The Basketball Diaries (film)
| The Basketball Diaries | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Scott Kalvert |
| Produced by |
Liz Heller John Bard Manulis |
| Written by |
Jim Carroll (Novel) Bryan Goluboff (Screenplay) |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Graeme Revell |
| Cinematography | David Phillips |
| Edited by | Dana Congdon |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
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Release date
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Running time
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104 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $2.4 million |
The Basketball Diaries is a 1995 American coming of age crime drama film directed by Scott Kalvert, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lorraine Bracco, James Madio, and Mark Wahlberg. The film is an adaptation of Jim Carroll's autobiographical work of the same name, telling the story of Carroll's teenage years as a promising high school basketball player and writer who developed an addiction to heroin with his misguided friends.
Jim Carroll's original "Basketball Diaries" was written in the 1960s (and later published in 1978), but the film is set in the 1990s.
The film is an adaptation of poet and memoirist Jim Carroll's (Leonardo DiCaprio) juvenile diaries chronicling his kaleidoscopic free-fall into the harrowing world of drug addiction. As a member of a seemingly unbeatable high school basketball squad, Jim's life centers on the basketball court and the court becomes a metaphor for the world in his mind. A best friend, Bobby (Michael Imperioli), who is dying of leukemia, a coach ("Swifty") who takes unacceptable liberties with the boys on his team, teenage sexual angst, and an appetite for cocaine and heroin, all of which begin to encroach on young Jim's dream of becoming a basketball star.
Soon, the dark streets of New York become a refuge from his mother's mounting concern for her son. He cannot go home and his only escape from the reality of the streets is heroin, for which he steals, robs, and prostitutes himself. Only with the help of Reggie (Ernie Hudson), an older neighborhood friend with whom Jim "picked up a game" now and then, he is able to begin the long journey back to sanity, which ultimately ends with Jim's incarceration in Riker's Island for assault, robbery, resistance of arrest, and the possession of narcotics. After months that Jim spent in prison, he leaves and later does a talk show about his drug life, after turning down free drugs from his old friend, Pedro.
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