Movies - The Natural

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	Movies - The Natural

The Natural is a 1952 novel about baseball written by Bernard Malamud. The book centers on Roy Hobbs, a baseball prodigy whose career is sidetracked when he is shot in a chance encounter. Most of the story concerns his attempts to get back into baseball later in life, when he plays for the fictional New York Knights with his legendary bat, "Wonderboy." The story closely parallels the legends of Percival and King Arthur.

The film

The Natural was adapted into a film starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs in 1984. The movie is not considered very faithful to the book, as its details differ, especially its upbeat ending which is the opposite of the ending of the novel. The novel was intended to be a dark satire of a fallen hero. The Hollywood version takes the opposite approach. The movie, as with the book, is about the trials of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great "natural" baseball talent. However, early in the movie, his father tells him that his success will be less about his natural ability, and more about how hard he works to be successful. So, the remainder of the movie chronicles the trials he suffers, which are terrible, maybe a bit extreme. In 1984, it 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.

The musical score

Randy Newman's dramatic and Oscar-nominated score, which was described by at least one complimentary critic as "Coplandesque", has been referenced frequently since then, in visual pieces underscoring other "natural" ballplayers. The music has been used in a documentary about Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, retellings of Ichiro Suzuki's breaking of the single-season hits record from Roy's era of 1920, and in retellings of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series when a seriously injured Kirk Gibson hit a dramatic game-winning 9th inning home run reminiscent of Roy Hobbs' blast to win the pennant. The movie's theme is often played at ballparks to this day as the celebratory music after a player for the home team hits a home run.

Billy Joel traditionally uses a theme from the score as an introduction prior to his taking the stage while on tour.

The plot

The movie begins by showing Roy Hobbs as a grown man, looking too old for his years, silently awaiting a train that will take him to New York for one last chance at being a ballplayer, although those specifics are not revealed until later. The film then cuts to a lengthy flashback showing Hobbs as a young boy playing baseball on an American farm, somewhere in the mid-West, with his father. He is obviously a highly talented baseball player. When a tree, under which his father had died, is destroyed by lightning, he takes a piece of the tree and makes a bat from it, on which he burns a lightning bolt and the label "Wonderboy". He carries the bat with him throughout his career, in a musical instrument case.

As Hobbs embarks on his baseball career, it seems to be prematurely cut short due to a misfortunate chance encounter with a crazed female fan, Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey), who shoots him in the mid-section just before committing suicide.

The story skips forward 16 years, to when Hobbs is in his mid-thirties and has just arrived in New York by train. He helps a down-on-their-luck, fictitious National League team called the New York Knights (who are actually more like the Brooklyn Dodgers of that era) rise to stardom and pennant contention. An unscrupulous and cynical reporter, Max Mercy (Robert Duvall), hounds Hobbs through this season. The mystery of those sixteen years is slowly revealed as his angelic, old childhood sweetheart, Iris Gaines (Glenn Close), returns to his life. It turns out that his early injuries have damaged his stomach and may prevent him from helping the Knights win the pennant.

The owner of the Knights, The Judge (played by Robert Prosky), tries to persuade, even bribe, Hobbs to throw the remainder of the season due to a contractual agreement between The Judge and Hobbs' coach, Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley), whereby The Judge will obtain full ownership from Pop if the team fails to win the pennant. The Judge is joined in this persuasion by a gambler, Gus Sands (Darren McGavin), and his mistress, Memo Paris (Kim Basinger).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Natural ]

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Movies - The Natural

The film

The musical score

The plot

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