David Milch and HBO’s effort of ruling out the conventions of ‘Secretariat’ and ‘Seabiscuit’ through ‘Luck”
Perhaps by far the most intriguing piece that the American writer and producer of television series, David Milch, has come up with because of the familiarity and acceptability elements that he shares with ‘Luck’. It is more of an account of his personal
life that has roots into his childhood when he used to visit the Saratoga Race Tracks with his father, at the age of six, being under age for betting, a waiter used to assist young David with that.
“‘You want to gamble, don’t you? Well, you can’t gamble because you have to be 18 years old,’ ” Milch recalled his father telling him. “ ‘I’ve set it up with Max the waiter. He’ll run your bets for you”.
The story is reflective of how David dwelled upon gambling and how it incorporated with the man that he is today.
The passion for what have been in David’s bloodstream since childhood had culminated in him shooting the very first episode at Santa Anita in suburban Arcadia to make ‘the audiences feel present in the middle of the race and at the top of the horse.
The show revolves around the real horse racing life and industry that though has been fading away as the mainstream feature of the culture, still attracts some of the rarest combination of those who differ from players and pillars of any other sport.
It brings to screen the multiple dimensions of horse racing that are good and bad along with being the traits that David had grown up with or better yet, grown into.
Under the direction of Michael Mann and the banner of HBO, the series takes off with names like Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Farina and Nick Nolte, the series rolls off with ‘Ace’, a character that is being played by Dustin Hoffman, being released from prison
after three-years and is met by his driver, Gus (being played by Dennis Farina).
The driver has bought a new horse, “Mon Gateau” which apparently will not be possible for Ace anymore, owing to the nature of incident due to which he was sentenced imprisonment.
The rest of the part shows how Ace gets settled into the life that he had not been a part of for the last couple of years at Santa Anita.
A drift from what has been shown in ‘Secretariat’ and ‘Seabiscuit’, Luck goes into the intricacies of gambling, race fixing, cheating, politicizing the tracks and all in all, how does the organized crime weave everyone from the jockeys to the trainers
to the gamblers into the same one fabric of ‘horse racing’.
The hard to digest realities are counter balanced with the beauty of the sceneries and thrill of the races. For instance, David has even kept in mind the shadows that get casted by the Angeles National Forest.
There have been doubts and criticisms due to the hard core horse racing jargons that are used throughout the series and might not be the easiest thing for the audience to translate into the layman terms. For example, “bug boy”, “Pick Six” or “chalk”
are not exactly the words that the non-racing population is exactly aware of.
“It’s an act of faith,” David said. “Your fundamental response is to stay true to the deepest nature and intention of the materials. That’s what we did”.
David has tried portraying something that is beside the conventional ways of making movies or documentaries on horse racing. If his contemporary style will be accepted or agitated is debatable.
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