A very grateful nod to — and appreciation for — the stories from the silver screen
Dave Kindred |
May 20, 2010 8:05 a.m.
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“I remember those cheers, they still ring in my ears,” he says.
He accents the rhyme, so’s we don’t miss how clever a bum he turned out to be.
“After years, they remain in my thoughts. Go to one night, I took off my robe, and what’d I do? I forgot to wear shorts.”
Robert DeNiro plays LaMotta, his voice like rocks rattling through a sieve.
“I recall every fall, every hook, every jab, the worst way a guy can get rid of his flab. As you know, my life wasn’t drab. Though I’d much . . . though I’d rather hear you cheer . . . when you delve . . . though I’d rather hear you cheer when I delve into Shakespeare.”
Like he’s Olivier, with his nose busted flat.
“’A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.’ I haven’t had a winner in six months.”
DeNiro as LaMotta lights a cigar, and next we see him in flashback, a raging bull let loose in the ring with Sugar Ray Robinson.
I have a friend who says, “Everything I know, I learned at the movies.” An exaggeration, but there’s truth in it. Movies take us places we’ve never been and put us with people we’ve never met. Write about sports long enough, you begin to notice recurring themes – and if you wonder why you so often write about the athlete grasping at flawed, faded fame, you may remember Jake LaMotta in the Martin Scorcese film. And when it’s going bad in an interview, you may flash back to the second-best sports movie ever, “Bull Durham,” where the been-there/done-that catcher Crash Davis tutors flamethrowing pitcher Ebby Calvin (Nuke) LaLoosh . . .
“It’s time to work on your interviews,” Crash says.
“My interviews? What I gotta do?” Nuke says.
“You’re gonna have to learn your cliches. You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends. Write this down. ‘We gotta play it one day at a time.’”
“’Got to play . . .’ It’s pretty boring.”
“’Course it’s boring, that’s the point,” Crash says.
Gee, thanks, Crash.
(Reminds me of a conversation with Curtis Strange. The year the two-time U.S. Open champion became the U.S. Ryder Cup captain, the PGA of America put him through media training. One thing he learned was silence. “They taught me that when you’ve answered the question, shut up,” he said. “Don’t be tempted to go on.”
(“Curtis, please don’t spread that around,” I said. “I’ve made a living by sitting there and waiting for a guy to fill the dead air.”)
Everything else about “Bull Durham” thrilled anyone who cared about baseball, certainly everyone who cared about baseball and women who loved baseball players, especially Susan Sarandon, the unforgettable Annie Savoy, whose voiceover prologue ought to be memorized by all boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 91….
“I believe in the Church of Baseball. I’ve tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I’ve worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn’t work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there’s no guilt in baseball, and it’s never boring – which makes it like sex. There’s never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn’t have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I’d never sleep with a player hitting under .250, not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle.
“You see, there’s a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I’ve got a ballplayer alone, I’ll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. ‘Course, a guy’ll listen to anything if he thinks it’s foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe and pretty. ‘Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball – now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God’s sake? It’s a long season and you gotta trust. I’ve tried ‘em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.”
So, you say, a rosary has 59 beads.
I say, so what?
I still like Annie’s symmetry.
Crash, Annie, Nuke, Skip and baseball as it’s played by dreamers have appeared in my stuff, disguised, yes, but no less real, for a long, long time – just as Fast Eddie Felson has, the memory conjured every time I’ve been entranced by the magic of an athlete’s transcendant moment.
Fast Eddie was the protagonist, played by Paul Newman, in the best sports movie ever, “The Hustler,” based on a novel by Walter Tavis. Early in the film, Fast Eddie, the straight-pool phenom, is resting on his side in a field, his thumbs broken and in casts, talking to his girl friend, Sarah Packard . . .
“Just hadda show those creeps and those punks what the game is like when it’s great, when it’s REALLY great. You know, like anything can be great, anything can be great, I don’t care, BRICKLAYING can be great, if a guy knows, if he knows what he’s doing and why, and if he can make it come off.”
