Seabiscuit

[Clarkmeister]

Feel good movie that is more about the 3 guys who repair their ruined lives than about the horse. As a horse racing fan, I kind of felt that the liberties they took with the historical and race details were acceptible, though I would have emphasized a few different things than they did.

I don't think they gave enough feel to just how much the general public was obsessed with this horse at the time.

Still, its a very good movie with some predictable but still effective emotional moments. The actors give excellent performances.

The closest movie I can compare it to is The Natural. 3 men and a horse find redemption after being on the bottom. I think that sports fans in general will like it, even if they have no particular love of horseracing. Like I said, the way it was directed, its more about the men than the horse. Its more about life and redemption than about sports. Probabaly not quite as good as the overwhelmingly positive press it has received, but it is still a quality flick that is definitely worth watching. Check it out.

[John Cole]

Clarkmeister,

I agree that the movie didn't quite do enough to show how popular Seabiscuit was at the time. I'm not sure everyone in the audience understood that 40 million listeners represented a huge portion of the American public in the 30s. (It still does today.) The book does a much better job with this, especially in showing that Seabiscuit captured the imagination of those who had never attended a race.

And, I think it's important that the film show this more convincingly for a few reasons, but chiefly for the ideological slant the film adopts. Note that the movie opens with Ford and the assembly line to show how workers are separated from the products of their labor. It was, as McCullough intones, "the beginning and end of imagination."
Conservatives and capitalists will hate this film--or should hate this film. Seabiscuit represents the leader of a populist revolt with his owner standing in for the stumping politico making speeches from the back of the train. We see still photos of dirty children, sleeping on the ground, and through the reforms initiated by FDR, the WPA and CCC, for example, those same children have been cleaned up and now sleep snugly in cots.

The match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral becomes symbolic: west vs. east, socialism vs. capitalism, workers vs. owners. Even the horse's names make the connection clear. War admirals don't eat hardtack (Hard Tack was the sire of Seabiscuit).

Finally, when Red Pollard, the jockey, demands to ride Seabicuit at Santa Anita, he declares, "I own half of this horse, too." It seems one of the "workers" lays claim to the means of production.

By the way, many people in the audience were cheering for Seabiscuit--of course.


John

[KJS]

John,

I can't see the film in Thailand (yet, I am hoping) but I am intrigued by your analysis. Oddly, I just finished the book last week, and did not even know about the film until the day after I completed it. I loved it.

Anyway, the book does not delve into ideology very much, in my opinion. The coastal rivalry is certainly there. And there is some sharing of funds amongst riders and their "unionization" drive, I suppose, but none of that really translated to the horse in the book, IMO. She did delve too much into what happened during the train tours, except to say a lot of people came out to greet them.

What I wonder about is the role of Howard, the owner. Is he portrayed as a "man of the people"? He was obscenely rich, and made most of it selling the cars that Ford rolled out. He was certainly a rags-to-riches story but he also fraternized with bigwigs in Detroit and did not seem out of place in the wealthy world of racing. I didn't see him as very politicized in the book, aside from perhaps his loyalty and ability to let his main stable guys have a lot of say over the horse. And providing for them when they needed it. Perhaps he is the benevolent owner?

Did the political stuff seem like a stretch?

KJS

[andyfox]

I don't think Red said I "own" half of this horse. He said it's as much his horse as Jeff Bridges's character's. I didn't feel the symbolism of the remark as you do.

I do agree that the "message" was driven hard by the documentary portions of the movie. At one point the narrator said something like "for the first time, people had a friend, someone who cared about them," and showed a picture of FDR. In the same way the Bridges character cared about his jockey who was too short and his trainer who was too old, FDR cared about Americans.

People in the theater I was in today did indeed clap and cheer when Seabiscuit won the match race and the final race of the movie. And they stood and applauded when the screen went black at the end.

A feel-good Hollywood movie, but very well done. A very pretty movie, great cinematography and the racing scenes were done extraordinarily well. I wasn't as impressed with the acting as others seem to be, although I thought Bridges was great; Cooper was unexpectedly weak for me. I loved Macy, although he jolted the mood of the movie a bit too often.

The movie reminded me a bit of Legends of the Fall; I'm not quite sure why, perhaps the corniness of it or the music.

BTW, Joe Miller had a great line during the Yankees/Red Sox game tonight (which ended up happily for Mr. Cole). At one point one of the Sox (Manny, I think) hit a long foul ball that hit the lights; Miller said he hadn't seen anyone do that since Robert Redford.

[andyfox]

He was indeed protrayed as a benevolent owner, a man with no faults, generous and kind to all around him. A man with a heavy heart because of the death of his son and whose wife left him for no apparent reason. A man who started with twenty-one cents in his pocket and, by believing in "the future" made his fortune.

[John Cole]

Andy,

I may very well have the line wrong, but I do think the general idea holds up. Imagine a jockey suggesting to an owner that he has any stake in the horse. Also, it's certainly clear that 9/11 influences this movie to some extant. (Look what people can do when they work together.)

I also thought the choice of using McCullough for the narrator of archival footage and photos an interesting one since he's so closely identified with PBS's American Experience, which, by the way, did a show about Seabiscuit a few months ago.

A couple seats over from us sat two grandparents who had brought what looked to be their four or five year old grandson. Amazingly, he seemed to be completely caught up in the movie.

A good horse movie, but it doesn't quite match up to either The Black Stallion (Ballard's beautiful cinematography is a thing to behold) or Phar Lap, maybe the best horse movie I've seen--as opposed to a movie with horses in it.

Weaver was a bit pissed, wasn't he?

[adios]

I liked the movie too. Gave it a B+. I thought Gary Stevens did a decent job in his supporting role.

[adios]

"Conservatives and capitalists will hate this film--or should hate this film. Seabiscuit represents the leader of a populist revolt with his owner standing in for the stumping politico making speeches from the back of the train."

/images/graemlins/smile.gif funny. Actually Seabiscuit's owner represented the spirit of capitalism demonstrating how much good an entrepenuer and patron can bring about.

[Clarkmeister]

Yeah, Gary did a good job. Granted, playing a jockey wasn't much of a stretch, but I think he had a very good screen presence.

[andyfox]

"Weaver was a bit pissed, wasn't he?"

Weaver is a bit of an idiot. He's always pissed. He was ahead 0-2 on the guy he walked and then he hit the next guy. Well up over 100 pitches, I would have taken him out too.

The Yankees really miss Karsay (obviously). And not resigning Stanton was a mistake too. Perhaps Osuna will step up and be able to perform in the clutch.

And while I know Bill James's innovational bullpen by committee approach didn't work, I think last night's game brings up an important point. Two on and one out in the 7th: why not bring in your best reliever (in this case, Rivera) then? Why save him for the ninth when there will be nobody on base? If he holds Boston in the 7th and gets through the 8th, then you can bring in your next best guy (probably Benitez) to hold a 3-run lead in the 9th.

[Clarkmeister]

The movie had a $21mm opening weekend with a limited release. Hopefully good word of mouth will translate into box office success. As a horse racing fan, i think that the excitement caused by Funny Cide's run for the triple crown coupled with the release of this movie could could help raise the profile of the sport.