Seabiscuit
Directed by Gary RossDavid McCullough, the American historian who did the narration on several of Ken Burns' documentaries, narrates Seabiscuit, and his voice is transfixing, drawing you into the film, explaining its historical context and conveying the drama of the times. Set in the Depression and based upon a true story, the film is about an unlikely champion horse and three men who found fulfillment in training and racing him. Written and directed by Gary Ross, the poetry of McCullough's voice flows into the poetry of the images. There is a very long opening act, where the backgrounds of the three men, the owner, the trainer and the jockey, played, respectively, by Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper and Tobey Maguire, is explored, so their motivations are understood when it comes time for them to interact. When you first see the horse, and when Cooper's character first sees the horse, McCullough speaks again, and it is an intoxicating, transcendent moment that seems to connect you not just with the characters and the movie but with everything in life.
The film's emotional strategy is the strategy of a horserace, and it has driven some critics bananas. In a horse race, of course, and in most any race, really, if you run all out, you lose. You have to hold back and know when to make your move. That is what the director, Gary Ross, does with great effectiveness in the race scenes and elsewhere. He doesn't show you stuff. The race sequences are super, and the camera is everywhere, as if the horses are going to stumble over it at any moment, or as if it were a bird testing its own speed against theirs. But the editing obscures as much as it shows, making the viewer wonder or anticipate what is happening, or undergo a wholehearted transference of the feelings of the characters. The effect does just what it is supposed to do, it carries you through a narrative that is episodic by the nature of its veracity, and sells the story's dramatic component-all three men need healing of some sort-without compromising its momentum. The film runs 141 minutes, and you're breathlessly with it for the whole stretch.
Universal has released a letterboxed version of Seasbiscuit (23287, $27) with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer is excellent and the cinematography is gorgeous, so that the DVD's images are as captivating as McCullough's voice. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound is also lovely, with an enveloping dimensionality and a strong bass. There are optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, a production essay, a cast-and-director profile section, a nice 3-minute Buick commercial tied to the film, a 5-minute piece on snapshots Bridges took during the shoot, a 15-minute production documentary, a 5-minute look at shooting an accident sequence that analyzes Ross' scriptwriting process, and a disappointing 15-minute piece on the real horse that could stand to be much longer.
Ross and a friend, Steven Soderbergh, supply a commentary track, and at times they even stop the film so they can talk more for a couple minutes about a specific sequence. They discuss how various scenes were staged and shot, and they add a little bit more to the background of the story that goes beyond what the historical featurette provided, but otherwise they spend most of the time discussing the artistic meanings of specific scenes and the reasoning behind Ross' choices. Ross also insists on saying that there were only three major sports in the Thirties, baseball, boxing and horse racing, but of course he's very wrong. College football was huge and both tennis and golf were plenty strong.
As for the film, I have just two minor quibbles. As one gathers from the supplement, ten different horses were used to represent the title horse, and while the difference between one horse and the next is not obvious, it does nibble at your subconscious. You can't really get a handle on the horse's personality in the movie and when the characters talk about his quirks, you have to take their word for what he's like. And the other thing is that McCullough should have been brought back at the end, to read a simple epilog about the fates of the horse and the other characters during the final freeze frame. I know, I'm falling into Ross' trap just like all the other critics, but it's the end, so the manipulation should have been over. He'd already won my heart.
The Review Vault
The Best of 2003
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