Sports As Never Before: Isolating Celebrity Athletes inFootball As Never Before,Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, andKobe Doin’ Work

This article constructs a genealogy of three poetic sports documentaries, all of which use multiple cameras to isolate a star athlete for the duration of a team game. All three films are defined by their distinction from dominant forms of coverage, which allows them to foreground elements of the spectacle typically marginalized by the standard grammar and narratives of sports media. These films play on the boundary between sports coverage and documentary in order to develop a richer and more nuanced analysis of sports aesthetics.