With the writers’ strike hopefully at close-to-resolution point in the US, we’ll still be showing solidarity by focusing on screenwriters in the Unsung Auteurs column. The sports movie genre is one of the maligned in cinema, often excoriated for telling simple stories based solely on concepts like winning against the odds and the underdog spirit that are framed in obvious work-up-to-the-big-game structures. But if you ponder the sports movie genre a little more thoughtfully, great titles instantly spring up: Rocky, Any Given Sunday, North Dallas Forty, The Karate Kid, This Sporting Life, Big Wednesday, Lords Of Dogtown, Downhill Racer, Rush…the list literally goes on and on and on. Though frequently pilloried by critics as corny and obvious, the sports movie genre is one wildly over-populated by excellent films.
Perhaps no screenwriter has concentrated more intently on the sports movie genre than Angelo Pizzo, who has literally not moved outside the field with his six big screen writing credits. Born in Wilmette, Illinois in 1948 to a pathologist and home-maker, Angelo Pizzo had no connections to the film industry, but was a big-time movie fan throughout his childhood and adolescence. After briefly considering a career in law, Pizzo took his father’s advice and opted to instead focus on the thing that he loved, which was cinema. Pizzo enrolled in the film school at The University Of Southern California (the launching for many talents, including George Lucas, Randall Kleiser and many more), with the eventual aim of entering the world of film school academia. Pizzo shifted into writing, however, when he received an opportunity to work in television, penning an episode of the popular soap opera Knots Landing, and then moving up the ladder at Warner Bros Television, eventually becoming Vice President of Feature Film Productions at Time-Life Films.
Angelo Pizzo with Gene Hackman on the set of Hoosiers.
Pizzo’s memories of his Indiana high school basketball led him to write his first motion-picture screenplay, Hoosiers. A wonderfully textured, beautifully drawn and characterised script deeply evocative of America’s 1950s heartland, 1986’s Hoosiers was directed on a low budget by Pizzo’s high school friend David Anspaugh, who made his debut after working consistently in television. Starring the brilliant Gene Hackman as a hard-nosed basketball coach battling a horde of inner demons who guides an unlikely high school team to the state championships, Hoosiers is terse, gritty and intensely authentic, with a brilliant, Oscar nominated supporting turn from Dennis Hopper as Hackman’s drunken assistant coach. Profoundly emotional and beautifully tailored, Hoosiers is rightly and frequently name-checked when the best basketball – and best sports in general – movies are discussed. It’s one of the best films of the 1980s, and it set up Angelo Pizzo’s unlikely career as a sports-themed storyteller.
Pizzo reunited with David Anspaugh for 1993’s Rudy, quite possibly the most truly underdog tale (next to Rocky) in the sports movie pantheon. In his key film role, Sean Astin plays real life figure Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, who dreams of playing football for Notre Dame University. Deemed too small and too slow, Rudy battles on relentless despite the negativity of sneering coaches and a slew of other obstacles, including being diagnosed for dyslexia. Such an underdog that his ambitions are just to rate as a “walk on” player, Rudy doesn’t score the winning touchdown or guide the team to victory, but his incredible attitude and vigorous tenacity endear him to the players around him. With a truly non-traditional sports movie hero at its heart, Rudy is a literal fist-pump of a movie.
Sean Astin in Rudy.
“If people are only drawn to a sports film because they appreciate that sport, or are rooting for a team, you’re counting on an audience that’s too small,” Angelo Pizzo once said of his approach to writing sports movies. “And you’re counting on the audience to project the rooting interest into someone who just wears the uniform. They have to connect to the human dilemmas and human issues that your protagonists are struggling with. That’s the key to success for any film. You feel their pain, and you feel their happiness, their joy. If you connect with somebody through their vulnerabilities, insecurities, or blind spots, that connection is how you feel about yourself, oftentimes. When there is a dramatic success or victory, you feel enlarged; you feel hopeful.”
Proving that it’s not really about the sport, Pizzo’s next film was based around the game of soccer, and like his other efforts, was built more on character than game play. Again directed by his friend David Anspaugh, 2005’s The Game Of Their Lives followed the 1950 US soccer team’s 1-0 defeat of powerhouse England in The World Cup. Another underdog story of the first order, The Game Of Their Lives benefits immeasurably from Pizzo’s gift for characterisation (helped by solid performances from Gerard Butler, Wes Bentley and, yes, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale) and Anspaugh’s low-key directorial bent. Though rarely discussed, The Game Of Their Lives is a strong sports drama.
