Research Paper On Friday Night Lights

Peter Berg is an award winning director who has his own crazy style, but before he entered the film industry, he went to school at Macalester College, intending to play hockey. But then he discovered film and decided to be a world famous director. Not only is he a director, he is also a producer, writer, and actor. He first found work in the film industry as an actor. He his most remembered as an actor through his role as Dr. Billy Kronk on Chicago Hope. Since then, Berg has moved on to producing episodes of Friday Night Lights and the movies Hercules, Hell or High Water, and many others. He has also directed movies such as Friday Night Lights, Hancock, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day. As a director, he is said to be quite the character,

of his coworkers might even say he’s a couple clicks off center. But that’s just Peter Berg.
Friday Night Lights is a movie directed by Peter Berg in 2004.

It’s based off of the book “Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream”, which is based off of a true story. The movie follows a high school football team in Odessa, Texas. The movie also follows a few specific boys and their family struggles such as an abusive father or a sick mother. The team is treated like celebrities is the small, struggling town. The team is expected to win the state championship, but along the way, their running back gets an unfortunate knee injury and can no longer carry the team. The movie portrays the team losing hope after every lost football game. But they come together and fight hard to make it to the championship. The boys sadly lose, but they played strong, and the coach learns that win or lose, they are still a

team.
Friday Night Lights is classified as a classicist film. It illustrates a true story about real people. It focuses on reality and actual society. Throughout the movie, the viewer is taken through the town at different moments, showing local stores, restaurants, and neighborhoods in Odessa, Texas. This gives an authentic feel to the movie, adding to the classicist classification. Along with the setting, the characters are centered around the original players of the team that specific year. At the end, as each character is shown, the viewer reads a short summary of what his life is like today. By adding this to the movie, Berg gives the audience a sense of closure as the classicist film ends.
Berg’s style in Friday Night Lights could be considered as serious and structured. He doesn’t incorporate many comical parts; many of the elements of the movie, like an abusive father, resonates with viewers and is a sensitive topic. The movie has detailed shots of each football game leading up to the state championship. Each of these shots are well structured and thought out, with smooth transitions and cuts. Much like Hancock, Berg tugs at the feelings of the viewers by developing the true meaning of family while showing how Mike Winchell takes care of his family, and Coach Gary Gaines values time with his wife and daughter. This contributes to the serious style of the film.
Berg’s way of focusing the camera is unique, and this can be seen in Hancock and Deepwater Horizon. He often focuses the shot, then makes it unclear, the refocuses it. One scene in Friday Night Lights, some of the players are at the restaurant Buddy Burger. Berg will ofcus on one character, and the blur out that character, transferring the dominant of the image to a different player. By doing this, he is able to introduce the audience to the characters on a personal level, allowing them to experience each major player. He also is known to focus the camera through things. For instance, in Friday Night Lights, he focuses the camera through players’ masks during multiple games. Or when people are in buildings in the movie, he focuses through windows. The audience is able to see through the window, but they can also see the reflection of Odessa, Texas, which is a way that Berg helps the viewer familiarize themselves with the town.
Another prominent film technique Berg uses in Friday Night Lights is slow motion shots.

He adds a few kind of theses shots in Deepwater Horizon as well. But in the Friday Night Lights, every football game shows slow motion shots of the team sticking by each other sides, of the crowd cheering them on, of their parents supporting them, and of their coaches rooting for them. When the team enters what seems like a losing streak, slow motion is used, and the viewer hits rock bottom with team. The team and the audience begin to lose hope, yearning for a win. And in the end, Berg shows a slow motion shot of the coach walking away from the lost state championship. The audience can sympathize with him at this part because Berg does an awesome job at allowing the audience to relate to the

coach.
Wesley Morris, a critic from the Boston Globe, praises Friday Night Lights. He claims that while the movie is a feel good sports movie, it does a great job portraying “ testosterone, and the game itself” and teamwork (Morris). He thinks the actors take on the role of the characters so well that you forget that they are being forced to act. He sums up the movie by saying “it also bears something you rarely experience in a football movie. Friday Night Lights has a soul” (Morris).
Not a lot of well known critics had negative things to discuss regarding Friday Night Lights. So in comparison to Morris, Sean Daly thinks that the movie is both “ is both a poignant celebration and a chilly condemnation of the high school gridiron as God's country.”One of his few criticisms was how obsessed the fans were with winning the state championship. He felt like this aspect of the movie made the characters more stressed than they actually would be in real life. He also thought that “The music might swell a little too loud during the big finish” but he understood the reasoning behind it (Daly).
Many claim Friday Night Lights to be one of Berg’s best movies, but unfortunately I have to disagree. It could very well be the genre of the movie, as I don’t particularly enjoy feel-good sports movies. I prefer explosions and fighting happening in movies. Now with that being said, I still loved the message the movie got across regarding message and never losing hope. But there was times that I was bored because I didn’t want to watch yet another montage of the players going to school, practice, and then their game. It was just a bit too repetitive for my liking and it wasn’t my genre of movie.