Fast Eddie has his thumbs in casts because the creeps cracked them as payback when he couldn’t be content with winning and he had to show ‘em.
“When I’m goin’, I mean, when I’m REALLY goin’ I feel like a . . . like a jockey must feel. He’s sittin’ on his horse, he’s got all that speed and that power underneath him. . . . he’s comin’ into the stretch, the pressure’s on ‘im, and he KNOWS . . . just feels . . . when to let it go and how much. Cause he’s got everything workin’ for ‘im: timing, touch. It’s a great feeling, boy, it’s a real great feeling when you’re right and you KNOW you’re right.”
There’s music in his voice.
“It’s like all of a sudden I got oil in my arm. The pool cue’s part of me. You know, it’s a pool cue, it’s got nerves in it. It’s a piece of wood, it’s got nerves in it. Feel the roll of those balls, you don’t have to look, you just KNOW. You make shots that nobody’s ever made before. I can play that game the way . . . NOBODY’S ever played it before.”
The movie’s about character. About winners and losers.
Fast Eddie has hunted down Minnesota Fats, the best there is. For hours he has him beat. But Eddie empties a bottle of bourbon. Fats disappears into a men’s room while Eddie slouches, drunk, on a stool. Fats reappears, fresh-faced, powdered, on the balls of his feet, and says, “Let’s shoot some pool, Fast Eddie.” Whips him bad then, and a gambler watching it all says . . .
“Eddie, is it alright if I get personal?”
“Whaddaya been so far?”
“Eddie, you’re a born loser.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“First time in 10 years I ever saw Minnesota Fats hooked, really hooked,” the gambler says. “But you let him off.”
“I told you,” Eddie says, “I got drunk.”
“Sure you got drunk. You have the best excuse in the world for losing; no trouble losing when you got a good excuse. Winning . . . that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You’ll drop that load too when you got an excuse. All you gotta do is learn to feel sorry for yourself. One of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry for yourself. A sport enjoyed by all, especially the born losers.”
And Fast Eddie says, “Thanks for the drink.”
By movie’s end, after unspeakable tragedy, Fast Eddie finds the strength of character necessary to move from loser to winner.
We’ve all written a hundred variations on that theme, and we all owe a beer to Walter Tavis.
Dave Kindred’s next book will be "Morning Miracle," an inside-the-newsroom account of two years in the life of The Washington Post. Now a contributing writer at Golf Digest, Kindred is a Red Smith Award winner and member of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame. He can be reached at inkstained1@aol.com. He can be followed at Twitter.com/DaveKindred and facebook.com/people/Dave-Kindred/509353295
Dave –
Bull Durham drops way down the list for me for two reasons: 1) because nobody apparently bothered to teach Tim Robbins how to look like a pitcher, and this in a movie that’s a love letter to baseball, and b) because the very speech you quote. Baseball messianism makes my skin itch.
FWIW, here are mine.
1)Raging Bull (A great movie. Period. Scorsese at his non-Mean Streets best)
2)Hoosiers
3)Knute Rockne — All America (for pure, unadulterated American cheese: “Talk American, Daddy. We’re Americans now. I’m left end!”)
Dave: I’m afraid you forgot something essential to any discussion of movies and the great dialogue in them: the writers. You’re not the first to do it, and God knows you won’t be the last. I’ve committed the same sin myself more times than I care to admit. In the spirit of atonement, mine as well as yours, let’s give a shout-out to these splendid screenwriters:
Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin, RAGING BULL
Ron Shelton, BULL DURHAM
Sydney Carroll and Robert Rossen THE HUSTLER
Charlie,
Agreed on the messianism…but Annie redeems herself, in my eyes, anyway, by her eager acceptance of Crash’s jockstrap theology….
John,
Ah, dialogue….that was my original research and I got sidetracked into talking about “The Hustler,” still my #1….I’ll return to dialogue because I love those screenwriters able to say complex things simply and memorably….
Any votes for Chariots of Fire? Honorable mention?
If the filmmakers had done it true justice, Seabiscuit coulda been the greatest.
