A REAL HORSE TALE 'RINGS' KING MORTENSEN BACK IN THE SADDLE FOR 'HIDALGO'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

`Hidalgo'' is named after a horse. Its human star, Viggo Mortensen, likes horses a lot. Its originator and screenwriter, John Fusco, loves them so much that he owns a breeding herd of 22 Spanish mustangs. And the film's director, Joe Johnston, cheerfully admits that he's not much of a horse person.

No reason to doubt any of that. As for the rest of this admittedly fictionalized but supposedly based-on-a-true-story epic, it's all open to question.

Set in 1890, the film tells the story of a half-white, half-Indian cowboy, Frank T. Hopkins. It's focused on Hopkins' claim that he and his mustang pony Hidalgo competed in (and won) the Ocean of Fire endurance race across the Arabian desert.

There is debate about whether Hopkins ever participated in the race. There is debate about whether the race itself ever took place, and if it did, how its route could have possibly gone as far as the film claims through terrain so inhospitable that it's called the Empty Quarter.

Whatever its veracity, however, one thing is evident: ``Hidalgo'' tried mightily to be an old-fashioned adventure with a humanistic message.

``It's the kind of film that I used to love as a kid: 'Gunga Din,' the David Lean pictures and John Ford Westerns,'' says Johnston, whose credits range from designing visual effects for the original ``Star Wars'' to directing movies as diverse as ``Honey, I Shrunk the Kids'' and ``October Sky.'' ``It looked impossible to make something like that again. We're gonna take a cast of thousands and 100 horses to Morocco? The trick was to find the simple story in it, which is about Frank and his denial of who he is.''

Which, screenwriter Fusco admits, was an invention of his (although there is evidence that Hopkins' mother was Sioux, whether he tried to cover up that part of his heritage is something only the movie suggests). Some say that most of Hopkins' claims were the invention of the cowboy's self-mythologizing imagination.

Fusco first heard the story of the white man who won the Arabian race from elders on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation 12 years ago, when he was researching his screenplay for ``Thunderheart.'' For further verification, Fusco points to respected horse history chroniclers J. Frank Dobie, Albert Harris and Dr. Ruy d'Andrade, all of whom found much of the cowboy's writings credible. Hopkins died in 1951.

``I showed volumes of (Hopkins') writings that were published in a horse and trail magazine to endurance race champions, trail ride judges, historians,'' the screenwriter claims. ``They said that this guy is not only a knowledgeable horseman and distance rider, but his writings were 50 years ahead of their time in the world of natural horsemanship.''

That would be long-distance horse whispering to you. Most of the attacks on Hopkins and the movie originate from an Internet site, thelongridersguild.com, operated by self-described ``equestrian explorers'' Basha and CuChullaine O'Reilly. The ``Hidalgo'' team says that the guild's discrediting efforts are driven by fear of Hopkins' claim that Hidalgo mated with a purebred Arabian mare during the race - which the movie, by the way, indicates never happened.

``Whatever (CuChullaine O'Reilly's) motivations are, to me it comes down to the bloodline of horses,'' Johnston says. ``To him, the idea that Hidalgo might have bred with an Arabian mare is tantamount to blasphemy. The superiority of the Arabian horse is almost like a religion to him. It's not about Hopkins, it's not about the race or whether he won. It's all about, was the Arabian bloodline diluted by this sort of bastard mustang.''

Which are just as lovable as the mighty Arabian, if you ask Mortensen. The ``Lord of the Rings'' star, whose King Aragorn did his share of riding in the Oscar-winning trilogy, liked his main ``Hidalgo'' horse, T.J., so much that he bought the mustang.

Even though the pony could have killed him any number of times.

``I got to revisit something I did as a kid - like kids will do, in a fearless way - and that was riding bareback,'' says Mortensen, who spent much of his youth on farms and ranches in South America. ``I remember riding full blast across a field of high grass, then hitting an anthill and the horse doing a somersault and me going, like, 'Whoa!' then getting up and chasing the horse and catching him - or not - and getting back on.

