Remember the Titans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
Remember the Titans
Remember the titansposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBoaz Yakin
Produced byJerry Bruckheimer
Chad Oman
Written byGregory Allen Howard
Starring
Music byTrevor Rabin
CinematographyPhilippe Rousselot
Edited byMichael Tronick
Production
company
Distributed byBuena Vista Pictures
Release date
  • September 29, 2000
Running time
113 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$30 million[1]
Box office$136.7 million[1]
Remember the Titans is a 2000 American biographical sports drama film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Boaz Yakin. The screenplay, written by Gregory Allen Howard, is based on the true story of African-American coach Herman Boone, portrayed by Denzel Washington, and his attempt to integrate the T. C. Williams High School football team in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1971. Will Patton portrays Bill Yoast, Boone's assistant coach. Real-life athletes Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell are portrayed by Ryan Hurst and Wood Harris, respectively.
The film was co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films and released by Buena Vista Pictures. On September 29, 2000, the film's soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records. It features songs by several recording artists including Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Hollies, Marvin Gaye, James Taylor, The Temptations, and Cat Stevens.
Remember the Titans had a budget of $30 million and premiered in theaters nationwide in the United States on September 29, 2000. It has grossed an estimated $115,654,751 in the U.S., and $136,706,683 worldwide.

Plot[edit]

In July 1971, at the desegregated T. C. Williams High School, a black head coach, Herman Boone, is hired to coach the school's football team. Boone is assigned to the coaching team under current coach Bill Yoast, nominated for the Virginia High School Hall of Fame. In an attempt to placate rising racial tensions and the fact that all other high schools are "white" only, Boone is assigned the head coach job. He refuses believing it is unfair to Yoast, but relents after seeing what it means to the black community. Yoast is then offered an assistant coach's job by the school board and initially refuses, but reconsiders after the white players pledge to boycott the team if he does not participate. Dismayed at the prospect of the students losing their chances at scholarships, Yoast changes his mind and takes up the position of defensive coordinator under Boone.
The black students have a meeting in the gymnasium in auditioning to play for the team until Boone arrives, but the meeting turns into a fiasco when Yoast and white students interrupt. On August 15, 1971, the players gather and journey to Gettysburg College, where their training camp takes place. As their days of training camp progress, black and white football team members frequently clash in racially motivated conflicts, including some between captains Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell. But after forceful coaching and rigorous athletic training by Boone, which includes an early morning run to the Gettysburg cemetery, and a motivational speech, the team achieves racial harmony and success. After returning from football camp, Boone is told by a member of the school board that if he loses even a single game, he will be dismissed. Subsequently, the Titans go through the season undefeated while battling racial prejudice, before slowly gaining support from the community. Gerry even has his best friend Ray removed from the team because of his racism, following a game where he intentionally missed a block which consequently led to the near-season-ending injury of starting quarterback Jerry "Rev" Harris.
Just before the state semi-finals, Yoast is told by the chairman of the school board that he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame after the Titans lose one game, implying he wants Boone to be dismissed over his race. During the game, it becomes apparent that the referees are biased against the Titans. Upon seeing the chairman and other board members in the audience looking on with satisfaction, Yoast realizes they've rigged the game and warns the head official that he will go to the press and expose the scandal unless the game is officiated fairly. The Titans nonetheless win and advance to the state championship, but Yoast is told by the chairman that his actions have resulted in his loss of candidacy for Hall of Fame induction.
While celebrating the victory, Bertier is severely injured in a car accident with a truck after driving through an intersection. Although Bertier is unable to play due to being paralyzed from the waist down, the team goes on to win the state championship. Bertier would remain a paraplegic for the rest of his life. Ten years later, Bertier dies in another automobile accident caused by a drunk driver, after winning the gold medal in shot put in the Paralympic Games. Coaches and other former teammates reunite to attend his funeral.
In the epilogue, descriptions show the players’ and coaches’ activities after the events in 1971.

Cast[edit]

Production[edit]

Filming[edit]

Filming locations for the motion picture included the campus of Berry College in Rome, GA, as well as in Atlanta, Georgia,[2] including Henry Grady High School and Druid Hills High School which both filled in for T.C. Williams High School.