Charlie,
One other MAJOR reason that Bull Durham falls down is that it is a flagrant and unabashed ripoff of the HBO movie “Long Gone,” based on the fine book by the late great Paul Hemphill.
BTW, Dave, my comment was for you too. I am sure that you appreciate the theft of Paul’s work.
And any list without John Sayles’s “Eight Men Out” is incomplete. Charlie just likes Knute Rockne All American because of the scenes depicting the Notre Dame Box offense.
If I may correct Lynn Fowler, BULL DURHAM is not — I repeat, not — a ripoff of the late Paul Hemphill’s wonderful and woefully underappreciated novel LONG GONE. Ron Shelton based BULL DURHAM on his experiences as a minor league infielder in the Baltimore Orioles’ organization. The highest he climbed was Rochester in the International League, playing second base while Bobby Grich played shortstop. When the Orioles needed a second baseman, however, it was Grich they summoned. Of such moments are great screenwriters born. Hemphill, who was a friend of mine, just as Shelton is, played but a few weeks of Class D ball and probably mined more material for LONG GONE when he was covering baseball in, I believe, Augusta, Georgia. Never once did I hear him say that Shelton stole so much as an adjective from him. LONG GONE made for a terrific movie, by the way. Alas, it premiered on HBO in the days before it was the HBO we now know. Had it been released theatrically, it would have been a year ahead of BULL DURHAM and might have ended up, justifiably, as a more viable entry in any discussion of sports movies. If Lynn Fowler wants to complain about anything, it should be the dunderheads who didn’t know what they had on their hands with LONG GONE.
Annie Savoy’s riff on the Church of Baseball is only the second best soliloquy in Bull Durham. The best, which I call Crash’s Creed, follows:
“Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman’s back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.”
Dave,
Enjoyed your piece. I like BULL DURHAM but think it works better as a sex comedy than as a baseball movie, though it’s so far ahead of most baseball movies that it gets credit for not totally sucking. Tim Robbins was awful on the mound there but what gnaws at me is what Charlie Pierce mentioned, the ham-handed, flowery speech-making. That Crash Davis bit about “long, deep, slow kisses” and “Susan Sontag”…I find hard to take, especially the more I see it.
I prefer the uncompromising vulgarity of THE BAD NEWS BEARS, the baseball version of SLAP SHOT. I’d say those two rank among my favorite sport movies. Like when Paul Newman tells the owner…
“You know, your son looks like a fag to me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You better get re-married again, or he’s gonna have someone’s cock in his mouth before you can say Jack Robinson.”
That’s what I’m talking about. Screw Susan Sontag. LOL
I love RAGING BULL but feel conflicted about it. To me, it’s similar to APOCALYPSE NOW in that it is wildly brilliant and also, on some level, a failure. Scorsese once said that the movie was about “a man who loses everything and then gains it back spiritually.” Based on that, I don’t think the movie works, because I never believe that DeNiro’s LaMotta gains back any peace or grace. But then again, Scorsese was really talking about himself and he tried to impose his own demons and obsessions onto a character and a world–boxing–that he didn’t care about or know anything about.
Pauline Kael, who championed his early movies like MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER, really disliked RAGING BULL and I think she made some good points–about Scorsese trying to juice up some operatic significance into the boxing movies of the 40s and 50s, trying to turn pulp into high art–though I like the movie much better than she did. It is worth re-watching BODY AND SOUL, just to see how much Scorsese got from that movie though–and it’s always good to watch John Garfield. But more than Scorsese, it’s DeNiro that’s always been my hang-up in that movie. He was so committed to making LaMotta “authentic,” relentlessly unlikable, that I think his performance sags under the weight of it all. He’s great in moments, but he’s mostly repugnant. I suppose that’s the point, but it doesn’t work for me, and I think it’s a shame they didn’t touch on LaMotta’s childhood which has some sympathetic elements to it.
That said, RAGING BULL is virtuoso filmmaking at its best and just because I have problems with it doesn’t mean it is still not sensational.
I really like FAT CITY as a boxing movie too, and it’s an interesting counterpoint visually, with many boxing scenes being filmed outside of the ring. I prefer Huston’s movie to the novel, which is so terse and spare it hurts. I think Huston found the warmth and humor in the characters and fleshed that out very well.
