The Natural (film)

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The Natural
Promotional poster of The Natural
Directed by	Barry Levinson
Produced by	Mark Johnson
Written by	Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry, (based on a novel by Bernard Malamud)
Starring	Robert Redford Robert Duvall Glenn Close Kim Basinger Barbara Hershey, Darren McGavin, Wilford Brimley Richard Farnsworth
Editing by	Stu Linder
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date(s)	May 11, 1984
Running time	137 Min 144 Min Director's Cut
Language	English
Budget	$28,000,000
IMDb profile

The Natural is a 1984 film adaptation of Bernard Malamud's 1952 baseball novel of the same name. The film was directed by Barry Levinson and stars Robert Redford. The film, like the book, recounts the experiences of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great "natural" baseball talent, spanning decades of Roy's success and his suffering.

The Natural was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress (Glenn Close), and nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress (Kim Basinger). Many of the baseball scenes were filmed in Buffalo, New York's War Memorial Stadium, built in 1937 and demolished a few years after the film was produced. Buffalo's All-High Stadium stood in for Chicago's Wrigley Field in a key scene.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Production 3 Release 3.1 Critical reception 3.2 Awards 3.3 DVD 4 Soundtrack 5 References

[edit] Plot

The plot summary in this article or section is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the article. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot.

The story begins with Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) as a nearly middle-aged man, silently awaiting a train. A lengthy flashback shows Hobbs as a young boy playing baseball on an American farm, somewhere in the Midwest, with his father. His father dies under a tree and one day the tree is split in half by lightning, Roy carves a baseball bat from it, on which he burns the image of a lightning bolt and the label 'Wonderboy'. He carries the bat with him throughout his career in a trombone case.

Hobbs embarks on his baseball journey, not as a hitter and fielder but as an ace pitcher. En route to Chicago for a tryout with the Cubs, the teenaged farm boy accepts a wager to throw three pitches to "The Whammer" (Joe Don Baker), the top hitter in the major leagues, modeled on Babe Ruth.[1] Roy strikes him out on three pitches. But the naive Hobbs is seduced by Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey), an alluring but sinister woman who gravitates to him after judging that he now is the best baseball player in the world. Bird lures young Hobbs to a hotel room and shoots him.

The story skips forward 16 years to 1939 (the "Baseball Centennial" patch on the uniforms being a clue to date the movie). Hobbs is now 35 and has just arrived in New York by train. A fictitious and bumbling team called the New York Knights (suggesting the Brooklyn Dodgers of that era) has signed Hobbs to a contract, to the ire of the team's gruff manager and co-owner, Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley). He is no longer a pitcher now but a right fielder -- that is, if Pop will ever permit him to play.

Hobbs eventually gets a chance. For his first time at bat, Pop tells Hobbs to "knock the cover off the ball", an old baseball expression, and Hobbs proceeds to do just that, and drives in the game-winning run just after lightning flashes from a approaching thunderstorm. From that point on, Hobbs rises to stardom and reverses the Knights' fortunes.

Despite his seemingly supernatural talent, Hobbs is vulnerable to temptation. An unscrupulous reporter, Max Mercy (Robert Duvall), hounds Hobbs throughout the season. Roy's childhood sweetheart, Iris Gaines (Glenn Close), returns to his life. It is later revealed that a brief encounter between Roy and Iris 16 years earlier had produced a son.

The corrupt principal owner of the Knights, The Judge (Robert Prosky), tries to persuade (and even bribe) Hobbs to fail. A contractual agreement will enable The Judge to gain full ownership from Pop if the team fails to win the pennant. Hobbs stands firm against The Judge's attempts to buy his honor. But one weakness remains – Hobbs can be corrupted by a woman. A gambler associate of The Judge, Gus Sands (Darren McGavin), introduces Hobbs to the beautiful Memo Paris (Kim Basinger).

Memo is "a jinx" according to Pop (her uncle) and also in Gus's employ. Roy's play on the field suffers. He is relieved to find Iris back in his life and resolves to break free of Memo's and The Judge's clutches. Memo resorts to poisoning Hobbs (leading to a re-aggravation of a stomach condition sustained in the shooting). Up until the last minute it is doubtful Hobbs will be able to play.

He decides to play in the last game of the season, which will decide the league championship. As the last of the ninth begins, the Knights trail by two runs because their pitcher, who has also been paid off by Gus and the Judge, had intentionally given up a two-run home run earlier in the game. Iris is watching from the stands.

Roy comes to bat in the bottom of the final inning with two runners on base and two outs, a chance to win the game. His team's fate as well as his life could be at stake. Lightning flashes again. Hobbs hits a long drive that twists foul, and sees that Wonderboy, his "magical" bat, has shattered. He tells the young, hero-worshipping bat boy: "Pick me out a winner, Bobby." The youngster selects a bat that Hobbs had helped him make.

Hobbs hits a towering shot, a pennant-winning home run, which soars into the stadium's lights and starts a chain reaction of sparks that rain down onto the field.

The Knights have won the pennant. It is the end of The Judge and his cronies and the end of baseball for Roy Hobbs, who is seen playing catch with his son in a sun-dappled wheat field, with Iris proudly standing by.

[edit] Production

The film's producers stated in the DVD extras that the film was not intended to be a filmization of the novel, but was merely "based on" the novel. Malamud's daughter said on one of the DVD extras that her father had seen the film, and his take on it was that it had "legitimized him as a writer."^[1]

This is in spite of the fact that Malamud's novel ends with Roy Hobbs striking out, rather than hitting a home run. A young boy later approaches Hobbs, aware of speculation about gambling, and says, "Say it ain't so, Roy," a reference to Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Chicago White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series to gamblers.

