Learning Lacrosse (Part 2): Defence
1965 · 10m · Canada
Directed by Douglas Jackson
Genres: documentary, sports
Tones: contemplative
Defensive lacrosse techniques are broken down with close-ups and slow motion, completing a two-part training guide begun with offensive play.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A instructional sports doc from 1965—sounds like the textbook definition of consensus-safe, but there's something quietly resistant about treating lacrosse defence as a subject worthy of formal study when the sport itself was barely on the cultural radar; the contrariness is in the reverence, not the rebellion.
Jackson's two-part structure and commitment to close observation and slow-motion analysis situates this squarely in the lineage of pedagogical cinema and structural documentary—the kind of systematic, patient filmmaking that prizes clarity of form as its own intellectual argument.
The slow-motion decision here isn't flashy, but it's the linchpin: by isolating defensive movement into granular, repeatable frames, Jackson transforms technique into something almost balletic, giving a modest training film an unexpected visual signature that emerges entirely from the choice to *show* rather than *tell*.