Also, one last thing. I’m a HUGE fan of LONG GONE, both the novel and the movie. The movie isn’t great, there is the lame ending and some stilted business with the black ball player, but the chemistry between Virginia Madsen and William Peterson is wonderful, and Peterson is closer to Newman’s Reggie Dunlop than he is Costner’s Crash Davis. I know Nicholson wanted to play that role for a long time, and that would have been something to watch in Nicholson’s prime, but for my money Peterson played one of the great, most credible, jocks in all of movie history.
And oh, yeah, casting Teller and Henry Gibson as father and son, was nothing short of inspired.
I spent hours talking baseball and writing with Paul, one of my first models in journalism. He was used to being underappreciated and never seemed to mind it as long as he got to do work that was real, honest, and lasting. Anyone who appreciates the power and lyricism possible
in spare writing should read Paul’s biography of Hank Williams. All this is to agree with Mr. Schulian — never did –I hear Paul complain about Bull Durham.
The Jericho Mile
Paul never complained in my presence either. Also, I understand Mr. Shelton’s pedigree. However, at a special screening of Long Gone at Manuel’s Tavern after Paul’s death last year, Virginia Masden wrote a great note telling a story of a couple of guys diligently taking notes at the premiere of Long Gone. At a later audition, she recognized Ron Shelton and accused him of ripping off Long Gone. According to Virginia’s note, Shelton said: “oh yeah, we stole the whole thing.”
Do you guys remember that at the end of Long Gone, they have a wedding under a canopy of bats, just like Bull Durham. And that Millie in Bull Durham is very reminiscent of Virginia Madsden’s character in Long Gone. So, I’m not convinced.
Paul never complained in my presence either. Also, I understand Mr. Shelton’s pedigree. However, at a special screening of Long Gone at Manuel’s Tavern after Paul’s death last year, Virginia Masden wrote a great note telling a story of a couple of guys diligently taking notes at the premiere of Long Gone. At a later audition, she recognized Ron Shelton and accused him of ripping off Long Gone. According to Virginia’s note, Shelton said: “oh yeah, we stole the whole thing.”
Do you guys remember that at the end of Long Gone, they have a wedding under a canopy of bats, just like Bull Durham. And that Millie in Bull Durham is very reminiscent of Virginia Madsden’s character in Long Gone. So, I’m not convinced.
But to John Schulman’s other point, I do complain abour the dunderheads that did not know what they had in Long Gone.
Also, I meant to concur with Dave’s point about Lovesick Blues. A great subject covered by a great writer.
Note to Lynn Fowler: The last name is spelled Schulian. You could look it up. As for the tale the lovely Ms. Madsen told about Shelton, keep in mind that she is a thespian and therefore given to flights of fancy.
Oh, yes, back before I got sidetracked, I meant to say that FAT CITY is my favorite sports movie. It is based on a great novel, by Leonard Gardner, and it beautifully captures the dreams and desperation that co-exist at the lowest level of boxing. John Huston, that rare filmmaker who could turn a book into a movie without giving it a lobotomy, directed FAT CITY and was wise enough to enlist Gardner to write the screenplay with him. Stacy Keach and the young Jeff Bridges star, Susan Tyrell does a wonderful turn as a barfly, and Curtis Cokes, once a worthy middleweight out of Dallas, plays Ms. Tyrell’s non-boxing boyfriend. And it doesn’t get better than that.
HOW IN THE NAME OF GOD DID I FORGET “SLAP SHOT”?
The shade of my father, the hockey coach, is going to haunt my battlements for that one.
Sorry, Knute, you fall out of the top five there.
Pool is not a sport.
Breaking Away
“I thought that was the plan to waste the rest of our lives together.”
Baseball has “Bull Durham”, Basketball has “Hoosiers”, Boxing has “Raging Bull” … why has there never been a great soccer movie?
“Escape to Victory”? You’re joking!
Is it because Americans do not understand soccer, and all great sports movies are American?