On the Court and On Camera

Spike Lee has decided to document a game-day in the life of one of the greatest NBA players in the game, and of all time, in his 2009 documentary, Kobe Doin’ Work. A notable NBA fan and staple at Madison Square Garden, Spike Lee has the utmost respect for Kobe Bryant, and through Kobe Doin’ Work, we understand why. The access we are granted into the mindset of such a skilled player before, between, during, and after the game the Lakers hosted versus the Spurs during the 2007-08 season goes far beyond the experience we have while watching the average televised broadcast. Spike Lee is capable of accomplishing this by using Direct Cinema. Direct Cinema is the method that allows the viewer the most, and the purest, access into the events being captured. Applied to a documentary about Kobe Bryant, it is everything a Kobe fan could wish for. In order to accomplish Direct Cinema successfully, the filmmaker must make a decision on how he allocates the authority in his film. He must know what his objective is, but he must not manipulate it. In Kobe Doin’ Work, Spike Lee accomplishes this by granting the primary authority to himself, to guide his film in the proper direction, but has given visible and audible authority to Kobe Bryant by providing comprehensive footage with commentary seldom directed by Lee’s questions.

“Many film makers feel that the aim of the film maker is to have complete control. Then the conception of what happens is limited to the conception of the film maker. We don’t want to put this limit on actuality. What’s happening the action, has no limitations, neither does the significance of what’s happening. The film maker’s problem is more a problem of how to convey it. How to convey the feeling of being there.” –Richard Leacock (The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription, 42-43).

First, given Direct Cinema’s quest for observation with as little intervention as humanly possible, I would like to question which mode of watching the Lakers-Spurs game is more direct. We have assumed that tuning into an NBA game on television is the most direct way to gain access. The visuals we are provided on television are just as factual, however we are impeded by breaks. Time outs are filled in by commercials, taking us away from the arena. “Television time outs” have been artificially implemented into the game removing us even further from its authenticity. Our understanding of a game on television is as a production, not to say we would not be distracted by advertisements and the skillful Laker Girls if we were witnessing it for ourselves in the arena. However, Kobe Doin’ Work gives us an experience greater than either watching the game on television or in person. The biggest difference here is our focus. Watching an NBA game allows us to focus on the action and the statistics. Kobe Doin’ Work allows us to understand the game, the movement, the intention, and the execution. Television attempts to accomplish this sort of insight by adding microphones to the court and occasionally players for authorized sound bites, as well as on the spot player and coach interviews.

There are few moments when what I feel from a televised broadcast matches precisely with what occurs in the documentary. For example, the post-game interview: I always felt it was brutal and completely contradictory to the spirit of the game for a reporter to corner a player as they are walking off the court, or even more simply, a requirement by the network. Nevertheless, Kobe agrees with me, but he plays it off as he watches an interview he gave at the end of the first half: “These interviews are funny, you’re sweating like a pig. See, you try to catch your breath as best as you can and I sound like a complete idiot.” A complete distraction to his game, he leaves the reporter behind and in his next step is thinking about what he could do better in the next half.

The Direct Cinema method is so pure that it leaves minute evidence that Kobe Doin’ Work is, in fact, A Spike Lee Joint. The most incriminating evidence of this is the musical selection. You can feel the same vibe from Lee’s earlier films in the music’s genre and era. Another aspect of Lee’s artistic choices can be found in the use of still, often black and white, photography in the film. During moments when the commentary takes a back seat and the pure technique and execution of Kobe is awe-inspiring, Lee inserts still photographs for a few seconds. He proves this method to be just as authentic as the motion picture camera, however it is a wise decision, leaving you in the moment just a little longer to take it all in.

Brian Winston’s explanation of the camera as a scientific instrument justifies Lee’s documentary as an accurate portrayal of Bryant’s experience. Winston equates the camera with tools like the thermometer and microscope: “All these devices produce analogues of nature. That the camera can be manipulated more easily than say, the thermometer is less significant that the fact that both instruments produce a representation of reality” (The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription, 40). Without the NBA and television networks’ distractions, with the addition of 30 of Lee’s cameras, Lee has created an archive in the history of a day of Kobe Bryant. This is possible, as Winston reiterates, “When documentary filmmakers like their work to data collection or ‘voyages of discovery,’ they implicitly position their audiences as Latourian obstinate dissenters who have penetrated the lab of their filmmaking experiments” (The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription, 41). People accept photographic authority. As Winston expounds, the camera allows the viewer to easily accept documentary. This is because people “cannot readily avoid the scientific and evidential because those contexts are ‘built-in’ to the cinematographic apparatus” (The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription, 41). We know that Kobe Doin’ Work shows us what the televised game did not, and we are willing to accept what we are offered as what occurred during that game.

The insight into this game, and Bryant’s work ethic, surpasses a single dimension. There are the things any Kobe fan and any basketball fan would like to see, and furthermore, hear. From Kobe’s commentary pointing out how he keeps his hands wet to feel the texture of the ball, to the bickering with the refs. It is difficult not to have respect for this hard working player. We see lighter moments, like his infamous trash talking and conversing with teammates in multiple languages. The elusive triangle offense is explained. Contrary to as I imagined, there are no plays; instead there are sequences of options. It’s the team that makes the moves on the spot. They rely on reading each other. This is why it is so important to Coach Phil Jackson to have players with a high basketball IQ, and we are not left with a doubt that Kobe Bryant is one of them. His intelligence is displayed, balanced by his genuine enthusiasm for the sport. As he watches himself play, he remarks: “Man, this game is so fun. I’m ready to play right now! I’m doing this voice over after I’ve scored 61 points against Spike’s beloved New York Knicks, and I’m ready to play again just because this video is getting me so amped up. This game is just such a beautiful game.” Kobe also explains how film study is important to him, as an athlete. As his high school coach told him, “You don’t build a house without blueprints.” You have to watch the film to know what to expect.

As many critics disagreed with the fundamentals of Direct Cinema, I concur that the replication of any event through film cannot be taken for granted by the filmmaker as the authority. The filmmaker, instead, must decide where to place the authority. As filmmaker Don Pennebaker said: “It’s possible to go to a situation and simply film what you see there, what happens there, what goes on… And what’s a film? It’s just a window someone peeps through.” The filmmaker must use his control to create the proper medium for his viewer. In this case, Kobe Bryant becomes the authority. We watch Spike Lee’s footage, however we pay attention to what Kobe tells us to pay attention to. We see it all, but now we know what to see.

During Kobe Doin’ Work, we learn a lot about Kobe Bryant. Spike Lee teaches us about Kobe Bryant. It is his methods as a filmmaker alone that give us the ability to understand the process of an athlete usually masked by the stunning performance he puts on in every game. As a Kobe Bryant fan, I no longer see him as the player I used to. I understand now how his role on the team surpasses more than what I understood to be a “player.” He is also a compass, directing his capable team where to go while on the court, on the bench, and in the looker room. After watching this film, I felt like I had never really watched a basketball game before. I can’t even count how many times I’ve watched the Lakers play on television or actually sat in Staples Center to witness it, but now it all seems moot. I feel foolish that I believed I actually understood, and now I accept that this is only so little that I have been informed. Towards the end of the film, even Kobe expressed his yearning for fans to be able to understand what is going on on the court and within his team. This is direct cinema, and Spike Lee is our director. This is Spike Lee Cinema.