Why does Michael Jordan hardly appear in ‘Air’? Ben Affleck explains it

Why does Michael Jordan barely appear in the movie ‘Air’? Despite the fact that his essence is present throughout the entire film, his face is shown very rarely (mainly, on magazine covers or footage of the player in real life).

The film, directed by Ben Affleck, has made a risky decision. As we have seen, after its recent theatrical release, the film follows the story of the Nike executives who led the creation of the Air Jordan shoe line. In Jordan’s brief appearances, we see the back of the character at almost all times, or detail shots of his hands.

On this narrative decision, Affleck reflected at the premiere of the film, in the South by Southwest Film & Television Festivaland it explained why viewers wouldn’t see Jordan in his movie.

“How can you tell a Michael Jordan story without ever seeing him?“, he asked aloud, after affirming that it was a story inspired by real events. “C.When you are that person, when you become a hero, an athlete or an idol, you become an idea. You touch people and you start to represent hope, excellence and greatness.“

“You are one in a million. And I’m not going to ask the audience to believe that someone who isn’t Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan.“

“This was my idea, frankly, and I knew it could wreck the movie. You’ll see him in stock footage in the movie, but you’ll see Michael Jordan for who he really is.. It was a deliberate decision. I thought he was too magnificent for anyone to imitate him. And, as I told him himself, ‘you’re too old to play the part’.”

In other statements to The Hollywood Reporterthe filmmaker explained: “Michael Jordan is so famous that I felt if we saw an actor playing him, the audience wouldn’t believe it. In my opinion, no one can be convinced that another person is Michael Jordan. We thought a more interesting way to tell the story would be for him to exist as an ether in the film.“

“So, we only see Michael in bits and pieces and flashes. We never fully see him in person because seeing him would be grounding him in a way that the movie doesn’t.”

In this way, the story can explore other secondary (but fundamental) characters in the athlete’s life. As they are his mother, Deloris Jordan, played by the one and only Viola Davis, (which, according to Affleck, was not part of the original script, but was incorporated after a talk between the two stars); or Howard White, which also appeared late in the writing, after Jordan talked about the relevance of this Nike exec in his story.