Seabiscuit
Review
by : Eric Barker
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Starring:
Jeff Bridges (Charles Howard), Chris Cooper
(Tom Smith), Tobey Maguire (Red Pollard)
Written and Directed by: Gary Ross
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The true story of a long shot race horse who became
a cultural hero during the Great Depression, and of the people
who believed in him.
A confluence
of many superb talents on both sides of the camera with an
archetypal American story about perseverance and courage,
Seabiscuit is old-fashioned Hollywood filmmaking
at its best, a wonderful movie-movie for an uneven summer
season.
It would
have been hard to screw it up. The saga of Seabiscuit and
his people is so naturally compelling, Laura Hillenbrand’s
book about them has been a continual bestseller from the moment
it was published in 2001, an amazing true story frequently
noted for its ability to make grown men cry (and we all know
what tough nuts grown men are, huh?). Seabiscuit,
the book, is such a darned good read, it’s tempting
to wonder why no one has written it before now, but the story
needed a teller of Hillenbrand’s vision, skill and wit
before it became special.
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The real horse, and Red.
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By himself, Seabiscuit
would be enough classic material for a whole novel: the runt
offspring of a famed champion, from a long line of ill-tempered
winners, he was abused by his original owners, declared incorrigible,
raced too often and then rejected. In his first four years
of life he had grown from a good natured colt into a vicious,
embittered soul who attacked the grooms and resisted all attempts
to befriend him. Which is the precise moment he was found
by three unlikely saviors.
Seabiscuit’s
new handlers were just as damaged by life, and at a time when
the human world was suffering from a global economic crash.
The owner was a self-made automobile magnate, tortured by
the loss of his son in a freak accident; the jockey was a
ne’er-do-well, abandoned by his family and beaten nearly
senseless while trying to make ends meet in back alley prize
fights; and the trainer was an itinerant cowboy, his livelihood
made obsolete overnight, who had become a stone-quiet eccentric,
distrusted by all but his horses. Each of these men in some
way reflected Seabiscuit’s mute agonies, his ungainliness
and estrangement from civilization, and they projected their
hopes back onto him. Great horse that he was, Seabiscuit listened.
This mysterious
symbiosis, between three people and their devoted wild beast,
lies at the core of Hillenbrand’s sprawling book, and
it is the one major idea that director Gary Ross extracted
when he took on the daunting task of adapting Seabiscuit
for the movies. No single film could have captured all of
Hillenbrand’s epic, which jumps back and forth over
the first thirty years of the 20th century and takes in the
evolution of breeding and training practices, the horrors
of being a jockey, and of being a jockey’s spouse, the
meaning of Seabiscuit not only for his own time but our own,
and the labyrinth of a horse’s mind, to name but a few
of her topics. You could make ten good movies out of her Seabiscuit,
or a sizable mini-series.
Instead,
Ross does something just as difficult, creating good drama
out of the unruly facts and making the human elements mesh
into a continually suspenseful, bittersweet and emotionally
satisfying ride. A talented multi-hyphenate whose previous
films have been Capra-esque comic fantasies, often with a
painful twist of reality for spice (see Pleasantville,
1998), Ross inverts his style here, recreating the 1930s in
muted colors, keeping the emotional brutality of the times
hanging in the air, in the sets, dialogue and performances,
until it’s time for a shot of hope to make an appearance.
But anybody
can follow Frank Capra’s formula of ever-worsening disasters,
only relieved at the very bottom of act three, just before
the fade out (see It‘s a Wonderful Life, 1946).
Because Seabiscuit was real -- he‘s been called one
of the greatest athletes in history, and he is unquestionably
one of the fastest horses of all time -- there were many peaks
and valleys in his journey toward racing immortality. Ross’
surprising hat trick, both as a writer and as a director,
is in his patience for letting a big story unfold at its own
pace. Though he doesn’t have as much time as Hillenbrand
to detail the period or the milieu of Thoroughbred racing,
he gives equal screen time to all four principals, the three
men and the horse, before they meet, he draws in historical
footnotes narrated by David McCullough, the authoritative
voice of many a PBS documentary, and he has the smarts to
allow his most important plot/character points to...just...sort
of...sneak in.
