Canadian International Pictures: Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows (1998) - Reviewed

Courtesy of Canadian International Pictures

Back in 1997, decades before Vice shows like Dark Side of the Ring began to fill in the gaps left behind by wrestling documentaries such as Beyond the Mat or The Resurrection of Jake the Snake, documentary filmmaker Paul Jay followed Canadian World Wrestling Federation (rebranded WWE) superstar Bret “The Hitman” Hart during a pivotal moment in his career when Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling division offered for Bret to switch companies.  

WWF CEO Vince McMahon, a longtime fan and proponent of Bret Hart, counteroffered with a 20-year contract.  Betwixt and between choices, Bret Hart starts seeing a creative shift in the company that made him a legendary performer while McMahon starts getting cold feet about the contractual agreement, eventually culminating in a scandal that exposed the wrestling business and created in its wake the greatest villain in the history of professional wrestling known as the Montreal Screwjob.

 
Considered by many to be the most important wrestling documentary ever filmed, namely for how it captured one of the industry's most infamous moments in real time and Paul Jay’s camera was right in the firing line.  Starting as a biography of Bret Hart and the Hart family wrestling dynasty before gradually morphing into a David vs. Goliath tale of betrayal and humiliation that gave audiences an unexpected glimpse into the inner machinations of the business, the aptly named Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows is among the very first wrestling documentaries to truly go behind the scenes of the drama.  Produced in Canada, written and directed by Paul Jay who was granted unprecedented access to Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire and gets closer to the industry’s most transformative moment than any other filmmaker could’ve dreamed in a story that seems to write itself.
 
Shot on Betacam tape in standard definition by Joan Hutton, brilliantly restored by Vinegar Syndrome sublabel Canadian International Pictures, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows is comprised of preexisting wrestling show footage, photographs, newly shot interviews and then real-time footage of live shows captured in the moment.  The soundtrack album itself is a tracklist of Bret Hart’s favorite songs including but not limited to Keith Scott, Rob Zombie, Bryan Adams and BTK, forming a mostly incidental but at times discomforting soundtrack equal parts exciting and exuding feelings of shock.  Mostly though this is an ensemble set of interviews shot for the documentary as well as televised bits used in the show, giving us a mixture of old and new footage.
 
Bret Hart and his own familial relations with his wife couldn’t have been more strained during filming and you catch traces of their tensions leading to an eventual divorce in between outtakes shown in the film, but as a subject Bret Hart couldn’t be more charismatic or comforting to be around.  Honest and outspoken while critical of the newer sleazier creative shift in Vince McMahon’s ratings war with Ted Turner, Bret emerges from the catastrophic betrayal mostly unscathed and intact.

  

Where it gets very tense at first involves scenes of his father’s wrestling training basement where tryouts get put into excruciating submission holds, touching on the intensity of father Stu Hart’s wrestling family dynasty also comprised of wrestlers Owen Hart, Jim Neidhart and the British Bulldog.  While a tight knit family with a complete passion for and commitment to the art of wrestling, one gets the sense Stu Hart was despite his age and frail appearance was a real hard ass feared by his children.
 
Initially shown at film festivals before being aired on A&E and the Documentary Channel as well as BBC Two, the film initially found itself in legal limbo after Vince McMahon feared the film would add fuel to the flames generated by the Montreal Screwjob.  Though McMahon’s own efforts to block the film resulted in some nixed distribution deals domestically or internationally, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows quickly ascended the ranks as one of the greatest Canadian documentaries ever made.  

Winner of the Best Canadian Feature Documentary award in 1999, the film was as much of an expose of the wrestling business and portrait of its beleaguered performer as it was a classic tale of trying to find a moral compass in an otherwise amoral profession led by a creative genius/monster if you will.  Spawning the character of the ‘evil Mr. McMahon’ which resulted in some wild storylines that even landed the WWE’s chief creator in the ring.
 
Re-released by Canadian International Pictures alongside Paul Jay’s short-documentary bonus feature The Life and Death of Owen Hart about Bret Hart’s brother’s tragic accidental death in the ring, the new 25^th anniversary special edition of Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows is one of the most essential documentary releases of the year.  A gift that keeps on giving for fans of wrestling and/or the documentary medium in general, the film invariably played a major role in the development of the hit Vice documentary series Dark Side of the Ring which also touches on Paul Jay’s film in the first season. 

 
While some detractors rightly point out the film is mostly slanted towards Bret Hart’s version of the story, the film nevertheless captured the wrestling industry’s then-most controversial moment in real time in the same way the Maysles captured the infamous bloody slash at the Altamont Free Concert in Gimme Shelter.  Few, if any, wrestling documentaries manage to so thoroughly yank the rug out from under the viewer and expose the man behind the curtain we’re not supposed to be paying any attention to.

--Andrew Kotwicki