A Fortuitous and Striking Collaboration for Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz
Longtime Oak Park friends channel their gifts for the remarkable new documentary, The Interrupters.
In 1994, cultural journalist Alex Kotlowitz was considering some new book projects. His agent offered something intriguing. “They asked me if I wanted to do a book version of Hoop Dreams,” he recalls. After watching the film on a specially loaned VHS tape, Kotlowitz did something few writers do on principle: He turned down the offer. “I saw the film, and it was extraordinary and I realized immediately there was no way a book could improve on the film,” he said. “That was my introduction to Steve’s work.” Made in collaboration with Frederick Marx and Peter Gilbert, Steve James’s Hoop Dreams detonated public consciousness at the Sundance Film festival that January. Film critic Roger Ebert called it the greatest documentary ever made. A dense…
In this Article:
Emile
5:00 pm on Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Thank you for telling a story that would otherwise, not be told. more ›