The mythos of the underdog sports drama is so thoroughly ingrained in our pop consciousness that the story presented in Undefeated, the Oscar-nominated documentary from filmmakers Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, may at first seem achingly familiar. A high-school football team from a poverty-stricken neighborhood, accustomed to playing the doormat to better-funded programs in surrounding towns, reverses its fortunes over the course of one remarkable season, and finds itself on the brink of the first playoff victory in the school’s 110-year history. Sounds like, oh, about a dozen movies we’ve seen before, no?
Indeed, Undefeated’s chronicle of the 2009 North Memphis Manassas Tigers’ improbable playoff run will inevitably invite comparisons to Friday Night Lights, The Blind Side and other such films because of its narrative’s highly cinematic arc. But Undefeated is different, because Undefeated is real. The triumphant victories, the crushing defeats – both on and off the field – all unfold sans the glossy sheen of a big-budget studio film.
It’s that authenticity, ultimately, that makes the Undefeated such a stirring experience. Whatever cynicism you bring to Undefeated – a cynicism bred by a thousand sports-movie clichés – you will find it steadily eroded by the likes of Bill Courtney, the coach who took it upon himself to lead a team that had known only futility and disarray, and players like Montrail "Money" Brown, Chavis Daniels, and O.C. Brown, who persevere in the face of tremendous obstacles.
Appropriately enough, Undefeated heads into this year’s Academy Awards as a longshot in the Best Documentary category. Anyone who’s seen the film, however, knows better that it would be unwise to count it out.
I recently sat down with Undefeated directors Lindsay and Martin to discuss their remarkable film as well as their Oscars experience thus far. In part one or our interview, they talk about moving to North Memphis, the challenge of condensing nine months worth of footage into a 112-minute film, and the dramatic evolution Undefeated’s story undertook during filming:
In part two of our interview, Martin and Lindsay talk about embracing Undefeated as a piece of entertainment – rather than some clinical verite piece – and bumping into Martin Scorcese and Steven Spielberg at the annual Oscars Nominee’s Luncheon:
Undefeated is now playing in select theaters.
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