Remember The Titans : Movie Review

In Remember the Titans we witness Coach Boone fighting for civil rights, signifying the image of an outsider integrating into a foreign white team as their coach. Director Boaz Yakin, uses techniques to strengthen Coach Boone’s character where the initial hate and disrespect towards him succours the development of a meaningful arc. The disrespect and aggression is employed when a brick is thrown through his house window, threatening him with the derogatory coloured comments calling him “Coach Coon”. The pressure of quitting was not felt and heroically he encompasses the journey with Yakin emphasising Boones evocative discipline and determination forcing integration amongst the segregated football team. This technique is employed when we witness Coach Boone stepping up, pushing equality for the players in a determined strike to stop racial abuse for good. His actions initiate the forced building of friendship and acceptance when he forces both races to get to know and accept each other at the camp. Yakin heightens the themes of overcoming racism when Boone rallies the troops together to support their team mate during a sad time. Instinctively, the implicit segregation is evoked further bringing unity to the team, Coach Boone emerges as a ‘hero’ to both the coloured and white community.

In this stage a person tries to figure out who they are but sometimes they get confused to which of the possible roles they should adopt. Gary is confused at which his role and stuck in role confusion. He does not seem to know or care what is identity is. His respond to most things is a shrug is any response is given. When Julie moves out and he is told by Julie that she is moving out his response is a simple “bye” with no emotion. Gary is searching for who he is supposed to be by not socializing with his mother or anyone else and by trying to defy everything that is expected of him. The call to his father is a something that he thinks that will help him find himself by getting to know his father. After being denied his father he ransacks his father’s office now denying that part of his life and in a way saying that he does not want to become his father.

They recruit guys from soccer, basketball, a farm and even other football teams to come and play for them. Lengyel has a new vision for Marshall, and calls them the “Young Thundering Herd.” Jack is the person to do things that most coaches wouldn’t do because that just in his personality. As a result he seeks out help from Bobby Bowden, the coach of the University of West Virginia. Jack asks him “if He and Dawson can see the coaches’ videos, plays, and handbooks and even if he had any tips for them.” Bowden laughs at first and asks “if Jack was serious…” He then see that the men are serious and allows them to view the tapes, rules, handbooks and anything else they wanted. He does this because Bowden understands that a team is in grief and confusion. When this happens Dawson’s disbelief that he had about the team and Jack trying to help changes and he becomes a little bit more optimistic about the future of Marshall and the town.

Leaving the Movie Theater examines semiotics (the study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behavior; the analysis of systems of communication, as language, gestures, or clothing. dictionary.com) in popular culture and how it affects individuals in society. Barthes uses denotations, connotations, rhetorical questions, repetition, and alliteration to unveil hidden messages surrounding us in everyday life. In the essay, the rhetorical question “What does the “darkness” of the cinema mean?”, emerges as Barthes investigates the elements surrounding movie theater. Rather than seeking an actual answer, rhetorical questions are used to make points. In this case, he questions what the “Darkness” represents. The denotation of “darkness:

The team was ready to come back home after all the hard practices at camp. The town still didn't accept the fact that these two races were going to play on the same team. The parents of some of the players didn't like it, and the town didn't like it. On top of that, Coach Boone had to win every game. If

The movie Remember the Titans takes place in Virginia. The year was when there were no racial mixings in the schools. The movie starts practically the day that the announcement of desegregation was going to come into action.

In the beginning of the movie, Coach Boone had to build ethos for himself because of racial differences. Coach Boone, being of African American descent, was hired over their current caucasian coach and this caused the white football players to boycott the team until Coach Yoast became their assistant coach. Coach Boone lead his team by example and his dedication to his craft. He showed the players that he did not care about what color you wore on your skin, but of the sport that brought them together. During his speech he states “I don’t care if you like each other or not. But you will respect each other. And maybe, I don’t know, maybe we’ll learn to play this game like men” (Boone). He uses the built trust aspect of ethos very well to close this speech.

