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In a sentence: A farmer begins hearing mysterious voices that implore him to build a baseball field.
About eight or nine years ago, my softball team and I were getting ready for our first practice of the year. We all go a little stir crazy in the offseason, so we pounce on the first opportunity. We watch the forecast like hawks, and more often than not we get a day in February (!) that gets up into the 50s, which is more than enough to practice in if you're desperate.
As we started practicing a young man walked across the field and asked if he could play with us. We said yes (we always say yes)...and he was incredible. Fast, smart, and genuinely one of the kindest people I've ever had the pleasure of playing with. He said his name was Nate, and we promptly invited him to join the team. He told us later that, when he saw how warm it was going to be he threw a bunch of different equipment in his car—gloves, soccer cleats, a football—so that he'd be able to play with whoever he found in the park that day, no matter what they were playing.
He was so fast and impressive in the field that people would often ask me: "where did you find that guy?" And I always said the same thing:
"He just walked out of the corn one day."
When you actually describe this movie, it sounds really weird. And not just weird in the sense of being unconventional, but in the sense of being unpredictable, even random. There's a farmer, and he's obsessed with Shoeless Joe Jackson, and he helps a novelist, and the two of them help an old man who never got to bat in the majors. Oh and there's a PTA meeting subplot about banning books that seems like it's only there to justify the novelist stuff.
They don't really link together in any logical way. You can't A-to-B your way from one thing to the next. Everything is A, to Q, to %, and then back to A except this time it's lowercase and for some reason it makes you think about your grandpa's house. If this film's plot were a series of directions, you couldn't say "turn left." You'd have to say stuff like: walk until you start to think about your childhood, and then follow the feeling of eating a corn dog. If you start thinking of your Senior Year home room it means you've gone too far.
Can it be made to make sense? Is trying to do that missing the point? There might be some connections there, so thin and ephemeral you'd need an EMF meter to detect them. Maybe Terrance Mann is just a cautionary tale about what happens if you're the kind of person who doesn't listen to the voices. Maybe he's there so they have an excuse to talk about banning books, which has some kind of connection with being banned from baseball. Maybe the focus is Shoeless Joe because losing the game he loved is like losing your father. I don't know. It all requires the same leap of faith the characters have to make.
Of course, everyone knows that Field of Dreams is about faith. It's also about marriage. But I repeat myself.
Ray's wife is the real hero of this film. All Ray does is hear a voice and do what it tells him. It takes faith on his part, and bravery for sure, even though approaching this movie as if it were reality would lead any sensible person to scream at Ray that he's an irresponsible idiot, possibly with an undiagnosed brain tumor. Like marriage, it only works if you decide to buy into it, immediately and completely.
...but he, at least, hears the voices. Annie doesn't. Ray has to trust that the mysterious voices are right, but Annie has to trust Ray in trusting that the mysterious voices are right. It's a much harder job. But they're married. They're a team. She's along for the ride. That doesn't mean unwavering support in any context. Sometimes it means the opposite: sometimes it means they're the one person in the world who can shake off the sign, who can tell you the difficult thing you need to hear. And that's the paradox of marriage, right there: simultaneously being the most supportive and the most critical person in someone else's life, and accepting the same in return.
Unfortunately, this leads to one of my biggest criticisms of the film: Annie's dream.
Annie is rightfully skeptical of Ray's plans. She doesn't give him an ultimatum (which demonstrates her ultimate faith) but she expresses her reticence...until she has a dream about Ray going to Fenway Park with Terrance Mann. It's a mystical coincidence she can't ignore. It's unlikely enough that it's almost as if she's hearing the voices, too. And it dilutes her faith, her sacrifice, and her contribution to both the marriage and the story.
I sort of get it. I'll argue against myself and say that there's a sweet sort of "marriage is a shared delusion" angle here. It's nice that they truly team up, that she's completely on board instead of just allowing it or just believing him. But there's a cost there, in that her belief is more impressive when she doesn't get to experience what Ray's experiencing.
Instead, the role of Real Person is played by Timothy Busfield, who gets the thankless job of being the only person in the fairy tale who cares about basic finance. He's the person we'd all be (I hope) if we saw this actually happening. He is a necessary foil, though I think there's a better version of this film where he's less aggressive, more sympathetic, and doesn't accidentally almost kill Ray's daughter, a clumsy addition seemingly only there to make it perfectly clear whose side we're supposed to be on.
The character brings to mind Frank Grimes, the famous Simpsons character cursed with real-world awareness about the absurdity of Homer's cartoonish nature, the way he Mr. Magoo's his way through everything. The only person who can see his plot armor.
