The Natural, now twenty-three years since its theatrical release in 1984, seemed like an almost instant classic. Call it nostalgia if you like, but Barry Levinson’s movie of the 1952 Bernard Malamud novel just feels like it was made several decades before it actually was. Mostly set in 1939, the film effectively captures the look and mood of that era in baseball. Its PG rating accurately reflects the limited profanity and lack of overt sexuality that would make The Natural feel right at home if it had come out a generation or more earlier. As a child, I can remember being shocked that the film wasn’t older since it seemed like the mystique of The Natural had always existed.

Then again, I was partially right, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. Aside from the period detail, the main reason Roy Hobbs’ story resonates so loudly and feels so authentic is because it’s heavily steeped in mythology. Taking its cues from Malamud’s book, the film goes to great lengths to connect Roy Hobbs, fully embodied by Robert Redford, to characters like Odysseus and King Arthur. This not only adds a sense of timelessness, but also advances the idea that baseball is merely a backdrop for a story that applies to countless persons throughout history. A large part of why Greek tragedy and mythological stories have remained popular for so long is their eternal relevance to human life. Specific circumstances have changed over time, but no emotions are felt that haven’t been agonized over repeatedly before.

There’s more to the mythology angle though. No other film about baseball has had the cognizance to recognize the nearly intangible mythic qualities of the game of baseball itself. It’s the journey of Roy Hobbs in the story of The Natural, but there are many other figures from the real life history of the game that inspire comparisons to mythology. Babe Ruth, the obvious inspiration for the character of “The Whammer” in Malamud’s story, will probably always be the supreme baseball god, the Zeus of the diamond. His legendary strength (he finished his career with 714 home runs, surpassing the all time record when he hit his 139th in 1921) and seeming invincibility were unknown to baseball mortals. Other players from before World War II, when baseball was unrivaled in popularity among sports, have been deified for their unbelievable accomplishments as well. Lou Gehrig’s incredible 2,130 consecutive games played and the once-believed untouchable strikeout total of pitcher Walter Johnson have both been bested, but in significantly different circumstances and decades later. Thus, it’s not too much of a stretch to call baseball players the mythological gods of the American twentieth century.

If Roy Hobbs had been real, he might have been right up there on baseball’s Mt. Olympus with Ruth and Gehrig. Sports stories have a way of feeling stale or recycled in the movies, but The Natural is able to make its own path despite using a few of the old stand-bys we’ve come to expect. Much of its enjoyment lies in the intriguing idea of a supremely talented, confident young ball player who is literally shot down before his prime, only to be resurrected on the downside of his thirties to lead a cellar dwelling team to the pennant. The execution is key as well though, with Barry Levinson ably directing only his second feature film. Levinson has been a frustratingly inconsistent director who’s made some wonderful films like Bugsy, Wag the Dog and the Oscar-winning Rain Man, a film I still love despite a downsliding critical consensus. He’s also directed some pretty mediocre things, but his heavy involvement in the television series Homicide: Life on the Street, the best procedural drama ever, tips the scale in his favor for me.

A lot of what makes The Natural so enjoyable for myself and others is subjective. The viewer has to approach the film more as a fantasy than reality-based (similar to another great baseball movie of the eighties, Field of Dreams), and it surely helps to be a fan of baseball. But if you give yourself over to the mythology of the story, The Natural is a wonderful film. The cinematography of Caleb Deschanel is spectacular and was deserving of an Academy Award (he was nominated, but lost to the work of Chris Menges on The Killing Fields). Countless scenes look like poster-ready photographs in motion. The slow motion sequences, complete with Randy Newman’s intense and oft-imitated score, succeed because they’re reinforcements of the cliche, serving as an example of why such scenes became cliches in the first place instead of seeming trite and unoriginal. The acting is uniformly top-notch, including great character turns from Wilford Brimley and Richard Farnsworth and Redford’s charismatic lead performance.

There are plenty of possible criticisms to hurl at Levinson’s film though. It’s emotionally manipulative, arguably too long, the baseball scenes are lacking from a technical standpoint, and some more character development would have been nice. All are valid complaints, but most wouldn’t provide significant improvement over the finished product (or the recently released director’s cut, which has apparently become the only version available since Sony decided to not include the theatrical cut on the new release while also taking the original disc out of print). There’s magic running through The Natural and you either allow yourself to fall under its spell or you don’t. Some of the pitching and hitting scenes look a little too inauthentic for my taste, but that’s a minor, nagging detail that still doesn’t detract enough to stamp out the twinkle that appears in my eye when Hobbs shatters the clock or breaks the stadium light. A film as earnest as The Natural, with a subject as cinematic as baseball, gets a free pass for a few tugs at the heartstrings.

For some people, though, the main problem with the movie was that it changed the ending from what was written in the novel. The happy Hollywood version eschews the bitter failure and public decline of Malamud’s Hobbs. The mythological aspects are more in tact in its literary incarnation also, punishing Hobbs and denying him a second-chance victory. The character, in both film and book, doesn’t really learn from the mistake that got him shot initially so perhaps Malamud’s original conclusion is the fate Roy Hobbs deserved. Regardless, I’m not one who believes movies based on books are obligated to adhere strictly to their source. The film version of The Natural would seem more appropriate to end as it does, given the filmmakers’ other creative decisions to make the picture less dark and more crowd-pleasing than the book. Hobbs is still a deeply flawed character in the movie, but, as one of the interviewees on the newly released two-disc director’s cut alludes to, the 1980s audience was different than the post-war readers of Malamud’s novel.

Twenty-first century audiences may not see with rose hues like they did twenty years ago, but the legend of Roy Hobbs remains as vital as ever. The man who wanted to be “the best there ever was” is baseball’s great mythic figure of fiction, a name more famous today than the majority of the actual players enshrined in the Hall of Fame. The company Ebbets Field Flannels produces and sells replica uniforms and hats of vintage professional baseball teams. All their memorabilia is authentically detailed to closely match what real players wore in baseball’s bygone era, but I believe there’s only one team whose merchandise they sell that’s fictional - the New York Knights, the team of Roy Hobbs. I wonder if, fifty years from now, kids will know Hobbs’ name and, if so, think he actually played the game. I’m guessing they will, on both counts.