“Black Stall” remains “Kane Citizen” on Horse Films – Hollywood in Toto

Carol Ballar’s Black Stall (1979) began in a clearly grown environment.

The titular stallion is under the clock of cruel, indisputable companions. A boy watches the stallion and gives him sugar, their friendship immediately settled.

The situation is 1946, and young Alec Ramsay (Kelly Reno) travels on the ship with her father (Hoet Axton), whom we meet to play poker. Alec’s father dazzles his son with the tale of Busefal, Alexander of the Horse of the Great.

In the middle of the night, Alec and his father wake up on the ship to bend during a massive storm. As the ship sinks, Alec is able to release the stallion. The next morning, Alec ends up alone on a desert island.

The only other companion is the stallion.

There is purity for this kind of visual story. The stunning cinematography of Kaleb Deschanel, the Ballard documentary and the generous performances of the cast, create a film devoid of cynicism or easy for the crowd.

The victories of the characters are hard to win and the inner life of both the boy and his stallion are complicated. The boy carries the statue of Buzefal as a totem, who represents his inner strength and his lack of a father’s figure.

Renault has mental eyes and never gives a forced, sweet performance. We believe in the grief and sadness that Alec brings. Axton, the singer of the late country country, which has become an actor, is extremely enjoyable (the role seems to be the precursor of the inventor/father who would later play in Gremlins).

The piece of the first act of sinking the boat is horrifying. There is almost no music, just sounds from the creaking of the boat, the waves are sprayed and people scream.

The intensity is rattling, as people are trampling everywhere, one desperately tries to steal Alec’s life jacket and Alec struggles to save the stallion. This sequence is why I could never go through the whole HBO screening of the “black stallion” in my youth, but it was delayed to hug him like an adult.

The second act is “rejected” (2000), except that ALEC has no advantage. History wisely takes time to find that saving and survival are not inevitable.

The connection that takes place between the boy and his stallion is a means of killing time and searching for food, but not a guaranteed predecessor of salvation.

Alec grown meetings are often cruel. An exception is his mother (Terry Gar) and especially Henry Daily, a horse coach played by Mickey Rooney.

Gar was a welcome presence that carries different energy from the rest of the movie. This is an appropriate touch as its character is just beyond central history.

She has two wonderful scenes – the little, perfect battle where she thanks the stallion for saving her son and giving him a blanket and her big scene with Renault, where Alec and his mother finally understand each other.

The latter is beautifully processed.

It was the first of the remarkable designs to return to Rooney, a movie and stage star with nine decades of career. It dominates the second and third acts of the film.

Simply put, Rooney is magnificent. The scene in which Daily uses a pile of hay to teach Alec how to drive a horse at a quick speed can be the best acting moment in his career.

As a movie for a child or children raising and taking care of an animal, it is not better than that. It will sound silly, but I will call the “black stallion” “Citizen Kane” on horseback films.

This is exactly what it is.

Ballard’s film has a sense of detection of the patient, reminding me of the National Velvet oat formula (1944), but a real adventure movie like Walkabout (1971).

Ballard’s movie is sweet but never sweet. This is exciting without looking manipulative or lenient. There are no banal reaction frames, no jokes about the ejection of horses and is better than any animal drama in Disney (yes, even Star Jeller).

Later, Ballard made Never Cry Wolf (1983), Wind (1992) and Fly Away Home (1996), all stunning and frugal works for people who are immersed in nature.

In the years after the Black Stall, everything from Seabiscuit (2003) Dreamer (2005) and Secretariat (2010). All may be heartbreaking and well -produced, but they do not come close to the coincidence or exceeding the “black stallion”.

The only movie that particularly deserves the discussion is “The Black Stallion Returns” (1983), which is directed by Robert Dalva, the executed editor of Raising Cain (1992), “Jumanji” (1995) and “Captain America: The First Avenger ”(2011).

He also edited the Black Stallion, and Returns is the only movie he has ever directed.

The sequel begins until a rough start, as the stallion is stolen, Gar makes the shortest appearances of Cameo and Alec to go to Morocco to save the horse.

As the first and second acts are Alec, traveling through the desert in search of a friend, much of the movie is a literal slow hike. After reaching the third act, two elements almost save the movie.

One is the delightful, magical result of Georges Deler, and the other is the big finale. This is an exciting horse race on a large scale. The sequence is almost enough to make the audience forget how overwritten and undermine is the first hour.

I will end with one of my favorite stories about the black stallion producer Francis Ford Coppola, which is told is true, but it sounds composed.

Coppola would have all the creators of films in his Zoetrope studio to share theater and watch daily newspapers (the footage of the footage acquired from the day in the photos).

Daily’s Assembly on Coppola came first and was brutal: it was the installation of Apocalypse now shots (1979), with a helicaled line, a helicopter that was missing from his sign, and the director heard to scream: “Sliced! Cut! “

Ballard’s daily newspapers from the black stallion photos were followed. On the massive screen was Renault, running along with its stallion, barefoot on the beach, the waves crashed as the rainbow decorated the sky.

Coppola suddenly stood in the theater and asked Ballard, “How did you do it?!” Ballard humbly explained that a light rain had come and he knew that a rainbow would probably be formed if they were lucky. Coppola asks again, “How did you do it?!”

Even the director of the Godfather was surprised.