he is told not to shoot! Hollywood would of course have the hero be indifferent to such a directive. And so shoot he does, and he leads the team's comeback. "Comeback" and sports movies are quite synonymous, aren't they? Of course he makes the game-winning shot.
In "Hoosiers" the heroic crew just celebrates: mission accomplished, what further element could be added? And I would argue that this kind of resolution is what Americans want. Just like how we should have made up our minds about the Vietnam war.
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| A classic |
Hackman and Hershey make eye contact with Hershey looking particularly lifted by it all. Hackman looks subdued, almost as if he feels primarily relief, and I'm haunted a little wondering if their relationship has been cemented. You know, I wondered the same thing about Hackman and Frances McDormand at the end of "Mississippi Burning." Anyone else notice this common thread?
So Robby Benson does the comeback thing for his team, and so then can we just smile, maybe shed a tear and leave the theater? Not so fast. This was a 1970s movie. "Winning" was not so clear-cut then. Remember the nuances, like about how winning must be accompanied by a deeper sense of something transcendent.
A more typical movie of the decade would have had our heroes losing but gaining insights about life. "One On One" was toward the end of the '70s so maybe we were starting to creep out of our funk. But Jimmy Carter was still president! I loved the man but he was a Southerner and those people are never in a hurry to do anything.
I felt there was a very significant scene in "Miracle," the movie about the U.S. Olympic hockey team, where the hero boys were horsing around and completely ignoring a broadcast speech by Carter in which Carter, bless his soul, basically doesn't say anything. It must have been the "malaise" thing.
I remember seeing "One On One" at the now-defunct twin theaters just outside Crossroads Center in St. Cloud. I remember the resolution at the end of the movie, which was not with the "winning shot." No, not at all like "Jimmy Chitwood" scoring against his big city (with African-American) opponents in "Hoosiers." Benson does his thing on the court but then, after all the misery he had been subjected to in this soulless big-time college hoops program, he has become empowered to tell off the coach. Tell off the coach? After you've won the big one? That's it.
We leave the theater with that image in our heads. Not completely. We see the complementary resolution scene where Benson, apparently having rejected the big-time scene, plays playground basketball with O'Toole (his girlfriend) in a place that looks like "the projects." Yes, with African-American kids. Which is without a doubt charming. But not consistent with the world, the ethos or the zeitgeist of today.
We have lived in "trickle down" times since Ronald Reagan where the earthy and non-nuanced views hold forth, with Donald Trump having taken this to absolute caricature. Today we'd be puzzled about the ending to "One On One," wondering how any gifted young man could find triumph in an impoverished setting. Away from the glitter and glory he had courted. Remember the 1970s.
Americans make up their minds
"Hoosiers" came along like a cannon blast in 1986 for restoration of the older one-dimensional values. We see the clean-cut and well-behaved kids of "Hickory" and feel this is the way it should be, not like the shaggy-haired, pot-smoking and rock music-consuming kids of the early and mid-1970s. I was there, believe me.
Yes the '50s image is illusory because we sought to cover up so many of America's ills. Dennis Hopper played an alcoholic, an affliction we didn't properly understand then. A town might have a known child molester, perhaps a community leader, or wife beater about whom there is gossip but no intervention.
And nevertheless we pine for the basic approach to life in those days. It may be rose-colored glasses but we want no repeat of Vietnam and its extended aftermath, the cynicism, defeatism and Carter's malaise. I guess you had to be there.
A classroom scene
Oh, I remember one especially endearing scene from "One On One." The Benson character, having been marginalized by his coach and no longer getting special favors, finds he has to fend for himself in rigorous classes - no more favors being done for him. The O'Toole character inspires him to attack academics like he never has before. So one day upon completing an exam and taking it to deposit in the front of the classroom, he has a most triumphant look on his face! His coach subsequently contacts the teacher expecting to learn of Benson's failure which would expedite his forfeiture of scholarship.
It's so cute: the coach gets a look on his face of complete incredulousness!
"One On One" had the potential to be up there with "Hoosiers" in the pantheon, but unfortunately, America learned to walk en masse away from the 1970s. Away from "The Gong Show."
My podcast for Oct. 3
It's a pleasant fall Saturday, and at this time I ponder the extent to which we should pray for the president. It's a good question. The permalink:
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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