Historical accuracy[edit]

As with any movie that is not a documentary film but is rather "based on a true story", it has strayed from the actual events that had occurred on many occasions to add new elements of teamwork, commitment, and friendship to the film.
  • Coach Boone may not have been as inspirational a coach as Washington portrays in the movie; in interviews, many former Titans football players said they believed his coaching strategies had no correlation to their success, and were indeed too harsh, causing some players to quit.[3]
  • It is fully true that the Titans were ranked second in the nation at the end of the 1971 season, finishing 13–0 with 9 of those wins being shutouts.[4]
  • In the movie, Coach Boone states, "We are not like all the other schools in this conference, they're all white. They don't have to worry about race. We do." This is false as well; all the schools the Titans faced were integrated years before.
  • While the team is at camp, it shows Coach Boone waking them up at three in the morning to go for a run. This did not occur; neither did his speech at Gettysburg.[4] The team did go on a tour in Gettysburg, although it was not as dramatic as portrayed in the film.
  • Ronnie "Sunshine" Bass was far from being the only one with long hair at the time. Even Gerry Bertier had long hair. But in interviews Bass said "I'll say for the record my hair was never that long." He also says the kiss with Gerry never happened.
  • The climax of the movie is a fictionalized 1971 AAA state championship football game between T. C. Williams and George C. Marshall High School. The dramatic license taken in the movie was to convert what was actually a mid-season match-up between T. C. Williams and Marshall into a made-for-Hollywood state championship. In reality, the Marshall game was the toughest game T. C. Williams played all year. As depicted in the movie, the real Titans won the Marshall game on a fourth down come-from-behind play at the very end of the game. The actual state championship (against Andrew Lewis High School of Salem) was a 27–0 blowout, played at Victory Stadium in Roanoke, VA. [5]
  • Bertier's car accident took place on December 11, 1971, after (rather than a few days before) the season-ending State Championship game. Bertier had been at a banquet honoring the team for their undefeated season. After the banquet, Bertier borrowed his mother's new 1971 Chevrolet Camaro. Bertier lost control of the Camaro and crashed (the movie shows him getting broadsided). The cause of the accident was determined to be a mechanical failure in the engine mount.[5]
  • The "where are they now", shown during the film's closing credits, omits the fact that Sheryl Yoast died in 1996 at the age of 34 and that she was not an only child as she had three sisters. Her oldest sister Bonnie was in college, her second oldest Angela went to a different high school, and her younger sister Deidre was only three years old in 1971.

Music[edit]

On September 19, 2000, the soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records. The film score was orchestrated by musician Trevor Rabin and features music composed by various artists. From the instrumental score, Rabin's track "Titans Spirit", was the only cue (of the 12 composed) added to the soundtrack. It is also the only piece of music on the soundtrack album not to have been previously released.
"Titans Spirit" was a seven-minute instrumental. It has been used on numerous sports telecasts, particularly those on NBC, which utilized the score during its closing credits for the Salt Lake 2002, Athens 2004, Torino 2006, Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010, London 2012, and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games as well in 2002 with the final closing credits montage ending their 12-year run of NBA coverage. The song was also played as veteran New York Mets players crossed home plate during the closing ceremonies at Shea Stadium, and as the New York Yankees were awarded their rings from their 2009 World Series championship. The New Jersey Devils also used this song during the jersey number retirement ceremonies for Scott Stevens, Ken Daneyko, Scott Niedermayer, Martin Brodeur and Patrik Eliáš. In 2018, at the conclusion of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the song was used during the Washington Capitals Stanley Cup celebration as captain Alex Ovechkin lifted the cup in Las Vegas.
It was also used during the 2008 Democratic National Convention to accompany the celebration and fireworks at Invesco Field after future president Barack Obama gave his nomination acceptance speech, and was also used immediately following his victory speech upon winning the 2008 Presidential Election.[6]

Soundtrack[edit]

Remember the Titans: An Original Walt Disney Motion Picture Soundtrack
Film score by Various Artists
ReleasedSeptember 19, 2000
GenreR&B, pop rock
Length46:21
LabelWalt Disney
Remember the Titans: An Original Walt Disney Motion Picture Soundtrack
No.TitleLength
1."Ain't No Mountain High Enough"2:23
2."Spirit in the Sky"4:02
3."Peace Train"4:08
4."Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"4:05
5."Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress"3:17
6."I Want to Take You Higher"2:44
7."Up Around the Bend"2:42
8."Spill the Wine"4:05
9."A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"5:10
10."Act Naturally"2:21
11."Express Yourself"3:53
12."Titans Spirit"7:25
Total length:46:21

