Basketball Diaries Gallery Recently, due to the Colorado shooting incident, there has been much media atention directed towards this movie, and towards a particular dream sequence.. I would like you to read this following article..it speaks the truth amidst a sea of injustice regarding this movie.. Stephen Hunter, Washington Post Staff Writer,April 28, 1999 America has become a bilingual country and the two languages are not English and Spanish. They are irony and literalism. That's one of the sad realities confirmed by the slaughter in Littleton, Colo., where two boys enacted in the language of literalism some scenarios they had seen delivered in the language of irony. The movie, however, with its plot, characters, meanings, style, emotional center and aesthetic strategy, is clearly another case. The movie, which most video outlets pulled from their shelves last week, is most famous (and most relevant) for a scene in which Leonardo DiCaprio, as Carroll, kicks his way into a parochial school class, yanks out a concealed shotgun from beneath his trench coat and proceeds to blow away "enemy" classmates and priests while his buddies cheer and shout and leap about with joy. This sequence, which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold seemed to replicate in the corridors of Columbine High, has been replayed on the news many times since then, and in shreds it's a terrifying spectacle, a kind of razzle-dazzle endorsement of the joys of mass murder in a schoolroom. But of course it's "ironic," like most of pop culture. That is to say, it arrives encoded with signals that--as most people will understand instinctively--remove it from the literal. It's offered as a fantasy, its very outrageousness a part of the elaborate structure that maintains: Boys and girls, do not try this at home. These are trained professionals. It's only a movie. The scene is set up as a dream sequence, a metaphor for the heroin-induced madness into which our diarist, an angry, talented and death-haunted young man, is in the process of falling. Jim (DiCaprio) has just injected heroin; his face goes slack, his head falls back. The camera settles on his beautiful blankness and closed eyes: This is shorthand that expresses the literal idea that "we are going inside a mind." We are about to see the images flickering behind those beatifically languid eyelids. At this point, we enter a formal dream sequence, filled with signifiers screeching: THIS IS NOT REALLY HAPPENING. The entire technique of the film changes: The camera is low to the floor, looking up at DiCaprio, who advances manfully in slow motion, each pounding step ritualized and gigantic. (The whole sequence plays in slow motion, again meant to signify an anti-reality.) An indoor wind ruffles his golden locks. He is dressed in a black leather floor-length coat and hobnail black boots. He looks like Darth Vader wearing the head of an angel. In short, everything has been stylized, fetishized, theatricalized, in stark contradiction to what has passed before, when the filmmaking grammar has been naturalistic to the point of rawness. The signifiers increase: He kicks his way through a wall, knocking down a portrait of Christ, symbolizing the Church--and begins to shoot, to the glee of his pals and the horror of his victims. Again, the shootings are slow-mo, outrageous (blood spurts through the air), aestheticized so you know IT IS NOT HAPPENING. His final moment brings him to a cowering priest. He leans over the desk, extends the shotgun barrel to the priest's head and pulls the . . . Then, in a flash, that same priest wakes him roughly in the real classroom, bringing him back to reality. The film has not endorsed schoolroom massacres. It has instead evoked a fantasy of a schoolroom massacre to convey the desolation of this young man, whose own best friend has just died, whose basketball coach has tried to molest him, who's been beaten raw by the priests, who is fatherless and whose dispirited mother has all but given up on him, and who has come to see the world as a cynical sewer. The whole sequence makes a presumption that the audience is capable of making this elemental distinction, between the real and exaggerated. In the opinion of just about every critic I've read, Leonardo's powerful, moving portrayal of this character was what carried the movie. It was an intense, gritty, true story of the life of Jim Carroll, who, as a young, talented high school basketball star, became so addicted to heroine that he lost himself to a life on the streets. But with the help of a true friend, and some inner strength, he was able to overcome his addiction, and became a well known author and poet, as well as a champion for the fight against drugs. TBO's performance throughout the film is absolutely captivating.....his emotional path to desperation and destruction is so real...you can't help feeling the pain right along with him. To quote the young actor, "It's certainly not a film that glorifies drugs. It doesn't preach things like 'Just say no' either. What it does show is that the first hit can do it....can be the start of some real trouble. This movie took me places I'd never been before, acting wise. Withdrawal was the hardest thing to play. It's like being an animal, in a primal state." A Critical Review of the Movie An interview with Leonardo, 1995 To quote "Leonardo DiCaprio...Romantic Hero"...by Mark Bego "The Basketball Diaries brilliantly proved that Leonardo DiCaprio could throw himself into a role, carry an entire film, and emerge a dedicated and likable actor, in spite of the film's subject matter." Here's some examples of Jim Carroll's poetry, some of it you will hear Leonardo as Jim quoting in this powerful movie. Blood Bridge White ship disappears into wave machine... this morning your eyes got shot with secret chains that the pill armies eventually set free. you queens so often, in fact, open my graceful anxieties like soft horses through toy deserts... I love this mansion though its too many windows to open halfway each morning to close halfway each night by Jim Carroll Little Ode on St. Anne's Day You're growing up and rain sort of remains on the branches of a tree that will someday rule the earth. and that's good that there's rain it clears the month of your sorry rainbow expressions and clears the streets of the silent armies... so we can dance by Jim Carroll In The Rain! The movie itself is a low budget eye opening experience. It is set against a very dark and grimy backdrop, with filth and squallor galore as the scenery, and the dark alleys of dirty New York City as the favourite haunts for Jim and his buddies. Director Scott Kalvert remembers working with Leonardo, and recalls it being a very 'real' experience for him as a young 20 year old. "They all worked very hard, and got very grubby. They became real." The actor himself though, has stated many times that he has developed a love for New York City since making this movie. He says, "Everyone was harping on me about how much LA was blasted.....and I was like, 'No, man, I love LA.!' But after I came here, I was like, 'Now I see what you're saying.' I love it! I want to move here. You could sit alone at one corner all day and probably have a more fulfilling day than travelling all over LA. and seeing all the sights!" Another problem that began after his realistic and powerful portrayal of this character, with the film's subject matter and the intensity of the script, was the press....especially the New York press, who so believed his performance that they labelled him with a "bad boy" image on and off camera. Said Rolling Stone magazine...."He seems poised to assume the mantle of River Phoenix..." This kind of criticism took him aback....and he still has a hard time with the press..refusing to 'play their game'. He says, "I'm a 23 year old guy who goes out with my friends. My mistake is that I think I can be like a normal human being and have fun and go to normal places. But I'm realizing that I have to live a sheltered life, where I watch out for everything I do. I certainly don't think I'm leading a destructive lifestyle. I just try to loosen up the best way I know how. All these actors think that the blood in their viens is fueled by acting. I'm happier hanging out with my friends, doing the things that I love." Don't ever change, Leonardo, and don't ever stop bringing us these fascinating characters!