Though I can’t help but imagine how NFL Films might handle it via baritone voiceover and the trumpeting music. But Shields says the “kaleidoscopic, freewheeling film feels congruent with who Marshawn Lynch is.” Danny Glover, the executive producer, could have done it. “ The last thing we wanted was the ‘voice of God’ omniscient narrator.”įolks wondered about getting someone famous to narrate the film. Graphic violence, including a Chicago cop’s murder of teenager Laquan McDonald, as well as the head trauma of football, continuously weaves in and out of the narrative. “Thanks for asking.” As a cultural icon, Lynch becomes the punchline of Jimmy Fallon, but a contributing guest of Conan O’Brien. Lynch’s relationship with the media is sometimes jokey, other times contentious, especially as he begins providing one or two stock answers, i.e. There are plenty of laughs and tragedies in the film, often in quick succession. In their own ways, they’re both expressing a remarkable amount of comedy or fury through either silence or trash talking.” “Both Payton and Lynch are very interested in violating ordinary language,” Shields says. In the book, Shields looks intensely upon Gary Payton, the trash-talking, defensive-minded point guard of the Sonics. Though the book didn’t materialize into a film, Shields says the themes of Black Planet - “race, history, media iconography, and sports morphed into the Lynch movie.” In tellings nearly 20 years apart, both stories have strong black protagonists (for a lack of a better word), both of whom are from Oakland. I told him Sport Literate was first published somewhere between chapters seven and eight of that documentary-style book. Covering the 1994-95 Seattle Supersonics season, Shields is anythin g but colorblind in Black Planet, “facing race” through myriad interactions of players, coaches, fans, and media men and their rhetorical missteps throughout a long NBA season. It’s his only book I’ve read, largely because of a blurb about its unflinching honesty by Robert Lipsyte. In the beginning, Shields wanted to turn Black Planet, his critically acclaimed basketball book, into a film. “Given Marshawn Lynch’s style, it would have been sort of ridiculous if he sat down for a 12-hour interview,” Shields says. Lynch’s group maintained a neutrality to the project, neither supporting nor discouraging the production. Though not for lack of trying from the filmmakers. True to himself, Lynch did not participate in the film. Shields, a serious man of letters, is pushing the boundaries of creative nonfiction with a narration that has no narrator. Yet this documentary, comprised of some 700 clips (around 10 seconds each) not only provides insight into a complicated young man, but also explores a history of protest against racial discrimination with a particular focus on Lynch’s chosen form of rebellion - silence. What sort of historical perspective could a football player just 33 years old offer? Don’t get going on Jesus now and what he achieved by 33. In our mid-August conversation, I didn’t think to ask Shields about the title of his brilliant documentary…. Indeed, writer and director David Shields likens the Trumpian era to Germany 1933. With racist rants emanating from an authoritarian’s toilet in the White House, you might want to take some notes to address a future grandchild’s inquiry concerning your whereabouts and actions from 2016 through 2020. ® SEAHAWKS, SEAHAWKS LOGO, SPIRIT OF 12, WE ARE 12, BRING ON THE 12, LEGION OF BOOM, 12 and 12S are trademarks of the Seattle Seahawks.A lot of people are putting things into historical context these days.
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