Fine, but there's not much of it. But Ray Liotta bats right-handed, and Shoeless Joe Jackson was famously left-handed. It's a small, but nearly unforgivable oversight, particularly given how theoretically easy it would've been to fake it a little and/or mirror a shot, or something. If this film were made a few decades later, there's no way they allow this.
There's no game to win, but Ray and Annie are rewarded for their faith in the end, in a memorable aerial shot showing a line of cars stretching out of frame. These are "the people" who "will come." It seems happy, it seems sweet, until you remember Terrance's speech: "For it is money they have and peace they lack." Every car in the shot representing a peaceless person, searching for something. Nostalgic for a time they didn't live through which only kind of existed. An endless line of lost souls who would do anything for one more minute with someone they've lost, and basking in memories is the closest thing to it that they can find. Hoping that maybe if they sit down and watch the game, a ghost will come and sit next to them.
In the same way The Natural lives on because its ending more than anything which came before it, I think it's fair to say Field of Dreams owes the bulk of its staying power to James Earl Jones' famous monologue.
Jones' monologue is exactly the sort of flowery stuff I've been filling these reviews with. And it's good, but kind of clumsy to include in the middle of a film. He might as well be looking right into the camera (and at one point he almost literally is). Here are the parts I want to highlight:
This idea of baseball as a metronome, a thing that is always there, is one of its best qualities. There are so, so many games. 162 per team in the regular season alone. For about six months each team has roughly a 90% chance of playing a game on a given day. In its heyday, people listened to it on the radio. While this is less engaging than watching it on TV, I think this played to its advantage: it made it the background of their lives. A constant presence underlying everything else they were doing. Folding laundry, eating, living. It weaved its way around people's day-to-day activities. It just kept going. It was always there, greeting you every morning and bidding you good night every evening. And you kept listening even when it frustrated you, because there was still a magic there.
Remind you of anything?
It's not for nothing that, when a team wins the World Series, all the players get rings. It's a partner you stick with through streaks and slumps, and it gives you a little symbolic promise that your faith will be rewarded. And the reminder of that promise is staring you in the face in every game you've ever seen: right in the middle of the field, a diamond.
Nate (which means "He gives") played with us for several seasons before moving to Arizona. When we got new jerseys made a couple of years ago, he ordered one, even though his days playing with us were over. I still miss him, and I still keep one eye out in every practice for someone looking for a place to play, looking for a team. Because some day, someone else will walk out of the corn.
Field of Dreams (1989)
In a sentence: A farmer begins hearing mysterious voices that implore him to build a baseball field.
About eight or nine years ago, my softball team and I were getting ready for our first practice of the year. We all go a little stir crazy in the offseason, so we pounce on the first opportunity. We watch the forecast like hawks, and more often than not we get a day in February (!) that gets up into the 50s, which is more than enough to practice in if you're desperate.
As we started practicing a young man walked across the field and asked if he could play with us. We said yes (we always say yes)...and he was incredible. Fast, smart, and genuinely one of the kindest people I've ever had the pleasure of playing with. He said his name was Nate, and we promptly invited him to join the team. He told us later that, when he saw how warm it was going to be he threw a bunch of different equipment in his car—gloves, soccer cleats, a football—so that he'd be able to play with whoever he found in the park that day, no matter what they were playing.
He was so fast and impressive in the field that people would often ask me: "where did you find that guy?" And I always said the same thing:
"He just walked out of the corn one day."
When you actually describe this movie, it sounds really weird. And not just weird in the sense of being unconventional, but in the sense of being unpredictable, even random. There's a farmer, and he's obsessed with Shoeless Joe Jackson, and he helps a novelist, and the two of them help an old man who never got to bat in the majors. Oh and there's a PTA meeting subplot about banning books that seems like it's only there to justify the novelist stuff.
They don't really link together in any logical way. You can't A-to-B your way from one thing to the next. Everything is A, to Q, to %, and then back to A except this time it's lowercase and for some reason it makes you think about your grandpa's house. If this film's plot were a series of directions, you couldn't say "turn left." You'd have to say stuff like: walk until you start to think about your childhood, and then follow the feeling of eating a corn dog. If you start thinking of your Senior Year home room it means you've gone too far.
Can it be made to make sense? Is trying to do that missing the point? There might be some connections there, so thin and ephemeral you'd need an EMF meter to detect them. Maybe Terrance Mann is just a cautionary tale about what happens if you're the kind of person who doesn't listen to the voices. Maybe he's there so they have an excuse to talk about banning books, which has some kind of connection with being banned from baseball. Maybe the focus is Shoeless Joe because losing the game he loved is like losing your father. I don't know. It all requires the same leap of faith the characters have to make.
