The Natural

Roy Hobbs heads for the major leagues at sixteen, is shot on the way and disappears, then comes back at thirty-five as a rookie nobody has heard of. He has one thing with him: a bat he carved as a boy from a tree struck by lightning. Barry Levinson directed, from Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel. The filmmakers said the adaptation was not literal, only based on the book. The biggest difference is at the end: Malamud's novel closes in darkness, the film in ascent. Malamud's daughter said her father felt the film legitimised him as a writer. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel used a post-production method combining black-and-white and colour prints to imitate the look of autochrome photography in the flashbacks. Two thirds of the film was shot in Buffalo at War Memorial Stadium, with All-High Stadium standing in for Chicago's Wrigley Field. It was Tri-Star Pictures' first production. It took four Oscar nominations including cinematography and original score. James Berardinelli called it arguably the best baseball film ever made. Roger Ebert dismissed it as idolatry on behalf of Robert Redford, and John Simon wrote that Levinson had swapped Malamud's failure of American innocence for a fable of success. Who it is for: viewers who like mythic hero stories and eighties visual romance. Who it is not for: people who have read the book. The film removed all of the novel's bitterness and put light in its place.