‘GAME’ RESONATES
Spike Lee film on world surrounding top HS basketball prospect rings true in today’s game 20 years later
“Is Brooklyn in the house?” says Spike Lee as he strides down the steps, stage right, inside Cinema 3 at Brooklyn Academy of Music. He ambles below a projection screen and takes the measure of his live audience. It is a packed house, all 227 seats sold out. The occasion is a 20th anniversary screening of “He Got Game,” Lee’s lone joint about his basketball jones. He dons a white T-shirt emblazoned with No. 34 and “Jesus of Coney Island” in blue on the front. “Shuttlesworth,” the main character’s surname, is on the back. Lee does a roll call. “Where’s Fort Greene?” he says. “Woo!” shout six women. He rattles off Williamsburg, Cobble Hill, Bensonhurst and Flatbush, making his way through the neighborhoods of what he calls “Da Republic of Brooklyn.”
“Bed Stuy, do or die, where you at?” he says. “Who is Coney Island?”
Three women raise their hands. Lee, wearing thick-frame glasses, nods.
“That’s where this film was shot,” he says.
Lee readies to re-introduce the movie. He has not seen it projected on a big screen since it premiered on May 1, 1998. He considers the score, composed by the late Aaron Copland, and the corresponding hiphop lyrics from Public Enemy.
“Who would have thought that sh-would work?” Lee says. “I didn’t.”
There is another pairing to explain. It is Denzel Washington and Ray Allen. They co-star as father and son, Jake and Jesus Shuttlesworth. In the script and on the screen, tension exists between the two. Jake accidentally kills the mother of Jesus in the kitchen of their Coney Island apartment. Father, fond of the bottle, also abused his son on and off the court in his efforts to coarsen his skin for the city game. Lee knew what he was getting in Washington, already the lead in Lee’s films “Mo’ Better Blues” and “Malcolm X” by then. Less was known about Allen, fresh off his rookie season in the NBA. Kobe Bryant turned down the part. Allen Iverson declined to audition, insisting that the role needed to be his and no one else’s. (“Practice?” Lee says. “No. Rehearsal? Who needs rehearsal?”) Lee welcomed Allen, still young enough to pass as the No. 1 prep star in the nation, yet skilled enough to hit the shots necessary in basketball scenes. He took acting lessons from Susan Batson each day for six weeks and worked out after each day’s shoot at the Chelsea Piers court.
“I see a lot of basketball films,” Lee says. “A lot of them I hated because you see somebody shoot and what’s the next thing that happens?” “Cut!” members of the audience shot. “They cut to that mother f---ing basket,” Lee says. “Bogus. I made this film for the players in the NBA because from my seats at Madison Square Garden, I’m sitting here and the court is here, and if that film was some bullsh--, I would have gotten it every home game. They would be waiting for me: warm-ups, halftime, timeouts. So the basketball had to be legit.”
Lee credits Earl (The Pearl) Monroe as the “basketball technical consultant.”
“So, people, any time we have a scene with people shooting basketball, one of the greatest players to ever live was right there on my side,” Lee says. “Watching the monitor. I’m old enough to remember Earl when he was on the Baltimore Bullets and the Knicks got him in a steal, that backcourt — Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe. That’s the starting backcourt? S--t. These were the glory days of the New York Knicks.”
Lee retreats to a position in the back to view the film. He adds director notes.
“This film gets better and better for me every year,” he says. “The only other film that is on this level as far as basketball is concerned is a documentary, “Hoop Dreams.” “Hoop Dreams” is a mother f--er. That’s top two for me. That’s the bar. “Hoop dreams,” documentary. ‘He Got Game,’ narrative. Thank you very much.”
The hustle goes on. Movie merchandise — hats, T-shirts — is for sale in the hallway.
“I will be outside after the film,” he says. “Get your gear.”
lll A provocateur by trade, Lee’s portrayal of basketball’s underbelly proves prescient now. The film’s plot revolves around the college recruitment of Jesus Shuttlesworth, the best high school prospect in the country and a senior at Abraham Lincoln High. He is the cynosure of Coney Island, hounded by friends, family members, classmates, an agent, a runner for an agent, his coach, local denizens, his Uncle Bubba and his girlfriend Lala. Coaches from across the country pitch him on the promise of using their campuses as launching pads. An agent wants Jesus to sign with him immediately so that he can pursue a professional career in the NBA right away; one college coach prays with him. His high school coach pays his rent while Shuttlesworth’s father serves his prison sentence upstate at Attica Correctional Facility. Shuttlesworth is a lottery ticket who takes the B36 bus to Lincoln each day. He is also increasingly aware that everyone around him wants a piece of his future.
“God damn, I should have known,” Jesus says to Lala during an argument. “This whole world is bugged!”