Release[edit]

Home media[edit]

Following its release in theaters, the Region 1 widescreen and Pan and scan edition of the motion picture was released on DVD in the United States on March 20, 2001.[7] A Special Edition widescreen format of the film was released on March 20, 2001, along with a widescreen Director's cut on March 14, 2006.[8]
A restored widescreen hi-definition Blu-ray version was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on September 4, 2007. Special features include backstage feature audio commentary with director Boaz Yakin, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and writer Gregory Allen Howard, feature audio commentary with real-life coaches Herman Boone and Bill Yoast, "Remember The Titans: An inspirational journey behind the scenes" hosted by Lynn Swann, "Denzel Becomes Boone," "Beating The Odds"; Deleted scenes; Movie Showcase and seamless menus.[9]

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

Remember the Titans opened strongly at the U.S. box office, grossing $26,654,715 in its first weekend and staying within the top five for six weeks.[10] It eventually went on to gross an estimated $115,654,751 in the U.S., and $136,706,684 worldwide.[1]

Critical response[edit]

Among mainstream critics in the U.S., Remember the Titans received generally positive reviews.[11] Rotten Tomatoes reported that 73% of 132 sampled critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 6.3 out of 10.[12] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average out of 100 to critics' reviews, the film received a score of 48 based on 32 reviews.[11] CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade.[13]
Writing for The New York Times, A. O. Scott said that "aside from a handful of tense showdowns at the line of scrimmage, there's not much else to see — is washed in on the flood tide of a thousand violins."[14] James Berardinelli writing for ReelViews, called the film "relentlessly manipulative and hopelessly predictable" but noted that it was "a notch above the average entry in part because its social message (even if it is soft-peddled) creates a richer fabric than the usual cloth from which this kind of movie is cut."[15] Describing some pitfalls, Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer said that "beneath its rah-rah rhetoric and pigskin proselytizing, it's no more provocative or thoughtful than a Hallmark Hall of Fame film or, for that matter, a Hallmark greeting card. Its heart is in the right place, but it has no soul."[16] Wilonsky however was quick to admit "The film's intentions are noble, but its delivery is ham-fisted and pretentious; you can't deny the message, but you can loathe the messenger without feeling too guilty about it."[16]
'Remember the Titans' has the outer form of a brave statement about the races in America, but the soul of a sports movie in which everything is settled by the obligatory last play in the last seconds of the championship game.
“
”
—Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times[17]
Todd McCarthy, writing in Variety, said, "As simplistic and drained of complexity as the picture is, it may well appeal to mainstream audiences as an 'if only it could be like this' fantasy, as well as on the elemental level of a boot camp training film, albeit a PG-rated one with all the cuss words removed."[18] Roger Ebert, in the Chicago Sun-Times, viewed the film as "a parable about racial harmony, yoked to the formula of a sports movie," adding, "Victories over racism and victories over opposing teams alternate so quickly that sometimes we're not sure if we're cheering for tolerance or touchdowns. Real life is never this simple, but then that's what the movies are for".[17]
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle wrote that the film reminds the viewer that "it's possible to make a sentimental drama that isn't sickening —  and a sports movie that transcends cliches."[19] Columnist Bob Grimm of the Sacramento News & Review, somewhat praised the film, writing, "The film is quite lightweight for the subject matter, but Washington and company make it watchable."[20] Some detractors like Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Denzel Washington should have held out for a better script before he signed on to star in Remember the Titans, but you can see why he wanted to do the movie: He gets to play Martin Luther King Jr. and Vince Lombardi rolled into one nostalgically omnipotent tough-love saint."[21] Jeff Vice of the Deseret News admitted that although the film contained dialogue that was "corny, clichéd, and downright cheesy at times," as well as how it relayed its message in one of the "most predictable, heavy-handed manners we've seen in a movie in years", the film "serves as a reminder of how much goodness there is inside people, just waiting for the right person to bring it out." He also viewed the casting as top-notch, saying that it helped to have a "rock-solid foundation in the form of leading-man Denzel Washington" at the helm.[22]

Accolades[edit]

