Film analysis: How to score a good sports movie touchdown

There are a number of sports movies that are greatly influential in popular culture. In recent years more and more sports movies have been released and have been successful. The first sports movie I really remember seeing was “Remember the Titans” and it is still one of my favorites. As I grew up, I watched more and more sports movies, liking most of them, but why? What was it about these movies that were so alluring in the first place to make me watch movie after movie? What was it about these sports movies that made me like them more than other movies? Based primarily on the films “The Hustler,” “The Natural,” “Knute Rockne: All American,” and “A league of Their Own” I was able to determine some criteria for what it takes to be a good sports movie. A good sports movie includes historical accuracy, a hero’s journey plotline, and accuracy of experience.

Historical accuracy is a major factor in a good sports movie, especially if based on a personal experience, because a song released in 1994 cannot be played in a scene set in 1992 and a character cannot be in a scene if they have not even been born yet, historically. Historical accuracy comes in many forms in the design and production of the film from costumes to cars to dialect to interactions to game plays. My first sports movie “Remember the Titans” is a film that was successful in terms of its historical portrayal. In this film, place in 1960s Virginia, athletes at the local high school had to overcome their racial prejudices of merging formally segregated schools to work together to be successful on and off the field. Of the films these criteria are based on, “A League of Their Own” has a very accurate historical portrayal. This film is set during World War II, when men went off to fight in the war and women, for the most part, were to stay at home. With so many men away, women had to move into different positions in the workforce in order to maintain the economy; this included playing baseball. “A League of Their Own” portrays this time visually all the way to emotionally. These means of historical accuracy give the film credibility that someone did their research on both the sport and the time and the film is more realistic because it can be placed in a specific time and place even if it is fictional.

The athletic tales in these films follow a specific paved path known as the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey includes humble beginnings, a call to action, guidance from a mentor, a series of trials the “hero” must overcome, success accompanied by fame, glory or satisfaction, and a return to “normal.” While the following of this path makes the story predictable, it also keeps it moving at a steady pace as it would in real life and keeps the film’s audience engaged. However if all films followed this path in the same way then movies would become boring very fast, so each story needs a way to mix it up and make it interesting. The most common way to make it different is through the battles the characters must fight and win. The difficulty and timing in the plot as it changes makes it interesting. In “The Natural” Hobbs faced his biggest battle very early on in the movie and it takes him more than fifteen years to get back in the game and even then he had to fight the effects of that battle. In “A League of Their Own” the common rivalry between siblings is played out on the field and shapes the athletic success of each sister in the end.

The hero’s journey is only one small factor that contributes to the accuracy of the athletic experience. Authentic portrayal of the athletic experience makes the story realistic and relatable for viewers that may know the sport. Accuracy of the athletic experience can be through the sport when it is being practiced or played, but it is the subplots that contribute the most to the experience. The subplots make the athletes, who have great, inhuman success in the game, seem more human, more like us. Subplots form the genre of the film while breaking away from the genre created by the hero’s journey. By breaking away from the hero’s journey, the story changes pace and makes the predictable unpredictable. In “The Hustler” and “The Natural” the men live their life away from the game with women to distract them from the horrors of real life and fame of the game. In “Knute Rockne: All American” and “A League of Their Own” characters focus on their personal family lives and play or coach because they can.

Based on the criteria for a good sports movie, it is hard to pick one of the four to be the best, especially without interference of personal biases. The best sports movie was not “The Hustler.” This movie was not a good sports movie because the athletic experience was not accurate in that his use of alcohol, angry outbursts, and demeaning of women has no effect on the outcome of Eddie’s game. More often than not actions such as these have negative consequences as recently seen with Ray Rice’s domestic abuse case and Michael Phelps’s drug and alcohol use that led to a six month suspension and almost cost him eligibility to the upcoming Olympic Trials for Rio 2016. “The Natural” is also mot the best of these four sports movies because it follows the hero’s journey, but aside from a battle early on in the film there is no change in the pace of the movie, so it remains slow. This movie did have a more accurate athletic experience in that Hobbs had something to prove coming back into the game, like many athletes must prove their abilities the continue doing so to stay on the team and play. “Knute Rockne: All American” and “A League of Their Own” are both good sports movies given their historical accuracy. Rockne entered the sport of football when great change to the game was needed. Dottie and Kit joined a women’s baseball league during World War II to take the place of the men who had gone off to fight in the war, but many of the women also remained modest, especially when it came to the fame they received from their success on the field, as a sign of the times when women were still primarily housewives. Both of these films reasonably follow the hero’s journey storyline. “Knute Rockne: All American” follows the hero’s journey as an immigrant trying to follow his own American Dream in the United States. “A League of Their Own” depends on the ups and downs of competition that naturally exists between siblings and crosstown rivals. Each film also accurately portrays the athletic experience on and off the field. On the field there are a number of emotions that an athlete feels from the wins, loses, and struggles. It is also accurate that both Knute and Dottie credit others for their success, taking not credit for themselves, because success in sports is not possible without the work of every person on the team. Off the field these athletes must balance their family at home and school or work with the game. It is based on this criterion that “Knute Rockne: All American” is the best sports movie of these four historically significant sports movies. Once the criteria are met it is then dependent on the personal level in which the viewer is able to relate. This film is very relatable to me and my experience in sports because I have always had to balance sports and school, and this, for now, is all I have known sports to be.

Films Cited

A League of Their Own [Motion picture on DVD]. (1992). USA: Columbia Pictures Corporation.

Knute Rockne: All American [Motion picture on DVD]. (1940). USA: Warner Bros.

Remember the Titans [Motion picture]. (2000). USA: Walt Disney Pictures.

The Hustler [Motion picture on DVD]. (1961). USA: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

The Natural [Motion picture on DVD]. (1984). USA: Warner- Columbia Films.