Darren McGavin was cast late in the process as gambler Gus Sands and was uncredited in the film. Another uncredited actor was the radio announcer heard from time to time throughout the picture; Levinson stated on the DVD extras for the 2007 edition that there had been too little time to find a bona fide announcer during post-production, so Levinson himself recorded that part of the audio track^[2] (and probably also that of the scout, who appears in just two lines, over the phone).

Many of the baseball scenes were filmed during the summer of 1983 in Buffalo, New York's War Memorial Stadium,^[3] built in 1937 and demolished a few years after the film was produced. Buffalo's All-High Stadium, with post-production alterations, stood in for Chicago's Wrigley Field in a key scene in the film.[2]

[edit] Release

[edit] Critical reception

Critics were not universally impressed when the film appeared. Leonard Maltin's annual Movie Guide said in its 1985 edition that the film is "too long and inconsistent." Dan Craft, long-time critic for the Bloomington, Illinois paper, The Pantagraph (May 19, 1984), gave it three stars, while saying, "The storybook ending is so preposterous you don't know whether to cheer or jeer." Frank DeFord, reviewing the film for Sports Illustrated (May 21, 1984, p.71), had faint praise for it: "The Natural almost manages to be a swell movie." Both John Simon of the National Review and Richard Schickel of Time were disappointed with the screen adaptation of Malamud's novel. Simon contrasted Malamud's story about the "failure of American innocence" with Levinson's "fable of success . . . [and] the ultimate triumph of semi-doltish purity," declaring "you have, not Malamud's novel, but a sorry illustration of its theme."^[4] Schickel laments that "Malamud's intricate ending (it is a victory that looks like a defeat) is vulgarized (the victory is now an unambiguous triumph, fireworks included)," and that "watching this movie is all too often like reading about The Natural in the College Outline series."^[5]

Roger Ebert fairly savaged it, calling it "idolatry on behalf of Robert Redford."^[6] Ebert's television collaborator Gene Siskel praised its themes and acting performances, giving it four stars, and also putting down other critics that he suggested might have just recently read the novel for the first time.^[7]

[edit] Awards

The Natural was nominated for four Academy Awards: Actress in a Supporting Role (Glenn Close), Cinematography, Art Direction (Caleb Deschanel), and Music (Randy Newman).^[8] Kim Basinger was also nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] DVD

The initial DVD edition, with copyright year on the box reading "2001", contained the theatrical version of the film, along with a few specials and commentaries.

The "director's cut" was released on April 3, 2007.^[9] A two-disc edition, it contains the featurette "The Heart of the Natural," a 44 minute documentary featuring comments from Cal Ripken, Jr. and Levinson; it is the only extra released originally with the 2001 DVD. Sony added a number of other extras, however, including: "When Lightning Strikes: Creating The Natural," a 50 minute documentary discussing the origins of the original novel and the production of the film; "Knights in Shining Armor," which addresses the mythological parallels between The Natural, King Arthur and the Odyssey; and "A Natural Gunned Down" which tells the story of Eddie Waitkus, a baseball player who was shot by a female stalker, paralleling Roy Hobbs.^[10] The film itself has been re-edited, restoring deleted footage to the early chapters of the story. These scenes expand on the sadness of Hobbs, focusing on his visits to his childhood home as an adult and his childhood memories.^[10] The "gift set" version of the release also included some souvenirs: a baseball "signed" by Roy Hobbs; some baseball cards of Roy Hobbs and teammates; and a New York Knights cap.

[edit] Soundtrack

Randy Newman's dramatic, Academy Award nominated score has often been compared to the style of Aaron Copland. Scott Montgomery, writing for Goldmine music magazine, referenced the influence, and David Ansen, reviewing the film for Newsweek, called the score "Coplandesque."^[11][12] The score also has certain Wagnerian features of orchestration and use of Leitmotif. Adnan Tezer of Monsters and Critics noted the theme is often played for film and television previews and in "baseball stadiums when introducing home teams and players."^[10]

The soundtrack album was released May 11, 1984 on the Warner Bros. label. All music was composed by Randy Newman.^[13]

1. "Prologue 1915-1923" – 5:20
2. "The Whammer Strikes Out" – 1:56
3. "The Old Farm 1939" – 1:07
4. "The Majors: The Mind Is A Strange Thing" – 2:14
5. "'Knock The Cover Off The Ball'" – 2:17
6. "Memo" – 2:02
7. "The Natural" – 3:33 (track not used in the film)
8. "Wrigley Field" – 2:13 (two separate tracks spliced)
9. "Iris And Roy" – 0:58
10. "Winning" – 1:00
11. "A Father Makes A Difference" – 1:53
12. "Penthouse Party" – 1:10
13. "The Final Game / Take Me Out To The Ball Game" – 4:37 (three separate tracks spliced)
14. "The End Title" – 3:22

[edit] References

v • d • e Barry Levinson films Diner (1982) · The Natural (1984) · Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) · Tin Men (1987) · Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) · Rain Man (1988) · Avalon (1990) · Bugsy (1991) · Toys (1992) · Jimmy Hollywood (1994) · Disclosure (1994) · Sleepers (1996) · Wag the Dog (1997) · Sphere (1998) · Liberty Heights (1999) · An Everlasting Piece (2000) · Bandits (2001) · Envy (2004) · Man of the Year (2006)