Cinematographer Jean-Louis Bompoint and Mr. Gondry collaborated for a suite of five commercials which explore some of the roots of basketball. While I have only seen three of these, each features the philosophical musings of old-school basketball legend James "Arkansas Red" Allen, who has witnessed many basketball stories and knows a bit about the spirit of basketball. All forms of basketball are shown: inner city street games, suburban driveway one-on-ones, pro games, high school, solo.
Gondry and Bompoint, who have worked together on Knives Out, Gimme Shelter, and other projects, strip down their film to its roots: black-and-white film, Bolex-type camera.
For each :30 commercial Allen, a black man, espouses on a topic:
"There's no one person who can own this game. You can take away the NBA: so what? take it away! You can take away the endorsements: so what? You can take away the logos on the shoes or what: take 'em off! But when you take all that away, that ... street baller will still be: Butter."
"One out of every five black men dies before they reach the age of twenty-five. ... That was Benji's number. Benji [Ben Wilson] was the first in Chicago history to ever be named top high school player in the nation, right before he was gunned down [in 1984.] But you know what? Benji's not dead: Benji's spirit lives on in every jump shot. Remember: Shoot over brothers, not at them."
Feelings is a :60 commercial, and goes a little somethin' like this:
"I've played ... just to have that look, that feeling! That feeling of the ball going in. ... [I]t's a feeling that you just cant describe. You see, only another ball player will understand what I'm talking about. ... [I]t feels like snow. It's gotta feel like that pure white snow. ... You don't like all that noise about it. shew! That's all you need.
"You and that basket has to have a relationship. ... A lotta ball players say, 'Man, my arms are so tired.' You know why, cuz he['s] missing all of 'em! But when it's going in, I never heard one ball player yet, who says, 'My arm is tired.' You see, your arms never get tired. Not when it's going in."
You can see two of these ads here, here.
From Shoot Magazine, May 8, 1998 by Richard Linnett
In the 1997 Nike "Basketball" campaign for Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore., which aired during the NBA playoffs last year, Gondry wanted to create a gritty, urban feel for a series of spots that focused on the street basketball philosophy of an old college hoops star nicknamed Arkansas Red. Gondry shot the entire campaign on Kodak sound recording stock, which was not intended to be used in camera. "It's not rated. Kodak doesn't even tell you what stop to use." says Julie Fong, Gondry's producer at Partizan USA. "It's basically cheap stock used for titles. very high contrast." According to Gondry, it's a dangerous medium. "You have to be very careful with the exposure, otherwise you can go too overexposed or underexposed," he says. "We were really scared to shoot with it because it is easy to screw up the whole job." The resulting spots are like Robert Motherwell paintings, with extreme contrast between black and white, and many images are washed out in pure fields of white. The effect is harsh, haunting and entirely unique.