ARTS & LIFESTYLE
VIDEO; Riveting documentary manages to pin down WWF
Paul Sherman
06/20/1999
Boston Herald
"It's far more real than people think," says
Bret Hart of his field of
endeavor, professional wrestling.
After watching the phenomenal "Hitman Hart: Wrestling
With
Shadows" (Trimark), I'd defy anyone to disagree.
As gripping a documentary as you'll see, "Wrestling
With Shadows"
was in many ways the result of a happy accident. Writer-director
Paul Jay
had started out making a simple profile of Hart, the veteran
World Wrestling Federation star from Calgary. Hart had
broken
through as a main-eventer and world champ after wrestling's
early-1990s steroids scandal returned some emphasis to smaller,
more athletic wrestlers.
But the intended portrait of a Canadian hero changed,
due to the
events of 1996 and 1997, and the unprecedented access the WWF
granted the filmmaker offer an incredible you-are-there view.
Hart's WWF contract expired, and he weighed his loyalty
to WWF
honcho Vince McMahon against a big-money offer from competing
World
Championship Wrestling. Choosing the WWF's 20-year contract over
WCW's, Hart was then persuaded to change his persona to an anti-
American "heel" and have McMahon tell him that the company
couldn't afford to fulfill that contract.
The WWF world champ again by now, Hart was able to agree
to
terms with WCW and give the WWF his notice. But Hart was
pressured by McMahon to drop the title at a pay-per-view show
in
Canada. It was the one place Hart, who had "reasonable creative
control" of his last month's matches written into his WWF
contract,
refused to lose. The result was McMahon double-crossing Hart in
the
Montreal match against Shawn Michaels, deviating from the
agreed-upon finish so that it appeared Hart submitted - the most
controversial ending to a wrestling match in decades.
The movie juggles Hart's dilemmas terrifically, economically
giving
the viewer the behind-the-scenes info needed to bring out the
drama of his
predicaments.
Jay makes his movie about much more than wrestling. It's
about
integrity, dignity, fathers and sons (Bret and wrestling-icon
father
Stu, Bret and father figure/boss McMahon, Bret and young son
Blade) and loyalty (among family members, employee and boss,
fans and stars).
And it's also about the storied Hart wrestling family
- Stu's eight
sons all went into wrestling, and his four girls all married wrestlers
-
with the recent death of Bret's brother Owen in a wrestling-match
stunt giving it an added poignancy.
