In these films, you can almost smell the straw

It’s Oscar time again for movie fans, some of whom actually leave the house to watch movies in theaters, as the 90th Academy Awards ceremony unfurls this Sunday evening. Diehards have placed their pool bets, banking on a romantic science fiction thriller to blow both “Dunkirk” and “Three Billboards …” out of the water. It could happen, but then you never know what’s in that envelope. Really, you never know.

The major categories are always fun to tackle, since actors seem like real people, and how hard can it be to write a screenplay, or point a camera? When it comes to documentaries, however, the audience hits a wall. The depiction of true-life situations requires a discipline that precludes flights of raw imagination. The gift of observational rigor is a necessary trait for the documentarian, and facts matter. Also, viewing a documentary can seem like school.

And yet horse racing, as depicted on the screen, has fared better in documentary form than as a subject of feature films, even though the people who made “Boots Malone” got just about everything right in their tale of a world-weary agent and his wide-eyed young rider, down to the bitter end, and was no surprise that “Casey’s Shadow” was imbued with the rhythms of racing, since it was directed by racehorse owner Martin Ritt and starred inveterate horseplayer Walter Matthau.

By the early 1980s, Frederick Wiseman already was a two-time winner of prime-time Emmy Awards for documentaries about a hospital and about a municipal police force. One was called “Hospital,” the other “Law and Order.”

That’s why there was no confusion about his subject matter when in 1985 Wiseman released a documentary called “Racetrack.” Coming on the heels of his more urban films about fashion models and an upscale department store, Wiseman’s “Racetrack” has a gritty, down-to-earth feel true to the world of both the backstretch and the grandstand.

The Wiseman style offers no narration, no music, and no interviews. His cameras find their way into very intimate settings without apparent intrusion. Wiseman, still making films at age 88, resists the idea that his work is an example of cinema verite – the long takes of undifferentiated observation – because his final cut is a product of tight, highly selective editing of the hours of footage compiled, telling the story that formed in his mind as the scenes were captured.

For New Yorkers, “Racetrack” is the ultimate home movie. Shot in the spring of 1981, much of it takes place at Belmont Park leading up to the Belmont Stakes, in which the locally based Pleasant Colony would be going for the Triple Crown. Along the way there are glimpses of people, places, and objects that today, more than three decades later, trigger dreamy aches of nostalgia.

There’s Richie Migliore as a brand new jockey, fresh of face and jaunty, surrounded by stern veterans such as Jacinto Vasquez, Jorge Velasquez, and Jean-Luc Samyn, all in their prime. Parking lots are full of cars made in the States. The Daily Racing Form, a broadsheet, is a buck fifty. The climactic Belmont Stakes is played for no particular drama other than its obvious role as a big deal on the day. Wiseman watches fans watch the race. The aftermath is a jumble of photographers pressing close to a dark horse (that was Summing) draped in white carnations and shouting “Jockey, hey jockey!” at the winning rider (we know it is George Martens). A TV commentator in a stetson (hello Frank Wright!) tells Martens, “Nice job, son.”

When he bought his copy of “Racetrack” years ago, John Hennegan looked in vain to find his father, who was a NYRA racing official at the time. Hennegan and his brother, Brad, were racetrack brats, steeped in the game, its lore, and its fascinating cast of characters. They grew up to become a filmmaking team, responsible for the widely praised Kentucky Derby documentary “The First Saturday in May” and an Eclipse Award-winning film about jockey Perry Ouzts, which received ample play on the AT&T U-Verse cable system.

“What amazing footage, an incredible time capsule,” Hennegan said about “Racetrack.” “His style is definitely more art house.”

Hennegan said “The First Saturday in May” was inspired more by such documentaries as “Hoop Dreams” and “Spellbound,” following a group of principals as they strive to attain a lofty goal. But there is an element of the Wiseman flavor in their ability to capture unscripted moments.

“We’d never really seen a racetrack movie that was authentic,” Hennegan said. “That was our impetus. I know we did have a leg up because of our father, and we wanted to create something the sport could be proud of.”

Documentaries are becoming more commercially accessible through streaming and cable sources. The hard-working Hennegans have produced more than 150 half-hour films on a globespanning array of subjects, including horse racing.

Wiseman’s work, on the other hand, has been a little harder to find, since he controls total ownership of his more than half-century of work. His most recent documentary, “Ex Libris: the New York Public Library,” was considered for an Oscar nomination this time around, but did not make the final cut. The good news is, however, that Wiseman’s entire catalog soon will be available through the Kanopy network of films available through public libraries and universities. Looks like I’ll need to renew my card.