Sunday January 1, 2023 at 9 p.m., Arte broadcasts a classic of American cinema, The Horse Whisperer. With originality and sensitivity, Robert Redford’s camera magnifies the whisperers, these very special trainers. But do these really exist?
It’s a film that has everything of classic American cinema: nobility of feelings and grandeur of spaces. With The Horse Whispererbroadcast on Sunday January 1, 2023 at 9 p.m. on Arte and available on Arte.tv, Robert Redford signs a true masterpiece with careful distribution. Alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Sam Neil and Redford himself, it is the young Scarlett Johansson who makes her first significant appearance on the screen in the guise of Grace, a teenager bruised after a serious accident which caused the amputation of his leg and the trauma of his horse. With the help of a legendary trainer-healer, the teenager and the animal regain a taste for life. A moving scenario adapted from a novel of the same name, but which is also inspired by real events.
Ford puts trainers in the spotlight
The eponymous book by Nicholas Evans, a bestseller sold over 15 million copies, centers its plot on the relationship between man and horse and evokes new methods of animal communication, hitherto unknown to the general public. When Robert Redford bought the rights to the novel, he insisted on preserving in his staging the idea of the special bond between these so special trainers and their mount. Because Tom Booker, trainer from Montana who will save Grace thanks to his power to treat and understand horses, is not just a pure fictional character: he borrows from the paths of some great specialists, such as Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt and particularly Buck Brannaman. The latter, who also participated as a technical consultant and understudy on the set, has become a real star in his discipline, that of whisperers.
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Whisperer, a fascinating profession
A job that is intriguing: if popular belief has attributed to these trainers the habit of standing very close to the heads of horses and whispering things to them, it is actually more of an approach to animal without violence or excessive constraint, for purposes of education – or rehabilitation for animals made rebellious following accidents or ill-treatment. If the book and then the film have largely contributed to the notoriety of this method, we find very old traces of it in ancient Greece. The indigenous populations of America would also have used this technique which guarantees this relationship of trust between man and animal, so magical on the big screen.
