SHIPROCK
March 22nd, 2004
Script Review: SHIPROCK
Written by Willy Holtzman, draft date: 7.1.02
Reviewed by Christopher Wehner
NOTE: The screenplays we review are often in development and may experience many rewrites, some could end up being completely different than what is reviewed here. It is our hope that our reviews generate more interest in the film. Thank you.
Shiprock centers on Jerry Richardson, a black Texas inner-city high school teacher, who accepts a job as an English teacher on a Navajo reservation at a school called Shiprock. The year is 1987. Jerry enters a world that on the surface is very foreign, but as he discovers and learns about the Navajo people he begins to understand that they are not that different. They experience racism as a people and they too struggle to find their way in the modern world.
For someone like me who has little knowledge, the Navajo ways seem so much more a part of this story than in John Woo's awful Windtalkers. So much so that I am hopeful a proud people will perhaps get a movie that is worthy. The daily struggles of a society that is economically bankrupt, socially divided, and spiritually lost. But from the looks of it, this movie will never get made. Why?
Jerry enters the reservation in his chevy Monte Carlo, a place with few paved or flat roads. The entire story finds Jerry dealing with car troubles that lead to several humorous scenes. Jerry soon finds himself head womens basketball coach at the school. Shiprocks womens team is constantly pounded by 60 or 70 points every weekend. They are undisciplined and lack confidence. The Navajo youth tell degrading jokes about their heritage and without realizing it they continue the downward spiral that has consumed many in their small community. Drugs and alcohol abuse is rampant. The Navajo women are especially vulnerable.
Holtmans screenplay does a very nice job of communicating that dire situation, the hopelessness that many on the reservation have. He mixes humor into the story and avoids too arid of a story. His use of clich� is effective enough to avoid problems that tend to develop with similar stories when the triumph of the human spirit is the prominent theme. Jerry of course whips the girls basketball team into shape, he connects with his players, and motivates them to succeed. They of course make it to the finals.
Shiprock is best described as Hoosers meets Thunderheart, without the murder mystery.
In October of 2002 when the movies producers approached Shiprocks school board about filming the motion picture on location and use district property, they were soundly reject 4-0. The movies producers even tried to offer scholarship money to the school in exchange for the district's cooperation with the film.
A film consultant who lives in Shiprock, reportedly helped to convince the board to decline to cooperate with the producers because according to him, the movie would perpetuate negative stereotypes of Native Americans.
The story is about a black man who comes to save the community from themselves. Alcoholism, dysfunctional families, low self-esteemthese are classical stereotypes of Native American people, the consultant told the ABQ Journal last year.
Producer Steve Burleigh told the board that the story about a black coach coming to a Navajo community would be about breaking down barriers. Burleigh said the basketball players in the movie would be composite characters and that the producers would have to take some artistic licenses. Meaning they would do what they always do, create drama and take liberties with the truth. But after reading the script I was shocked that the Navajo community was so outraged, or was it? There is nothing I can find where people living on the reservation or the real people who are represented in the film were asked what they think. They should have been involved in the hearing and I hope they were. I was unable to find anything about them.
The movie would have displayed some things that we already know: drugs and alcohol abuse are rabid among teenagers, regardless of race, creed, or color. I think the political correctness of a school board has gotten in the way of what could have been an uplifting and frankly powerful movie that the Navajo people could have been proud of, much more so than the shameful presentation of the Navajo in last years Windtalkers. It looks like an opportunity has been lost.
Former Shiprock High School coach Jerry Richardson, who the story is based on, was tragically killed in a car crash on Aug. 30, 1996, in Orlando, Fla. Richardson led four Shiprock High School girls basketball teams to state championships in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sounds like a hell of a movie to me.
Until next time.
--Chris
Written by Willy Holtzman, draft date: 7.1.02
Reviewed by Christopher Wehner
(7/10/03)
MINOR SPOILERS!NOTE: The screenplays we review are often in development and may experience many rewrites, some could end up being completely different than what is reviewed here. It is our hope that our reviews generate more interest in the film. Thank you.
Shiprock centers on Jerry Richardson, a black Texas inner-city high school teacher, who accepts a job as an English teacher on a Navajo reservation at a school called Shiprock. The year is 1987. Jerry enters a world that on the surface is very foreign, but as he discovers and learns about the Navajo people he begins to understand that they are not that different. They experience racism as a people and they too struggle to find their way in the modern world.
For someone like me who has little knowledge, the Navajo ways seem so much more a part of this story than in John Woo's awful Windtalkers. So much so that I am hopeful a proud people will perhaps get a movie that is worthy. The daily struggles of a society that is economically bankrupt, socially divided, and spiritually lost. But from the looks of it, this movie will never get made. Why?
Jerry enters the reservation in his chevy Monte Carlo, a place with few paved or flat roads. The entire story finds Jerry dealing with car troubles that lead to several humorous scenes. Jerry soon finds himself head womens basketball coach at the school. Shiprocks womens team is constantly pounded by 60 or 70 points every weekend. They are undisciplined and lack confidence. The Navajo youth tell degrading jokes about their heritage and without realizing it they continue the downward spiral that has consumed many in their small community. Drugs and alcohol abuse is rampant. The Navajo women are especially vulnerable.
Holtmans screenplay does a very nice job of communicating that dire situation, the hopelessness that many on the reservation have. He mixes humor into the story and avoids too arid of a story. His use of clich� is effective enough to avoid problems that tend to develop with similar stories when the triumph of the human spirit is the prominent theme. Jerry of course whips the girls basketball team into shape, he connects with his players, and motivates them to succeed. They of course make it to the finals.
Shiprock is best described as Hoosers meets Thunderheart, without the murder mystery.
In October of 2002 when the movies producers approached Shiprocks school board about filming the motion picture on location and use district property, they were soundly reject 4-0. The movies producers even tried to offer scholarship money to the school in exchange for the district's cooperation with the film.
A film consultant who lives in Shiprock, reportedly helped to convince the board to decline to cooperate with the producers because according to him, the movie would perpetuate negative stereotypes of Native Americans.
The story is about a black man who comes to save the community from themselves. Alcoholism, dysfunctional families, low self-esteemthese are classical stereotypes of Native American people, the consultant told the ABQ Journal last year.
Producer Steve Burleigh told the board that the story about a black coach coming to a Navajo community would be about breaking down barriers. Burleigh said the basketball players in the movie would be composite characters and that the producers would have to take some artistic licenses. Meaning they would do what they always do, create drama and take liberties with the truth. But after reading the script I was shocked that the Navajo community was so outraged, or was it? There is nothing I can find where people living on the reservation or the real people who are represented in the film were asked what they think. They should have been involved in the hearing and I hope they were. I was unable to find anything about them.
The movie would have displayed some things that we already know: drugs and alcohol abuse are rabid among teenagers, regardless of race, creed, or color. I think the political correctness of a school board has gotten in the way of what could have been an uplifting and frankly powerful movie that the Navajo people could have been proud of, much more so than the shameful presentation of the Navajo in last years Windtalkers. It looks like an opportunity has been lost.
Former Shiprock High School coach Jerry Richardson, who the story is based on, was tragically killed in a car crash on Aug. 30, 1996, in Orlando, Fla. Richardson led four Shiprock High School girls basketball teams to state championships in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sounds like a hell of a movie to me.
Until next time.
--Chris
Until next time.
--Chris
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