That, broadly talking, is the concept that haunts each documentaries. The conundrum of Walton’s and Chamberlain’s careers is that they had been marked by success — faculty and skilled championships, statistical domination (in Chamberlain’s case), reputations for unmatched athletic expertise — and outlined by disappointment. Neither received as usually or as simply as he ought to have, in Walton’s case due to harm and in Chamberlain’s due to the dominance throughout the Sixties of the rival Boston Celtics and their middle, Bill Russell, enshrined in sports activities mythology as the hard-working Everyman to Chamberlain’s sex-and-statistics-obsessed egotist.
“Goliath,” directed by Rob Ford and Christopher Dillon, is a extra workmanlike and typical undertaking than “Luckiest Guy.” But throughout three episodes it makes a persuasive case for Chamberlain as a beneficiant, delicate soul who was each blessed and constrained by his stature and his extraordinary all-around athletic potential.
It does its sports-documentary responsibility, laying out Chamberlain’s triumphs and extra frequent setbacks on the courtroom. But it’s extra in the trails he blazed as a Black cultural determine and self-determining skilled athlete, and it favors writers, pundits and students over basketball gamers in its interviews. (The shortage of pictures from Chamberlain’s youthful days in the Forties and ’50s is compensated for with shadow-puppet scenes paying homage to the work of Kara Walker.)
Watching the sequence facet by facet, the variations between the two males are much less fascinating than the sense of commonality that emerges. Both had been self-conscious stutterers who discovered to endure, and carry out beneath, the most intense scrutiny. Chamberlain might have been extra flamboyant, however Walton, in “Luckiest Guy,” is simply as aware of his have an effect on — there’s an ostentatiousness, and no small quantity of ego, in the means he performs modesty. (James additionally challenges Walton’s lifelong, typically debunked declare to be solely 6 toes 11 inches tall.)
The veteran sports activities fan may see one other commonality: As good as they’re, neither “The Luckiest Guy in the World” nor “Goliath” is as thrilling to observe as “The Last Dance.” This is a little bit of a conundrum, as a result of each Chamberlain and Walton are, fairly arguably, extra advanced, fascinating and transferring figures than Michael Jordan. But Michael Jordan is an almost unparalleled winner. And whereas successful isn’t the solely factor, it’s, for higher or worse, the most compelling factor about the topic of a sports activities documentary.
