“Free Solo” (2018) and “Hoop Dreams” (1995)

He never bought into the system. He never really felt sure that this [St. Joe’s] was the right thing to do.

I love basketball.

It’s what you have in your heart that you’re gonna go somewhere.

Nothing good happens in the world by being happy and cozy.

Maybe my amygdala is tired from being too gripped.

…Work through the fear until it’s just not scary anymore.

These movies were both raw and honest; documentaries about the struggle of chasing your dreams and battling personal conflicts. The needs to be strong, to be focused, and to never give up compromised by the challenges to support your family, to be honest, and to overcome the pressure.

These kids seem to have this high athletic energy that invariably ends up communicating their whole lives’s story in seconds on the clock. Except when their bodies fail them, betray them, and their hearts crack open. Then we see how success/failure defines them. There’s a lot to learn about life in these stories that are generously shared with us. I kept thinking during Hoop Dreams about my family. How important it is to say I love you. How important it is to support your loved ones. The moment when Arthur hugs his mother after winning the first challenging game in the finals was so deeply moving. Arthur was the untouchable cool type and he never let anybody see him struggle. But he did struggle, with grades, his abusive father, and all the loss he experienced around him in a poor Chicago neighborhood. Rarely did he lose that season though, he wouldn’t let it happen, and his team’s third place title for his school hadn’t happened in more than 40 years. His season of varsity basketball was literally historic. To see him be in the glow of his own personal victory, to see him be touched by the moment of his long-awaited accomplishment, to see him feel a swell of relief, that I can only imagine comes from reaching levels of greatness that are statistically unlikely, if you consider his upbringing…well, it was overwhelmingly glorious even as I watched 33 years later. And its just a high school basketball game.

At first, Arthur was kicked out of a “good” school for failing to pay and he took it as evidence that his coaches didn’t think he could become a star basketball player. What a nefarious organization those teachers had. Real toxic poaching-the-poor white people shit. And William’s story was just as sad. Arthur’s and William’s dreams and journeys intertwine. William was able to stay at this same school, but they fucked him up as a kid. He even had to have knee surgery in high school. They inflated his ego, putting so much pressure on him, that he struggled with every mistake. That coached seemed like an ass, too. I guess he thought he was doing right by the kids, but he seemed, I don’t know, cruel. And Williams was a high school father. His own father out of the picture he looked to his coach for guidance, but it was all toxic bullshit. Because that coach just wanted him to play basketball, to win, to prove something about the school and its legitimacy as a basketball-star-making program. What the fuck did that coach know about what struggling young William really needed? Its upsetting. Again, even 33 years after the fact.

There’s two moments when William loses some important games and they break him. William’s mother wiping his tears away with close family consoling him by his side. His brother’s pressure to do better acts as a negative presence that persists because he had had his own moment of NBA potential. William is distraught from just getting knee surgery, in this first major upset, and frustrated to have to leave the game immediately because of it. And there’s a few months between his surgery and that first game back. There’s all this yearning and striving, it’s hope. The pain and fear we see him experience because of his knee becomes tragic. He’s too young to feel so burdened by his own body. And the worst part, he loses the game with an opportunity to score on a foul. Two “free throw” shots that were drenched in unfair pressure. Then fast forward, it’s his last game as a senior and he’s loses again, but again the family are there to support. To keep him upright. This time the pain from his own disappointment feels much more melancholic. The tears more restrained. It’s so sad that it’s unbearable. He’s only 18 facing so much. The weight of reality palling the end-game family pow-wow.

A surprise, Arthur comes into frame to comfort William. We’re immediately reminded that they’ve been friends, always, even on their separate paths. Journeys fraught with complicated odds. And they hug, they hug as young men struggling under the magnifying lens of the camera, and struggling from the stifling outside forces of racism, classism, hatred, evil, and, and, and.

I’m trying to do the same thing as you. I love you.

I love you too, man.

What a special documentary. It doesn’t end in Jordan-level fame for them, but we find out there are some highlights like fatherhood, basketball and educational success. I want to watch Arthur’s documentary called Hoop Reality, which he made much later. Definitely worth it to follow these men’s lives. I’m glad I got to see just a part of it.

In Free Solo, I kept thinking of my personal struggle with purpose and focus. He’s amazing, charming, and fearless. Alex Honnold is a badass. Funny how his name almost resembles the word hold. That’s his passion—holding onto giant cliffs with no gear. They call it soloing I think. Or is “free” part of it? But this doc. is about the prep and emotional weight going into scaling Alex’s biggest cliff yet: El Capitan. The documentary ingeniously creates this dual story of who Alex is at the start and who he seems to become by accomplishing this feat. On one level, he’s daring to climb something so dangerous that he might die in the attempt, and another level he’s journeying through a new relationship that means a lot to him with his girlfriend, Sanni. Affectionately nicknamed, San-San. A nickname cleverly unknown to us until the end of the film, when Alex has achieved his most astonishing climb, and he’s at his most proud, even close to tears (which he refuses to shed for the film); a moment when he gratefully exclaims at San-San who calls to congratulate. It’s a beautiful moment, when we see this young guy overcome a tremendous challenge, that he was initially uneasy about, and how that mirrors his challenges in love and partnership. The movie is so well done that this clear duality lifted my spirits up and surprised me with its poignancy.

I mean there’s a lot to unpack with Alex because he’s just a unique kind of guy. His father was probably someone with Asperger’s, according to Alex’s mother, and his childhood may have had the struggles that come from having neurodivergent family members. Alex’s own brain showed little reaction to the most common scary images shown to him in an MRI. Which may explain his ability to climb tall cliffs without fearing for his life. And I think he calls his Father a teddy bear. It’s just interesting as an example of how people with neurodivergent brains see the world, themselves, and the difference between those two that forms them.

There’s a moment where he talks about the meaninglessness of his death and how it’ll compare to other deaths from climbing without equipment. He quickly adds, maybe that’s too callous. It’s like he knows how most people would perceive that kind of talk. But, the flip of it is, he’s incredibly disciplined and focused. He has real goals with soloing even if he sounds reckless. He’s meticulous in his notes, recalling every nook and cranny that he’ll need to use to lever his way to the top. His process is choreography on top of physically demanding yoga and hanging practices. It’s astonishing that his discipline was developed for a kind of hobby that could kill him and has killed his friends. He’s a freak of nature, but he’s God’s best kind of freak. The interplay between him, his friends, and his girlfriend as they navigate the best ways to capture this world record is riveting and I enjoyed learning a lot about a sport I couldn’t imagine existing. I mean there are some ledges on his climb that are barely visible, like these solo athletes are genetically close to one of those billy-goat-things filmed on the side of the Hoover Dam. And then there’s a moment when he backs out because of the pressure of the documentary and how the camera taints the experience for him!

This guy’s pure…something!

I mean I say that out of my own pure jealousy. I can only hope that one day I achieve something just as remarkable. The sun shining down and the grace of happiness pouring over.

Rolling Ferro