MovieChat Forums > Secretariat (2010) Discussion > Worst Directed Scene of Historic Belmont...

Worst Directed Scene of Historic Belmont Win

posted 13 years ago by cinerepo
32 replies | jump to latest

Wanted to like this movie, as a sentimental Secretariat fan, but the bloated James Horner-like musical score was intrusive, where just dialogue would have sufficed.

The hippy chick daughter scenes were extra fodder one did not need, more Hollywood tripe.

But the worst injustice of all was the dreck-directed scene for the final Belmont Stakes win. If you had watched it live in the 70s when it took place, the race left you breathless, and you knew you were witnessing one of the greatest horseraces and horses of all time.

Also, Chic Andersen, who called the race, spoke some of the most memorable words as Secretariat came up the backstretch. All this was FADED out or ignored completely in the movie because some Hollywood director or producers decided that creative license and a grating musical interject was better than the real thing. That weird musical chorus number was annoying at least and too many closeups of hooves running ruined what should have been a soaring, final scene.

What these horserace scenes lacked were perspective -- craved more establishing shots to show Secretariat in relation to the track or other horses. And the Belmont stakes scene should have pulled out to show how far ahead Big Red was from the rest of the pack ( a historic 30+ lengths) and maintained that far shot perspective.

What a disappointing directorial approach to one of the greatest moments in sports history, let alone the Triple Crown.

[–] jaystarstar 13 years ago

Jack Whitaker didn't do the original call of the race: Chic Anderson did.

Otherwise, as I have stated on many other threads, IMO the Belmont scenes were unforgivably botched.

[–] cinerepo 13 years ago

Thanks Jaystar, meant Chic and made the correction. Yes, unforgivably botched and what a missed opportunity. Read your other posts since posting mine and totally agree w/ your insights.

I believe the people posting 'great movie' about this film actually work for Disney or are the directorial team's relatives.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] jaystarstar 13 years ago

Given the historic nature of the race and the huge national sensation Secretariat had become, I am a little dumbfounded, even with 37 years hindsight, that somebody -- CBS Sports, NFL Films, one of the major movie studios -- didn't mount about 25 high-speed movie cameras and stereo mics around every inch of Belmont Park so we would have high quality widescreen imagery of every step of the whole race.

Instead we are left with the CBS race footage, shot from about 3 cameras, and a couple other lower-quality clips of the race.

THAT'S what we should have gotten out of this movie.

Instead, the 37-year-old low-def video clips are still by far the best images we have of the race.

[–] wilcogirl7 13 years ago

"Given the historic nature of the race and the huge national sensation Secretariat had become, I am a little dumbfounded, even with 37 years hindsight, that somebody -- CBS Sports, NFL Films, one of the major movie studios -- didn't mount about 25 high-speed movie cameras and stereo mics around every inch of Belmont Park"

They couldnt mount 25 cameras and mics around Belmont Park, because they DIDN'T FILM AT BELMONT PARK!!!!

how could they not film what is one of, if not THE, most iconic races in the history of the sport at the actual location of the race??? I knew it wasn't belmont from the moment the scene of the pre-race press conference came on the screen. RIDICULOUS! That is why they couldn't really film the race the way it actually happened, the track they were using was way smaller than the Belmont track so the distance wouldn't look as grand as it really was.

[–] jaystarstar 13 years ago

I agree with most of your post and have pointed out most of these complaints myself -- especially the laughable "attempt" at making the hillbilly harness track look like Belmont Park.

What I was saying is I am a litle surprised, given the national hysteria that had built up over Secretariat and the fact he was a huge odds-on favorite to win the Belmont, that the ORIGINAL RACE, in 1973, was not shot by about 25 cameras on high-quality feature film stock.

[–] OlLineRebel 9 years ago

"hillbilly harness track"

????

It is KEENELAND, one of the finest THOROUGHBRED (galloping) tracks in the country.

However, it looks nothing like Belmont, much less adequate in size.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] cinerepo 13 years ago

Don't we wish we had hi-def technology back then?

So in substitute for that, go with the real footage. With all the editing technology today they could have really enhanced, cleaned up the old footage and go with that. It would have soaringly stood on its own -- nothing would have been a bigger thrill than to see the ACTUAL 1973 race in all its cleaned up glory on the BIG screen. Most of us watched that race in small TV screens and would have loved to see it play out bigger than life before us.

Just cut from a closeup on Penny's face in the stands to the horses breaking for their run and morph it into the actual footage, including the actual crowd roar of the day, Chic Andersen's call, etc. NO BLOATED MUSICAL SCORE to tell us how to feel.