``But as an adult, even though I had the muscle memory and was able to get reacquainted after being sore for about a month, there wasn't only the physical aspect and the affection for horses, but throughout this film I was wary all the time. I thought, man, if I fall off, there's a lot of rocks.''

And heat. And nearly daily sandstorms around the film's main location near Ouarzazate, Morocco - where, not coincidentally, co-star Omar Sharif made Lean's ``Lawrence of Arabia'' more than 40 years ago.

``After the experience of filming 'Lord of the Rings,' everything is kind of relative, I suppose, in terms of hardships and all of that,'' Mortensen admits. ``But being in the Sahara Desert was kind of tough. The surface was so hard, there was just the shock of it all the time. Dust was flying around all the time. It was sometimes blinding, and it would get in your lungs. Some people ended up in the hospital, and some horses had trouble breathing because of it.

``But anybody that complained, I just said, 'You have no idea.' No matter how hard it got, every day you were still in an unbelievably beautiful place. And I do like horses, and I was on horseback all of the time. What's to complain about?''

Earlier this week, Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, was asking pretty much the same question. Although some Arab publications have run stories saying that his civil rights advocacy group was protesting negative stereotypes in the film, Hooper said that only an inquiry letter had been sent to the film's distributor, Disney, and that his organization did not have a public position on the film yet. The Long Riders' Guild, Hooper added, had distributed that letter to the Arab News.

``I haven't seen the film,'' Hooper says. ``Somebody associated with our office saw it in Northern California, and they didn't report major problems with it. What we saw was a first draft of the script, and obviously there were some concerns that we outlined in our letter to Disney.''

``I was extremely sensitive because I have as much respect for the Bedouin horse culture as I do for the Native American culture,'' says Fusco, who along with Johnston insists that Islamic advisers vetted the script and production every step of the way. ``I wanted to accurately capture that. I drew from travel narratives of the period, then cross-referenced them with an Iraqi scholar I consulted to work with me. It was such a colorful world, at times it feels like 'Arabian Nights' in 1890. But I was very sensitive toward that.''

And in case you were wondering, Fusco wrote ``Hidalgo'' in 1999, and the movie was shot before last year's Iraq invasion. Writer and director deny any attempt to metaphorically address America's current relations with the Arab world. Antiwar activist Mortensen, however, thinks there are parallels.

``It's coincidental that it's about an American cowboy who goes to the same region that our service people are involved in now,'' Mortensen say. ``What I like about the story, since that coincidence is there, is that, much like I think our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan behave, most Americans are decent and curious and open-minded. You can't always say that about the people in charge who put them in those situations, but like Hopkins, most Americans who go overseas are curious about what they don't know. That's the first step toward realizing the fact that people are people, and we are all connected.''

If, that is, Hopkins ever went to the Middle East.

``Obviously, this isn't our main focus, but one concern is the accuracy of the portrayal itself,'' CAIR's Hooper cautions. ``I have seen absolutely no evidence of any kind that would back up the claim that it's a true story. Just logic would tell you that you don't take a horse across the Empty Quarter.''

``We're saying the film is based on the life of Frank T. Hopkins,'' Fusco concludes. ``But it's not all that important to me if it said 'true story' or not. Even though we have decades of historical information, there is little known about the race itself. I did need to dramatize, I did need to create characters and situations. In many ways, it is a hero's-journey template. It is, you know, just a good story.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) WHAT A RIDE

VIGGO MORTENSEN TAKES THE REINS IN `HILDAGO'

(2) Viggo Mortensen liked one of the mustangs he rode in ``Hidalgo'' so much, he bought the animal.

(3) Director Joe Johnston, left, works with ``Hidalgo'' actor Omar Sharif, who starred more than 40 years ago in `Lawrence of Arabia,'' one of many classics that inspired those who made the new film.