Remember the Titans
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Remember the Titans is an American drama film released in 2000. It was directed by Boaz Yakin, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer for Walt Disney Pictures, and starred Denzel Washington as Coach Herman Boone. Remember the Titans centers on racial tensions in the football team of the newly integrated T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia.
The movie is based on actual events that took place in 1971, when T.C. Williams and the Titans won the state championship. However, the events depicted in the movie differ from history in many important respects.
The film also used many 1970s popular songs like Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" and Marvin Gaye's & Tammi Tarrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" on its soundtrack. Trevor Rabin composed the instrumental score, of which "Titan's Spirit" was the only cue added to the soundtrack; a 7 minute exploration of the movie's energetic themes.
Plot Summary
The film takes place in Alexandria, Virginia, sometime during the early 1970s, at a recently desegregated high school known as T.C. Williams. Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) is hired as Assistant Head coach for the school's football team, working under Head Coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton). In a move by the School Board, Boone becomes Head Coach and Yoast chooses not to become Assistant Head Coach, when offered by Boone, but changes his mind later on. The African-American and Caucasian members of the football team clash in racially-motivated conflicts on a few occasions throughout their time at football camp. But after forceful coaxing and team building efforts executed by Coach Boone, eventually the team manages to achieve some form of unity, as well as success. The main conflict is taken to a personal level by the portrayal of the conflict between Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) and Julius Campbell (Wood Harris), two players of equally outstanding athletic ability who at first can't stand one another but eventually become sworn brothers (the turning point of their relationship becomes a focal point for the team in its racially divided ways giving way to true unity). Upon return to school the runs through its regular season competition undefeated while battling the prejudicial influence of the rest of 1970's Virginia. Eventually, Bertier is involved in an automobile accident while celebrating one of the team's victories. While Bertier is unable to play in the final game due to his injuries (including paralysis), the team goes on to win the championship, and sets an example for the town. The team's excellence in its unity despite racial differences ultimately unites the city of Alexandria to find common ground with one another.
Cast
- Denzel Washington as Coach Herman Boone
- Will Patton as Coach Bill Yoast
- Wood Harris as Julius Campbell
- Ryan Hurst as Gerry Bertier
- Donald Faison as Petey Jones
- Craig Kirkwood as Jerry 'Rev' Harris
- Ethan Suplee as Louie Lastik
- Kip Pardue as Ronnie 'Sunshine' Bass
- Hayden Panettiere as Sheryl Yoast
- Nicole Ari Parker as Carol Boone
- Kate Bosworth as Emma Hoyt
- Earl Poitier as Blue Stanton (as Earl C. Poitier)
- Ryan Gosling as Alan Bosley
- Burgess Jenkins as Ray Budds
Trivia
- The film is made more accessible to non-fans of football by careful music editing - whenever the Titans complete a key play or turn the game in their favor, the music changes to upbeat rock.
- The original script was full of profanity but Disney, in an effort to produce a good family film, asked producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, to remove all extreme profanity from the script.
- Was filmed at Druid Hills High School[link], outside of Atlanta
- Just as in the movie, T.C. Williams trained at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. However, the exterior shots of buildings and monuments barely resemble those at Gettysburg College, despite "looking historical." No "on-location" filming took place at Gettysburg College.
- Boone leads his team on an early morning (approx. 3-4 AM) run through the woods on the battlefields to teach them a lesson about unity. In reality, it is illegal to be on the battlefields at that time[[Citing sources citation needed]] and the Gettysburg National Military Park is patrolled by Park Rangers. Also, while it is unclear exactly where they end up (it is extremely foggy and in a forrested area, but likely near Cemetery Hill, as evidenced by the graves in the background behind Coach Boone) at some point, the team likely would have had to run through the town of Gettysburg, PA, because the college sits at the north end of town, and nearly all of the forrested areas of the battlefield are south of town. (Another possibility is that they ended approximetely two miles east of town at the East Cavalry Battlefield Site, which would also require running through the town.) The location was likely designed to be ambiguous because the movie was not filmed in Gettysburg.
- Opened with a gross of $20.905m in the USA and stopped September 2000 from being one of the worst months for movies ever.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
- The football camp scenes were filmed at Berry College, in Mt. Berry, Georgia.
External links
- [Original Titans FAQ on the accuracy of the movie]
- [Director's Cut DVD Review with a list of film revisions]
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