In the begging of the film, Herman Boone which is Denzel Washington was brought in as an assistant coach to join the all-white coaching team. Couple days later, because of high school rule Coach Boone had to be a head coach. But at first he was unwilling to take the offer the head coaching job at first because same things had happened to him when a white coach was selected as head coach over him in South Carolina. In this scene you can tell Coach Boone respects everybody and not hating people. But soon He finally accepts the head coach when he sees that the black people lived in the town saw him as a symbol of pride and hope because he could be the one could overcome the racism in the town. When he talks with coach Yoast, coach Yoast was worried because his white kids won’t start the football team but Boone told him “I aint going to cut them and eat them. Best player will play color won’t matter”. In this sentence he doesn’t care black or white or not, he wants to best player to win the games

In the movie, Coach Boone is a master motivator. He does an excellent job of energizing his players, sustaining the motivation, directing the motivation to the right players at the right time, and also knowing when to stop motivating. The satisfaction progression hypothesis is also displayed in the movie. Coach Boone knows that the small things, such as making the routine plays in the game, must be done first before the main goal can be achieved, winning the game. He also has a high expectancy of his team. He believes that the effort of his team will lead to performance and that the performance will lead to results. He expects his team to practice just as hard as they play in the game. Julius Campbell and Gary Bertier, the two main characters on the team, are also excellent motivators. They get their teammates pumped up before and during the game.

In this movie only one main hero could articulate his vision strong enough and frequently to make other people change and transform their attitude, and it was coach Boone. He used a lot of “we” in his motivational talks to the team, for example,

This pursuit of an undefeated season itself is symbolic of a message that success can be achieved through racial integration. Once again the driving factors behind the success of the team is the relationship we see between Julius and Gary. By constantly having this foundation to fall back on in times of difficulty the overall team comradery stays well completely in tact. The audience is able to see how Julius and Gary conduct themselves when they call team meetings where they are the sole ones talking about overcoming their difficulties. This is yet another straight forward attempt by the film to create these two individuals as signs of the racial integration and progressive

Boone and his family face horrible experiences when moving to Alexandria. When moving to the neighborhood, many neighbors were so upset but many were also happy that he didn’t back down. He was offered the head coach position but turned it down because he felt it would be incredibly disrespectful to Coach Yoast. Boone & Yoast agreed to make the relationship work. The African American students meet with Coach Boone in the gym, the meeting turns into a disaster when Coach Yoast and the white students arrive and disturb the meeting. Gerry Bertier was one of the students among the crowd of white students to interrupt. “I’m Gerry Bertier. I’m the only All-America you got on this team. If you want us to play for you, you reserve over half the positions …we don’t need any of your people on defense we’re already set.” said by Gary Bertier to Coach Boone. Boone makes it clear that all players will be on the team regardless of the color of their skin.

Teams become a brotherhood, the comradery is unmatched in a regular social setting, and the best teams are almost always the most cohesive. The Huskers start the season on shaky ground with two players quitting within the first practice, only for one of them to return shortly thereafter. After the players realize that Coach Norman Dale has their respective backs things do start to turn towards a positive direction, chemistry wise. At one point in the movie, a kid from a team that Hickory is playing is egregiously disrespectful towards Coach Dale, and the bond between the players and their coach takes over and a fight ensues. Although fighting would generally seem a bad show of character, this situation shows that this team is starting to click as a cohesive unit. Even the son of Shooter, who had previously been irate about his father being brought on to coach, it becomes obvious that even a bond between them is starting to appear once again. Additionally, as the town bears down on Coach Dale the team stands by their coach, and wants to show solidarity with him. In yet another showing of confidence within the team, in a game where the short-handed Huskers found themselves even more short-handed they had to rely on Ollie to play in an important moment. Ollie when Norman Dale took over at the first practice didn’t even consider himself a member of the team because of his small stature. Coach Dale put him in the game and his patience was tested with a handful of poor plays but then he was sent to the free throw line for two free throws down one point. Coach Norman Dale showed his belief in Ollie in the huddle before the free throws by saying “After Ollie makes both free throws” to run back on

This was apparent when, upon boarding the busses to training camp, he noticed that the players had segregated themselves between each bus. Coach Hines made them get off the bus and board the busses as offense and defense, racially integrated. His values, like Coach Boone’s, were consistent with respect, integrity, loyalty and teamwork for those with whom he worked as well as with the players whom he coached.

Tom Blaine is a student at Brookdale studying film and communication. His interest in film and literature all started when he was a kid with his father. Tom described his father as a “move buff”, having collected a wide variety of old films, like Star Wars. They would lie on the couch, watching the