Peter Berg lives in the emotions that drive stories, whether making Friday Night Lights or Lone Survivor or throughout his other 40-some-odd projects. But there’s a difference between the visceral nature of his work and actually living through tragedy … with his subjects … while trying to film.
It’s a difference Berg would rather not know, the pain evident on his face over a recent Zoom call, where all he can do is shake his head. His upcoming documentary, Boys in Blue, which is available for streaming on Showtime starting Jan. 6, placed him into a spot he’d never before encountered in his decades as an award-winning filmmaker. While following a high school football team and its coaches—most of whom are police officers in north Minneapolis—one main subject, a 15-year-old quarterback, was shot and killed in February. His name was Deshaun Hill Jr., and everybody, it seemed, loved him, cast and crew included.
Berg heard via a call from a producer. He flew to Minneapolis immediately, then sped toward the community at Minneapolis North, where his crew had spent the previous five months. Everyone huddled, trying to figure out next steps. They knew they had to capture Hill’s life and death and what each meant relative to the other. They also knew they would need to process their own grief, including guilt that crew members might feel over feeling anything at all, because their sadness wasn’t comparable to their subjects’ anguish.
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