Angelo Pizzo with Aaron Eckhart and Finn Wittrock on the set of My All American.
With his sports movie credentials well and truly locked, Angelo Pizzo made his directorial debut in 2015 with the rousing My All American, the story of real-life football player Freddie Steinmark, whose promising career was cut short when he was tragically diagnosed with cancer. With Finn Wittrock a delight in the lead role and Aaron Eckhart superb as famed player turned coach Darrell Royal, My All American highly effectively details Steinmark’s many battles against the odds to make it in the world of college football. Though not exactly favourited by critics, My All American is an undeniably conservative but still deeply moving and emotional experience.
Pizzo received a story credit on the 2016 boxing pic Bleed For This, which was written and directed by Ben Younger (Boiler Room, Prime), and tells the raggedly upbeat story of fighter Vinnie Pazienza (Miles Teller) who makes an incredible comeback after recovering from a horrific car crash. Pizzo was a co-writer on 2023’s Christian-themed The Hill, the story of real-life baseball player Rickey Hill (Colin Ford), who overcame major obstacles to make it in Major League Baseball. With a project set around the 1911 inaugural running of the Indianapolis 500 allegedly in the works for Angelo Pizzo, this gifted, sports-mad but decidedly unsung writer’s winning streak looks set to continue.
If you liked this story, check out our features on other unsung auteurs John & Joyce Corrington, Robert Dillon, Irene Kamp, Albert Maltz, Nancy Dowd, Barry Michael Cooper, Gladys Hill, Walon Green, Eleanor Bergstein, William W. Norton, Helen Childress, Bill Lancaster, Lucinda Coxon, Ernest Tidyman, Shauna Cross, Troy Kennedy Martin, Kelly Marcel, Alan Sharp, Leslie Dixon, Jeremy Podeswa, Ferd & Beverly Sebastian, Anthony Page, Julie Gavras, Ted Post, Sarah Jacobson, Anton Corbijn, Gillian Robespierre, Brandon Cronenberg, Laszlo Nemes, Ayelat Menahemi, Ivan Tors, Amanda King & Fabio Cavadini, Cathy Henkel, Colin Higgins, Paul McGuigan, Rose Bosch, Dan Gilroy, Tanya Wexler, Clio Barnard, Robert Aldrich, Maya Forbes, Steven Kastrissios, Talya Lavie, Michael Rowe, Rebecca Cremona, Stephen Hopkins, Tony Bill, Sarah Gavron, Martin Davidson, Fran Rubel Kuzui, Elliot Silverstein, Liz Garbus, Victor Fleming, Barbara Peeters, Robert Benton, Lynn Shelton, Tom Gries, Randa Haines, Leslie H. Martinson, Nancy Kelly, Paul Newman, Brett Haley, Lynne Ramsay, Vernon Zimmerman, Lisa Cholodenko, Robert Greenwald, Phyllida Lloyd, Milton Katselas, Karyn Kusama, Seijun Suzuki, Albert Pyun, Cherie Nowlan, Steve Binder, Jack Cardiff, Anne Fletcher ,Bobcat Goldthwait, Donna Deitch, Frank Pierson, Ann Turner, Jerry Schatzberg, Antonia Bird, Jack Smight, Marielle Heller, James Glickenhaus, Euzhan Palcy, Bill L. Norton, Larysa Kondracki, Mel Stuart, Nanette Burstein, George Armitage, Mary Lambert, James Foley, Lewis John Carlino, Debra Granik, Taylor Sheridan, Laurie Collyer, Jay Roach, Barbara Kopple, John D. Hancock, Sara Colangelo, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Joyce Chopra, Mike Newell, Gina Prince-Bythewood, John Lee Hancock, Allison Anders, Daniel Petrie Sr., Katt Shea, Frank Perry, Amy Holden Jones, Stuart Rosenberg, Penelope Spheeris, Charles B. Pierce, Tamra Davis, Norman Taurog, Jennifer Lee, Paul Wendkos, Marisa Silver, John Mackenzie, Ida Lupino, John V. Soto, Martha Coolidge, Peter Hyams, Tim Hunter, Stephanie Rothman, Betty Thomas, John Flynn, Lizzie Borden, Lionel Jeffries, Lexi Alexander, Alkinos Tsilimidos, Stewart Raffill, Lamont Johnson, Maggie Greenwald and Tamara Jenkins.