Let the clip stand on its own. Nothing could have been more simpler to do and more powerful. Even young audiences would have gotten it. They have a bigger BS detector than we give them credit for.

[–] gnome-5 13 years ago

"So in substitute for that, go with the real footage. With all the editing technology today they could have really enhanced, cleaned up the old footage and go with that."

There's no way that you can clean up old video footage and edit it into present day footage without it being a jarring difference in quality.

[–] canuckteach 13 years ago

The producers of Seabiscuit proudly displayed the original film of Seabiscuit's historic rematch side-by-side with their own cinematography, in the Special Features of the DVD. That's care for the re-creation of a great event.

The film Miracle also took great care to re-construct the scoring plays of the 1980 Olympics, even inventing new methods of filming hockey sequences. Granted, that wasn't a horse film, but it shows where their heads were at.

If Secretariat's finale is a phizzle, it shows that the Production team just WEREN'T into doing an inspiring classic... 'why' isn't important.

Add to that, the film starts with a death, a funeral, and Alzeimers - talk about getting a slow jump out of the starting-gate.

:-) canuckteach (--:

[–] ih8tt 12 years ago

There's no way that you can clean up old video footage and edit it into present day footage without it being a jarring difference in quality.

I thought they actually did a great job with the Preakness footage, that's the cleanest print of that film I've ever seen...now if they'd only left the original call (voice and words) intact...

[–] cinerepo 11 years ago

Since we are in horseracing season ...

There have been many advances in digital technology to clean up older footage.
If you are still in the dark on this, witness the great cleanup efforts put into the Zapruder film, which was way older and more blurry than Secretariat's '73 Belmont race. Certainly more challenging to upgrade a grainy piece of footage from a 1963 camera shot by a civilian than footage shot by a national sports network 10 yrs later.

[–] gnome-5 7 years ago

"witness the great cleanup efforts put into the Zapruder film"

It's one thing to clean up historic footage that stands alone; it's quite another to intermix it with footage shot decades later with vastly superior technology.

Besides, if all you want is the original footage, go watch that. Why even bother with a recreation of the event? It seems like people here are insisting that the only way to treat an historical event in a movie is to recreate the existing footage. No creativity required, I guess...

[–] ayf_1983 13 years ago

There was a slight error too. I watched the tv broadcast of the race on youtube, and the announcer said Red won by 25 lengths when the race was run, but in the movie the announcer counted up to 31 lengths (the actual winning distance).

[–] cinerepo 13 years ago

Well it was very hard back then to count lengths on the fly. You literally estimate "visually" in horse lengths.

[–] dioro 13 years ago

I thought the movie commentary of the race was retarded. He was just announcing lengths and the crowd was dead.

[–] submachine 13 years ago

Chic Andersen, who called the race, spoke some of the most memorable words as Secretariat came up the backstretch. All this was FADED out or ignored completely in the movie

Because we already know Secretariat won, you dolt.

This was a perfect movie by the screenwriter of Braveheart...except for every boring family-related scene of Penny (husband, daughter, father).

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[–] txeagle 13 years ago

"Because we already know Secretariat won, you dolt. "

Well, okay then, why make the movie at all then? I mean, we already know he won, right?

I really wanted to see this movie, but after reading reviews, and the threads here, I'm just going to have to skip it. I don't care about the woman and her daughter, I wanted to see a realistic recreation of Secretariat's races, since I wasn't alive to see them in person. Guess I'll have to settle for the few clips on YouTube.

How could they NOT include Anderson's call?! What moron decided to cut that? Must have been the same guy that greenlighted Gigli. =p

[–] morrowmmm 13 years ago

Having very little knowledge of Secretariat, I watched this film because I thoroughly enjoyed Sea Biscuit, I only realised after the film that the distance by which Secretariat had won The Belmont Stakes was enormous.
As you have stated this very important win was thoroughly botched.
It was a reasonable film but nowhere as good as Sea Biscuit.

[–] jaystarstar 13 years ago

I watched the Belmont live in a hotel room.

It was one of the only athletic events I have ever seen where my jaw literally dropped open as it happened (like in the cartoons). I have talked to many other people, older people, who were watching it in bars, at parties, and a few who actually saw it, and they pretty much all said that was the reaction of EVERYBODY -- everybody going bug-eyed and saying, "hollllly $#$#$##!!"

The movie scene had nothing whatsoever of that utter astonishment and awe. The stupid gospel choir completely derailed and trivialized it. As well as the amateurish complete failure of recreating anything looking like Belmont Park.