Wiretaps are the one element missing between the film and the FBI’s ongoing probe of corruption in college basketball. Two decades on, no enticement or temptation of Jesus appears to be too tall a tale as 10 men have been arrested and charged with a variety of federal offenses in the FBI case. The film foreshadows current scenarios, from the Lincoln coach presenting Shuttlesworth with $10,000 to “assistant coaches” — two naked women at Tech U — enjoying a ménage à trois with Jesus on a waterbed inside a Tech U dormitory. Lee presented the real world of recruiting then, and officials confirmed that similar methods are still being used. Last summer, the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions found that Andre McGee, then an assistant at his alma mater, Louisville, facilitated fellatio and exotic dances for recruits inside Billy Minardi Hall. McGee was tabbed for providing $40-50 in singles to throw at the women. He also handed a condom to a 17-year-old. The NCAA hit McGee’s boss, Rick Pitino, with a “failure to monitor” violation. A few months later, Louisville was named in court documents for allegedly conspiring with Adidas to funnel $100,000 to the family of Brian Bowen, a five-star recruit. Lee chortles. Pitino appears in “He Got Game” as a Shuttlesworth admirer.
“We had the crystal ball!” Lee says. “We were way ahead of what happened at Louisville and all that other stuff. NCAA should have been talking to me!”
Lee heard firsthand from the NBA players who auditioned about their college recruitments, but Lee wrote a wrinkle into the standard story of paternal involvement in the decision-making process. Washington’s character is incarcerated as Jesus approaches the signing deadline. Shooting around on prison blacktop one day, Jake Shuttlesworth is beckoned to speak with the warden, who relays word that
the governor is a fanatical supporter of his alma mater Big State’s program. Jake leaves Attica on a work-release assignment so that he can pitch Big State to Jesus. Provided a National Letter of Intent, Jake returns to Coney Island, visiting his old haunts. He is given one week and an ankle monitor. There is an incentive: if he is successful in gaining his son’s commitment, Jake’s sentence would be shortened. Lee shakes his head when he thinks of the Faustian bargains that have been struck across the five boroughs and beyond in the name of inking talented teenagers.
“It’s dirty, it’s dirty, it’s dirty,” Lee says. “It’s dirty, it’s dirty, it’s dirty.”
It is a rollicking ride for many prospects. Lee knows that nothing has changed, but he calls for athletes in college basketball and football to be paid.
“The kids aren’t stupid,” he says. “They see how much the coaches are making. They see how much the schools are making. Ohio State and Michigan, they have 100,000 mother f---ers coming to football games. A hundred thousand? And then when they see CBS sign a deal with the NCAA for how many billions of dollars and the players just get tuition and a chicken sandwich? Get the f--- out of here.”
Lee recounts a priceless display of competitiveness from Washington on set. In Lee’s script, a climactic one-on-one battle between Jake and Jesus was written to end with Jesus beating Jake 11-0 before walking off into the dark, but Washington, who played on the jayvee team for coach P.J. Carlesimo at Fordham, improvised.
“So Denzel considers himself a baller,” Lee says. “Denzel says, ‘F--- what the script says, I’m scoring at least a basket.’ Denzel was throwing up some lucky sh-and it was going in. Ray Allen said, ‘Time out, Spike! Time out! Time out! The script said he’s not supposed to score!’ I said, ‘I can’t help you.’ And then after that he shut Denzel down. It was a moral victory for Denzel to score five baskets on an NBA player. He had two under scoops and three shots banked in. We were going crazy.
He made one shot, ran around did the 360.”
When the credits roll, Lee awaits audience members outside.
“Denzel Washington did his thing!” Lee says. “Can I get an amen?” “Amen!” a fan says. “Rosario Dawson did her thing!” Lee says. “Can I get an amen? “Amen!” says another fan. “Ray Allen did his thing, can I get an amen?” “Amen!” “The late great Bill Nunn, Uncle Bubba,” Lee says. “Amen!”
“People all the time say, ‘When is the sequel coming? When is the sequel coming? When is the sequel coming?’” Lee says as he leaves. “This film doesn’t get made… I mean it would be very hard to get made if Denzel doesn’t want to do it. He has told me repeatedly that he is not doing it, so I’m not going to ask him anymore. I do feel we will get this film made. Everything is timing. Everything is timing.”
Lee last worked with Washington on “Inside Man,” a bank robbery and hostage movie that came out in 2006. It was their fourth collaboration. The two remain in touch. Lee last saw Washington in action on April 26, opening day for the reprisal of Eugene O’Neil’s “The Iceman Cometh.” Washington, a two-time Oscar winner who won a Tony in 2010, plays Theodore Hickman, aka Hickey, a charming traveling salesman, in the dark drama that unfolds in a Manhattan saloon. It is in the midst of a 14-week run at Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on W. 45th St.
Allen is playing a new role, as well. He lives in Miami, and is peddling his new memoir— “From the Outside” — as a firsttime author. Lee wrote the book’s foreword. To blend experiences, Allen held a Q&A and book signing at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood following a screening of “He Got Game” on April 24. Twenty years after spending his first offseason in Brooklyn, he heads to Springfield, Mass., in September for his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
“Everybody is doing their thing,” Lee says.
That includes Lee. There is another father-son tale that he reflects on these days. His next world premier comes on Monday. Two decades after Coney Island was his movie set and Washington his lead, Lee’s latest film, “BlacKkKlansman,” premieres at the 71st Cannes Film Festival in France. The lead is Washington’s son, John David, who made his movie debut as one of the children at the end of “Malcolm X.” Lee laughs at the links, from Denzel and John David to Jake and Jesus.
“It is generational,” Lee says. “There’s a long history there.”