The Legend of Bagger Vance

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

Just discovered this movie today, it's great! Especially poignant given the recent spree of golf in The Masters!

 

[hhisc16]

Interesting movie! I enjoy watching it for sure.

 

[Mysterian]

This was on my list for years. I wasn't a golf fan, but eventually heard it was loosely based off of the Bhagavad Gita, and then I was interested. Damon's character is R. Junuh, the Gita character is Arjuna. Baggar Vance's character in the Gita is Krishna (disguised as Bhagavan). Anyhow, adds a new dimension to the whole thing.

I finally saw it while catching up with various movies with certain actors, and this was during my Theronathon. I appreciated how different this was than most other sports films because of how all the golfers were friends, though still very competitive. There was no enemy here. The real struggle was with Junuh overcoming his post-war trauma.

Really fantastic score by Rachel Portman, who had just done another Theron movie the year before, The Cider House Rules (love this movie and score even more). Both of these movies have their controversies, which I won't get into.

 

[bcla]

I don't think Spike Lee was a fan.

http://archives.news.yale.edu/v29.n21/story3.html​

During a master's tea with an audience of more than 200 students in the Calhoun College dining hall, Lee cited four recent films in which there is a "magical, mystical Negro" character: "The Family Man," "What Dreams May Come," "The Legend of Bagger Vance" and "The Green Mile." In the latter film, Lee noted, a black inmate cures a prison guard of disease simply by touching him; in "The Legend of Bagger Vance," a black man "with all these powers," teaches a young white male (played by actor Matt Damon), how to golf like a champion.​

​

The film director, who frequently inspired the laughter of his audience as he peppered his talk with expletives, was unreserved in his criticism of this new characterization of blacks, posing to his audience the question: "How is it that black people have these powers but they use them for the benefit of white people?"​

​

Noting that "The Legend of Bagger Vance" takes place in Depression-era Georgia, a time when lynching of blacks in the South was commonplace, Lee stated, incredulously, "Blacks are getting lynched left and right, and [Bagger Vance is] more concerned about improving Matt Damon's golf swing!​

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"I gotta sit down; I get mad just thinking about it," continued Lee, standing before his audience wearing a black leather jacket. "They're still doing the same old thing ... recycling the noble savage and the happy slave."​

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

I liked the book more. On e of the few times read book before movie.
Little heavier with backstory of Junas. Read it a long time ago don't remember if it addressed Spike Lee's issues with movie more.