Friday Night Lights Analysis

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The movie “Friday Night Lights” is based on a real life best seller “Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and a Dream”, by author H.G. Bissinger. The movie’s setting takes place at Permian High School in Odessa, Texas in 1988 when the tension between races were still strong in some areas of the south. There is some focus in some areas of the film that has to do with racial tension and the ongoing conflict between the student body and the city as a whole. Even though desegregation had happened by the time the book was written and the film was made, the schools at times were still racially divided. I also felt the movie showed how this football program exploited their black athletes. Of interest to me was, the film’s following of the two main …show more content…
Football is a monumental event in Texas. I have noted it while visiting my sister who now lives in Texas. When I chose this movie to report on and analyze, I was astounded to find during my research regarding the truthfulness of the movie, that a local affiliate pre-empted a Major League Baseball playoff game when the Permian and Midland Lee game was played. This indeed goes to prove the lengths in which Texas treasures …show more content…
The cinematography was outstanding. The film footage of the town and bleak surroundings and empty Texas plains certainly put me in the midst of the film and helped me feel those same feelings as the players may have. Through their football athleticism they are each searching for their way to get out of town and football is portrayed was a way to do it for them. In the end, I really liked how New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott concludes in his review, “ "Friday Night Lights" is uplifting and troubling, partly because it is more honest than most sports movies about the high cost and short life span of high school football glory. Perhaps the most moving part of this film comes at the end, after the big game, when we learn that the real-life members of the 1988 Permian team, who had been heroes, martyrs and scapegoats in adolescence, grew up to be land surveyors, construction workers and insurance salesmen” (Scott).
Where, “Hope comes alive” as the film’s tag

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