July 26th: THE NATURAL (Barry Levinson, 1984)

A young baseball phenomenon's career is tragically cut short, and 15 years later he attempts a comeback.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel The Natural is set in the baseball world, exploring and deconstructing the mythology of the National Pastime while also drawing from older mythologies including King Arthur and The Fisher King as well the real-life shooting of a player by an obsessed fan in the 1940s.

Director Barry Levinson started his career writing comedy for television on several prominent shows, then wrote two films with Mel Brooks before his own debut Diner in 1982, which earned him an Oscar nomination for its screenplay. The script for The Natural was adapted by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry.

Already attached to the project was Robert Redford, a successful director in his own right by this point, playing a considerably younger character. The rest of the cast includes Robert Duvall (Apocalypse Now), Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction), Barbara Hershey (Beaches, Black Swan), Wilford Brimley (The Thing, TV's Full House), Kim Basinger (Batman, L.A. Confidential), and Richard Farnsworth (The Straight Story).

Behind the camera was cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion, The Right Stuff), who emulated color tinting for the 1920s-set prologue, and throughout the whole film accentuates the nostalgic and Americana aspects of the story, with various symbolic characters getting specific lighting motifs. The film was shot mostly on location in New York State, including New York City and the War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.

The memorable musical score was composed by singer-songwriter Randy Newman, fairly new to film music and recently coming off his work on Milos Forman's Ragtime. Here he drew from classical bombast, Aaron Copland-style patriotic uplift, and his own Louisiana jazz background. The film's most celebrated aspect, it has been referenced in various TV shows and sports broadcasts.

The film was released to mostly positive reviews, with some critics lamenting the "Hollywoodization" of the novel. It was a box office success, earned Oscar nominations for Newman, Deschanel, Close, and the art direction. It is now regarded as one of the most-loved sports movies. In the early 2000s, Levinson went back and added some scenes and trimmed others for a Director's Cut, claiming the original post-production schedule was rushed and not completed to his satisfaction.

Running time is approx. 2 hrs, 15 min.