Seabiscuit
could easily have been ruined by a heavy hand, but Ross knows
he has a ready-made sentimental story, full of colorful people
and impressive animals, he doesn’t have to hammer every
reversal into the ground. He also knows that movies are mostly
composed of memorable moments, all kinds, and that the best
way to insure them is by using good actors, although good
camerawork never hurts. Ross brings it all to Seabiscuit,
with an outstanding ensemble and some of the year‘s
most brilliant cinematography.
Jeff Bridges, who
always makes it look easy, is perfectly cast as the haunted
optimist Charles Howard, whose money and enthusiasm brought
the others together; Chris Cooper, an experienced horseman
before he was an actor, plays taciturn so well that only his
natural charisma keeps him from becoming as invisible as the
real Tom Smith, Seabiscuit‘s trainer; and Tobey Maguire
seems to be Red Pollard, the daredevil jockey who specialized
in making unwanted mounts perform, and who sought personal
calamity as if it relaxed him.
Although
Maguire isn’t as experienced as the other two veterans,
he might as well be, an understated craftsman who has become
a movie star in the last year almost by default (he did choose
the role that put him where he is, but not the overwhelming
audience response). Maguire is obsessively drawn to playing
intelligent outsiders who see through social hypocrisy, a
trait he conveys more with his eyes and posture than with
the things he says. In Seabiscuit, he captures Red
Pollard’s melancholy and his rage with equal veracity.
The moment when he must ask Bridges/Howard for a little money,
radiating shame, hunger and intractable defiance all at once,
is worth all the racing sequences in the film, two evenly
matched professionals bringing a touch of humanity to their
jobs. And there is plenty more where that came from.
Even so,
the racing sequences are fabulous, not just recreating Seabiscuit’s
greatest hits, but bringing a whole subculture to life in
all its thunder and pageantry. Staged by a couple of champion
jockeys, Seabiscuit’s racing scenes easily
keep pace with the heart-pounding descriptions of Hillenbrand’s
book, cinematographer John Schwartzman inventing some never-before-seen
tracking shots that drop the audience down in the middle of
a jostling, pounding field of half-ton giants speeding down
the backstretch. From the first race, Seabiscuit creates a
visceral awareness of the bone-crunching danger to both horse
and rider, and Ross makes each sequence build on the next,
often telling the audience more with a well-timed cut or sound
effect than he does in the dialogue (such as, the breathtaking
entrance he contrives for War Admiral, Seabiscuit‘s
nemesis).
Not a perfect film,
but a grand entertainment, rich with character and much more
ambitious than your average summer roller-coaster. Seabiscuit
transcends its mandate as a mere feel-good movie, delivering
genuine humor and pathos along with its thrills.
William H. Macy
gives masterful comic relief as an amalgam of radio announcers
from the period, and the historical costume and set designs
are world class, as might be expected in a film financed by
Dreamworks SKG.
Notes:
ONE-OF-A-KIND:
The character of Seabiscuit was assayed by six different horses,
each trained to perform specific actions on cue. But the real
horse was even more of a caution than his portrayal in the
film, mercilessly taunting his competitors, pretending to
be sick when he didn’t feel like waking up, and at times,
running his own strategy once he’d learned the game.
SPECIAL EFFECTS:
The thoroughbreds used in the racing sequences could only
run full-out twice a day, and then only for a furlong or two
each time (a maximum of 440 yards). So cinematographer Schwartzman
built a Hummer with a special dual crane, enabling him to
photograph a galloping pack from two angles at once, which
doubled the useable footage that could be taken under pressure.
The horses accelerated to their top speed so quickly, within
three or four strides, the Hummer needed plenty of head start
on them before cameras rolled.
THAT’S WHY
THEY CALL IT ACTING: Tobey Maguire performed some of his moments
while riding a modified dummy, normally used for training
jockeys, suspended above the frame of a low-slung boat trailer.
The rig allowed the camera to get very close to the star while
real horses chased him in the background and on the sides.
At 40 miles per hour, that is. And to think some executives
have questioned his ability to perform stunts.
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