Of course, everyone knows that Field of Dreams is about faith. It's also about marriage. But I repeat myself.
Ray's wife is the real hero of this film. All Ray does is hear a voice and do what it tells him. It takes faith on his part, and bravery for sure, even though approaching this movie as if it were reality would lead any sensible person to scream at Ray that he's an irresponsible idiot, possibly with an undiagnosed brain tumor. Like marriage, it only works if you decide to buy into it, immediately and completely.
...but he, at least, hears the voices. Annie doesn't. Ray has to trust that the mysterious voices are right, but Annie has to trust Ray in trusting that the mysterious voices are right. It's a much harder job. But they're married. They're a team. She's along for the ride. That doesn't mean unwavering support in any context. Sometimes it means the opposite: sometimes it means they're the one person in the world who can shake off the sign, who can tell you the difficult thing you need to hear. And that's the paradox of marriage, right there: simultaneously being the most supportive and the most critical person in someone else's life, and accepting the same in return.
Unfortunately, this leads to one of my biggest criticisms of the film: Annie's dream.
Annie is rightfully skeptical of Ray's plans. She doesn't give him an ultimatum (which demonstrates her ultimate faith) but she expresses her reticence...until she has a dream about Ray going to Fenway Park with Terrance Mann. It's a mystical coincidence she can't ignore. It's unlikely enough that it's almost as if she's hearing the voices, too. And it dilutes her faith, her sacrifice, and her contribution to both the marriage and the story.
I sort of get it. I'll argue against myself and say that there's a sweet sort of "marriage is a shared delusion" angle here. It's nice that they truly team up, that she's completely on board instead of just allowing it or just believing him. But there's a cost there, in that her belief is more impressive when she doesn't get to experience what Ray's experiencing.
Instead, the role of Real Person is played by Timothy Busfield, who gets the thankless job of being the only person in the fairy tale who cares about basic finance. He's the person we'd all be (I hope) if we saw this actually happening. He is a necessary foil, though I think there's a better version of this film where he's less aggressive, more sympathetic, and doesn't accidentally almost kill Ray's daughter, a clumsy addition seemingly only there to make it perfectly clear whose side we're supposed to be on.
The character brings to mind Frank Grimes, the famous Simpsons character cursed with real-world awareness about the absurdity of Homer's cartoonish nature, the way he Mr. Magoo's his way through everything. The only person who can see his plot armor.
How's the Baseball?
Fine, but there's not much of it. But Ray Liotta bats right-handed, and Shoeless Joe Jackson was famously left-handed. It's a small, but nearly unforgivable oversight, particularly given how theoretically easy it would've been to fake it a little and/or mirror a shot, or something. If this film were made a few decades later, there's no way they allow this.
Do They Win?
There's no game to win, but Ray and Annie are rewarded for their faith in the end, in a memorable aerial shot showing a line of cars stretching out of frame. These are "the people" who "will come." It seems happy, it seems sweet, until you remember Terrance's speech: "For it is money they have and peace they lack." Every car in the shot representing a peaceless person, searching for something. Nostalgic for a time they didn't live through which only kind of existed. An endless line of lost souls who would do anything for one more minute with someone they've lost, and basking in memories is the closest thing to it that they can find. Hoping that maybe if they sit down and watch the game, a ghost will come and sit next to them.
In the same way The Natural lives on because its ending more than anything which came before it, I think it's fair to say Field of Dreams owes the bulk of its staying power to James Earl Jones' famous monologue.
Jones' monologue is exactly the sort of flowery stuff I've been filling these reviews with. And it's good, but kind of clumsy to include in the middle of a film. He might as well be looking right into the camera (and at one point he almost literally is). Here are the parts I want to highlight:
They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.
"Of course, we won't mind if you look around," you'll say. "It's only twenty dollars per person." They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack ...
... The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.
America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.
This field, this game -- it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.
"Of course, we won't mind if you look around," you'll say. "It's only twenty dollars per person." They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack ...
... The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.
America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.
This field, this game -- it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.
Remind you of anything?
It's not for nothing that, when a team wins the World Series, all the players get rings. It's a partner you stick with through streaks and slumps, and it gives you a little symbolic promise that your faith will be rewarded. And the reminder of that promise is staring you in the face in every game you've ever seen: right in the middle of the field, a diamond.
Nate (which means "He gives") played with us for several seasons before moving to Arizona. When we got new jerseys made a couple of years ago, he ordered one, even though his days playing with us were over. I still miss him, and I still keep one eye out in every practice for someone looking for a place to play, looking for a team. Because some day, someone else will walk out of the corn.