[–] tacitpro 13 years ago

I watched it live, too, and this is a movie about the entire experience of the Secretariat story, not some attempt to faithfully re-create 7 minutes of horse racing.

I think the movie-makers did a pretty good job handling the Belmont. They *did* cut the sound entirely as the crowd realized what was happening and their jaws dropped. The 'impossible' utterance by Sham's owner was good stuff. Th synced it up pretty good with Chic Anderson's 'like a tremendous machine' line.

To dramatize live events like this requires slow motion, drawn out images. The actual footage didn't provide enough screen time to make a good movie statement. Who cares that it wasn't filmed at Belmont?

The story was the horse and the people around him, not the tracks.

[–] jaystarstar 13 years ago

This movie had NOTHING TO DO with the "entire experience of the Secretariat story" -- how the entire nation was literally gripped by the story for about three straight months.

That is only SLIGHTLY HINTED AT in the course of the movie -- the rest of the time taken up by all the hippie-daughter baloney and the tough-plucky-Penny fabrication.

The sound dropout at the climax of the Belmont (to be replaced by the completely idiotic and also compeltely contrived "Oh Happy Day") was the cinematic definition of MPE: Maximum Possible Error.

You could SEE it watching the end of the race on TV -- the cameras were rattling in their brackets, the railings of the track itself were shaking -- you could see it but you couldn't HEAR it, the speakers on the TV set couldn't reproduce it because TV was not broadcast in hi-def Dolby surround sound in those days, but I have talked to people who were ACTUALLY AT THE TRACK, and they said it was the loudest sporting event they had ever been at; it was like being next to a jet engine as it throttled up.

The final seconds of the Belmont scenes should have literally blown the audience out of its seat. It should have rattled the fillings in your teeth. Instead we got patty-cake gospel music.

[–] ih8tt 12 years ago

I think the movie-makers did a pretty good job handling the Belmont. They *did* cut the sound entirely as the crowd realized what was happening and their jaws dropped.

that silence disturbed me, actually, because usually when a crowd gets suddenly quiet like that (and it didn't happen in real life at Belmont that day, did it?) and with those looks on their faces (shock), it's usually because something very bad has happened (for instance, in Ruffian's match race), not that something amazing was happening

[–] ollie911 8 years ago

I watched it live in my basement as a 12-year old girl.

Just finished a book titled "The Horse God Built" and am reading parts of Ray Woolfe's photo-essay on Secretariat. Apparently on the day of the Belmont, golfer Jack Nicklaus was in his den watching the race. When Secretariat pulled ahead and began widening the lead, Nicklaus was on his knees, pounding the floor with tears streaming down his face.

Almost embarrassed by his reaction, he asked a sportscaster friend about what it meant. "It means, Jack, that as a golfer, all your life you have been in pursuit of perfection. And you saw it on that June day at Belmont racetrack."

[–] bluexterra 13 years ago

It's a movie, not a documentary. It's a Disney movie to boot. If you want historical realism, ESPN did a special on Secretariat and the triple crown. Or watch the footage of the race.

[–] bluexterra 12 years ago

It's a movie, not a documentary. ESPN did piece on Secretariat (it's up on youtube - 5 parts), so watch that if you want historical accuracy and don't want cheesy music. This movie gives people an idea about how great the horse was and the human side of it and I didn't judge the entire movie on one scene.

[–] shenandoahpride 12 years ago

IMO, everyone defending the way the movie depicts this thrilling race obviously never saw the real race live as it was taking place. Even watching it on YouTube leaves you breathless, but still nothing like the actual race did.

Don't know why they couldn't show footage. It would have been so simple to do. That's what ruined the whole film for me.

I mean, it's his unbelievable victory in the Belmmont that cemented him as the greatest race horse to ever live? Why mess with that?

Give me love , give me love , give me peace on earth.

[–] cinerepo 11 years ago

In the pantheon of famous sports sequences/wins, Secretariat winning the Belmont/Triple Crown was one of them.

This film was a sophomoric, EPIC FAIL. Anyone who is still defending it is either the movie's investors or relatives of the movie-makers.

[–] buyorsell888 8 years ago

Agreed. The ending of the film was awful. simply awful. Slow motion and gospel music instead of Chic Anderson's call.

Chic Anderson's call is one of the top five race calls of all time. It is part of Secretariat's Belmont and leaving it out was inexcusable. There are plenty of us out there who know every friggin' word by heart...

I know it is a Disney movie not a documentary but the factual errors, miscasting of Lucien Lauren and especially the Belmont totally ruined it.

[–] 8 years ago

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