Last month, it was somewhat fascinating to watch Randall Wallace’s “Secretariat” a day after Anton Corbijn’s “The American.” There is no comparison to draw between the two, of course, but if the latter is the ultimate “show, don’t tell” film, then the former is most certainly the ultimate “tell, don’t show” film.
Mike Rich’s screenplay (which was “suggested” by William Nack’s book “Secretariat: The Making of a Champion,” the closing titles tell us — I don’t know if that makes it original or adapted) is soaked in the most viscous sentiment you could imagine, and perhaps as much as you’d expect from the sampling of materials put out thus far. But while that might be forgivable given the feel-good nature of the narrative, the repetition of that sentiment is what kills it. My guess is director Wallace couldn’t settle on which blatant example of force-fed symbolism or thematic showmanship to trim from the potent mixture, so he just kept it all.
Last week, while discussing the sound editing category, I explained the difference between that art form and sound mixing. The Oscar for the latter is shared between two (or more) persons who construct the soundtrack of a movie. The re-recording mixers bring together everything – dialogue, sound effects, music – into what we hear in the theater. The production sound mixer is also awarded for capturing the sounds during shooting, an undoubtedly arduous task.