The film was nominated and won several awards in 2000–2001.
AwardCategoryNomineeResult
2001 Angel AwardsSilver Angel————Nominated
BET Awards 2001Best ActorDenzel WashingtonWon
2001 BMI Film & TV AwardsFilm Music AwardTrevor RabinWon
Black Reel Awards of 2001Best ActorDenzel WashingtonWon
Best ScreenplayGregory Allen HowardWon
Best FilmJerry Bruckheimer, Chad OmanNominated
2001 Blockbuster Entertainment AwardsFavorite Actor - DramaDenzel WashingtonNominated
Favorite Supporting Actor - DramaWood HarrisNominated
2001 Casting Society of America AwardsBest Casting for Feature Film - DramaRonna KressNominated
2001 NAACP Image AwardsOutstanding Actor in a Motion PictureDenzel WashingtonWon
Outstanding Motion Picture————Won
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion PictureWood HarrisNominated
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion PictureNicole Ari ParkerNominated
Outstanding Youth Actor/ActressKrysten Leigh JonesNominated
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards 2000Best Male NewcomerKip PardueNominated
Youth in FilmHayden PanettiereNominated
2001 Motion Picture Sound Editors AwardsBest Sound Editing - Dialogue & ADRRobert L. Sephton, Christopher T. Welch, Julie Feiner, Cindy Marty, Gaston Biraben, Suhail KafityNominated
Best Sound Editing - MusicWill KaplanNominated
Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards 2000Best Performance by a Youth in a Leading or Supporting RoleHayden PanettiereNominated
2001 Political Film Society AwardsHuman Rights————Won
Exposé————Nominated
Golden Satellite Awards 2000Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture DramaDenzel WashingtonNominated
2001 Teen Choice AwardsFilm - Choice Drama/Action Adventure————Nominated
22nd Young Artist AwardsBest Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young ActressHayden PanettiereWon
Best Family Feature Film - Drama————Nominated
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Remember the Titans". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2010-08-15.
  2. Jump up^ "Remember the Titans Production Details". Yahoo! Movies. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  3. Jump up^ McKenna, Dave (2014-07-29). "Remember The Titans Is A Lie, And This Man Still Wants You To Know It". Deadspin. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b The Titans had a solid football team for many years after 1971 and won most of their games by large margins. "Remember the Titans True Story - Real Gerry Bertier, Bill Yoast, Herman Boone". ChasingtheFrog.com. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b Rose, Tom (November 24, 2002). "This legendary football coach won't forget the Titans". Observer-Reporter. Washington, MA. p. C1.
  6. Jump up^ "Barack Obama Wins Big: 'Change Has Come to America'". Time. November 4, 2008.
  7. Jump up^ "Remember the Titans (2000) - DVD Widescreen". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2013-03-06.
  8. Jump up^ "Remember the Titans All Available Formats & Editions". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2013-03-06.
  9. Jump up^ "Remember the Titans Blu-Ray". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2013-03-06.
  10. Jump up^ "Remember the Titans (2000) Weekly". BoxOfficeMojo.com. Retrieved 2013-03-06.
  11. ^ Jump up to:a b Remember the Titans. Metacritic. CNET Networks. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  12. Jump up^ Remember the Titans (2000). Rotten Tomatoes. IGN Entertainment. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  13. Jump up^ http://www.thewrap.com/movies-you-loved-or-hated-films-got-or-f-cinemascores-photos-90331/19/
  14. Jump up^ Scott, A.O. (29 September 2000). How the Goal Line Came To Replace the Color Line. The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  15. Jump up^ Berardinelli, James (September 2000). Remember the Titans. ReelViews. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  16. ^ Jump up to:a b Wilonsky, Robert (28 September 2000). Clash of the Titans. Dallas Observer. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  17. ^ Jump up to:a b Ebert, Roger (29 September 2000). Remember the Titans. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  18. Jump up^ McCarthy, Todd (24 September 2000). Remember the Titans. Variety. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  19. Jump up^ Lasalle, Mick (29 September 2000). Gaining Ground / Sport bridges racial divide with a minimum of cliches in Remember the Titans. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  20. Jump up^ Grimm, Bob (19 July 2001). Remember the Titans. Sacramento News & Review. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  21. Jump up^ Gleiberman, Owen (6 October 2000). Remember the Titans. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  22. Jump up^ Jeff, Vice (27 June 2002). Remember the Titans. Deseret News. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  23. Jump up^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-14.

External links[edit]