Filmmakers' Brutal Honesty Powers 'Friday Night Lights'

This Friday night, the lights will be shining on the high school football players of Odessa, Texas, not only on the gridiron, but in theaters all across the country. But there's going to be some light -- perhaps a white-hot spotlight -- placed squarely on the filmmakers, too.

Chief among them is Peter Berg, the diverse actor who stepped behind the camera to direct the film and co-wrote the screenplay; and H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger, the celebrated investigative journalist who quit his job and took up residence with his family for a year in Odessa to chronicle the phenomenon known as the Permian High School football team.

Bissinger's 1990 novel of the same name became a best seller and to date, it's sold over 700,000 copies and has never gone out of print. The book is considered by the likes of Sports Illustrated to be one of the greatest sports novels ever written, and it's easy to see why witnessing its adaptation for the big screen.

Starring Billy Bob Thornton as Permian's noble coach Gary Gaines, Derek Luke as his standout wide receiver, Booby Miles, Lucas Black as team's self-conscious quarterback, Mike Winchell, and country music star Tim McGraw in a startling film debut as an abusive father of one of the players, "Friday Night Lights" forgoes the rah-rah feel-good sport movie formula that overstayed its welcome years ago.

Instead, the film paints a brutally honest portrait of the players and their vulnerabilities, and equally as important, the pride, hopes and dreams of the townspeople that place enormous pressure on the kids to win the state championship.

But while there are moments of inspiration, Bissinger and Berg's unflinching portrayal of the people of Odessa is sure to stir the pot. It's an understatement to say that many of the residents of the economically-depressed town aren't exactly portrayed in a flattering light.

"The book was very controversial when it came out," Bissinger recalled in a recent @ The Movies interview. "The town of Odessa basically threatened me with bodily harm."

Berg prepared himself for some backlash for the film version a long time ago. And he wasn't worrying about the completed film and the reaction of it from the people of Odessa. He had to confront the issue with the town face-to-face because he felt it was an absolutely necessity that part of the film be shot there.

"The backlash has been surprisingly light considering what it could have been," Berg told me in a separate interview. "We went there because I wanted to film the movie in Odessa, and they were very skeptical and reluctant to give us permission, despite the fact that they knew we'd spend quite a bit of money in their community. The scars hadn't healed entirely from Bissinger's book and they were inclined to say no."

Berg did eventually get the town's blessing, but not before some thorough discussion.

"What I said to them is, 'Look, Buzz Bissinger is a Pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist and I'm not,'" Berg recalled. "'He was able to do things in a book that a feature film can't do. Maybe a documentary could, but I can't spend 45 minutes talking about the Permiam Oil Basin or the complexities of an issue like racism. To me, those are issues that you can't gloss over. To me, the movie is about the guys and about football, and I can't say those other issues won't be discussed.

"'But we're going to portray the football in a very intense way and some of the family relationships are going to be tough,'" Berg continued. "'But at the end of the day, it's not going to have the same visceral, sociological investigative tone that the book had.'"

As for the issue of parents and communities placing undue pressure on their kids for the sake of pride, Berg felt that Odessa wouldn't react harshly to their portrayal because the problem is a universal one.

"I certainly don't think that behavior is unique to Odessa, West Texas, or football as a whole," Berg said. "You'll even find it a Pee-Wee hockey game in Los Angeles. If you go to ice rinks, you'll see giant signs that tell parents that they are not allowed to speak to the ref or insult the other players, and if they do, they could be subject to criminal prosecution."

While Berg was focused in his assurances to the people of the Odessa, his greatest challenge laid ahead: He had to capture the essence of the book.

Adding to the pressure was a familial connection between the director and the author.

"I was excited when the movie rights were sold a long time ago, but when it was greenlighted for production I was nervous," Bissinger said. "You don't know what's going to be done with it. Then there was this extra-layer because Pete and I are second cousins."

But the mere fact that Bissinger and Berg are touring together to talk about the film speaks volumes about how the author feels about the final product.

"I think it captures the essential, most important elements and the underlying theme of the book, which is this incredible intensity and pressure being placed on these kids and what happens when this thing called high school sports becomes the center of one's existence," Bissinger said.

"He's a very smart guy and a very tough critic," Berg responded. "When I decided to do this film, I knew that he was going to be the first set of eyes to really see it -- and his opinion meant quite a bit to me and kept me on my toes. Something really could have torn us apart as cousins and I'm really thrilled that he's on the road with me now and supports the film so much. I can tell that he genuinely likes the film quite a bit."

But there was one more party to satisfy, Bissinger said: The Permian School Board. They recently flew to Los Angeles to screen "Friday Night Lights" with the filmmakers to decide whether they wanted to host a screening of the film in Odessa.

"The reaction made me happy," Berg recalled. "They were not smiling from ear to ear but they did really like the film and said it was fair and that they would host the screening. I thought to make Bissinger happy and them happy was quite an accomplishment. I was glad we pulled it off."

Lightning Speed

There's no question that "Friday Night Lights" quickly defines itself as a docudrama, with aggressive camera moves and quick edits that gives the film a feel of gritty realism. But with millions of dollars at stake at the beginning of the production, Berg knew that his approach would not be a slam-dunk with the film's studio, Universal.

"At first I thought that we should give it an aggressive look and make it look like a docudrama and their response was 'OK, that's great.' But then they started watching the dailies and they started getting nervous," Berg said.

Next, the filmmaker recalled, were the phone calls from studio people asking, "Can you slow it down a little bit? Is it going to be OK?"

"I said, 'It's going to be fine. When you start off on that style, you really can't turn back.' I was glad that they let me stay with it," Berg said. "They were a little bit nervous that the film would be a little bit too frenetic and off-putting -- and for some people it might be. But all in all I think that it works and they're happy with it."

Of course, Berg could have easily pit his ideas into perspective for the studio execs by referencing Oliver Stone's football opus "Any Given Sunday," but the filmmaker said that would have misrepresented his vision of the game.

"What Oliver Stone did with 'Any Given Sunday' was to get into middle of the game - he built rigs that he could mount onto players and took the camera inside the game," Berg observed. "But I didn't really want to do that. For me, if you try to give an audience an experience that they're not used to seeing every Sunday when they watch football, they know subconsciously that it's not real."

That's not to say that Berg didn't like Stone's film. In fact, he said it inspired "Friday Night Light's" sound design. But that's where the similarities end.

"What Oliver did was really interesting and I like a lot of it, but some of it took me out of the game," Berg said. "So we thought the best thing to do was hire NFL film cameramen and keep those cameras on the sidelines - and not break certain audience expectations."

Bissinger, meanwhile, was thrilled with the docudrama approach, and felt Berg's vision perfectly complimented his writing style.

"I write with a lot of emotional force and I think Pete used that style because he felt he wanted to capture the realness and authenticity of the book," Bissinger said. "He wanted to give viewers the sense that you are seeing something real because it's based on a real book."

And that strictly meant no sugar coating.

"You're not going to see something that has false, cheap sentiment," Bissinger added. "This is not 'Varsity Blues' or 'Remember the Titans,' which, for what it was, was a very good movie. But you're not going to hear a lot of violins or string music, and you're not going to see a lot of sepia tones in the photography. You're going to see something gritty, real and authentic, much like the book and much like the place."

While Universal was concerned with the pacing and documentary-style shooting of the film, they had to have taken comfort in the way Berg laced subtle moments within.

One telling shot that speaks volumes about Winchell's character, comes in a quiet, one-on one meeting at the quarterback's home with Coach Gaines. For a few brief seconds, Berg shows the player fumbling with a toy car in his hands: signifying the pent-up feelings of unduly pressured high school senior who clearly never had a chance to grow up.

"On the field, these kids are asked to play a very violent and dangerous sport at a very high level, and when they go home, they're still kids," Berg said. "If you go to these kids' homes, you'll find those toys in their rooms. They're still boys and they're not that far away from real boyish innocence, yet they're being asked to perform in a real intense way, especially in Odessa."