FIELD OF DREAMS
In
1951, my friend Eric's father died. Eric's dad was a pilot. He'd spent World
War II flying C-47's "Over the Hump," in
Eric
grew up to be a top athlete, and a professional ballplayer, pitching in the
California Angels organization. Today, he's a certified art therapist who's
helped thousands of people, sick in mind or body, to see the world, and
themselves, more clearly through painting and photography. He's an absolutely
great guy, big, jovial, perpetually laughing and smart-assing
it up, a man who likes his jokes noisy and his shirts even louder. And yet, you
have to be careful with him on one subject. You learn not to talk much around
Eric about your own father, and about the simple rituals with Dad that you took
for granted as a kid, the little passing moments of maleness between two guys
that seemed so unimportant at the time but turned out to be the apprenticeship
for your own manhood. Eric's angry about missing those ordinary transactions of
masculinity, and his face clouds over when you forget, and mention your own
father. He gets quiet. "I never got to play catch with my Dad," he
says, and after a moment of uncomfortable silence, you go on to something else.
Field
of Dreams is a film about lost chances gotten back again, and about finally
having those talks with Dad you wish you'd had. The story of "Ray Kinsella's" (Kevin Costner) crusade to bring a perfect
ballyard to his
In
baseball, Ray Kinsella finds redemption for himself
by connecting his own baseball past with the game's own mythic figures. He
travels to
Field
of Dreams can be rightly criticized for its sentimentality, and its willingness
to resolve the most vexing human problems through a ballgame with the Mount
Olympus All-Stars. At the end, the film's disturbing reaffirmation of
capitalism as a kind of American spirituality is jarring, but even that is
oddly fitting. Baseball has always, even in the golden years that are the
subject of Field of Dreams, been a business, often a notably cruel one.
Lock-outs, teams holding up cities for new stadiums, Croesus-like owners
pleading poverty, the home town slugger skipping to a new team every time the
crocuses bloom; increasingly, we know that baseball isn't a metaphor for life,
but simply life itself, complete with cleats and a jockstrap.
It's
wrong to call Field of Dreams a baseball film; like the best baseball films,
Bang the Drum Slowly, Billy Crystal's recent 61, or Ron Shelton's sublime Bull
Durham, this is a film that knows that baseball is a place in a boy's memory
where the rules are clear, where the soda pop is always ice-cold, and where
there's always the chance of an autograph from Mickey Mantle. Most of all, it's
a man's world, where the men seem just like the gods. There they stand, muscles
moving subtly under their numbered jerseys, talking easily with one another,
jogging up the steps of the dugout, loosely swinging a cluster of bats in the
sunshine, casually jerking batting practice home runs into the distant
bleachers. And you, the kid in the seats along the first-base line with your
father, are not a mere spectator in this human comedy. You've brought your
glove, in case you're asked to field a foul ball. You and your father speak of
what might happen next -- a bunt, a steal, a hit-and-run. You speak of what
just happened -- a triple off the wall in left center, a force play at second,
a called strike right down the pipe. Finally, you speak of what might have happened,
as you leave the park sunburned and sticky, bloated with too many Cokes and hot
dogs, and serenely happy. In this green place in the city, on this summer
afternoon, you have known both hope and despair, faith
and cynicism. You have gone to this man's place with your father, and you have
begun to find your own voice in that distinctively male discourse composed of
one part bravado, one part leg-pulling, and one part regret, that way of being
male that is simultaneously loud and silent. To paraphrase Raymond Carver, what
we talk about when we talk about baseball is nothing less than a conversation,
by turns loving and competitive, about manhood itself.
I
toss the ball to my friend Eric, and he catches it, big-knuckled and
loose-limbed. The look of the ex-ballplayer is there in the set of his
shoulders, and the way he squints confidently into the sun. Like all men who
weren't good enough, I envy that look. And yet there is that in him which
envies me. He tosses the ball back, but for him, it's not the same.
—
Kevin Hagopian,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is taken
from an article by Nina Easton that appeared in the
No
matter how hard Universal Pictures tries to hide it, "Field of
Dreams" is a baseball movie. A title change (from "Shoeless
Joe") and full-page advertisements that don’t even mention the sport can’t
mask the fact that at the center of the story stands Shoeless Joe Jackson—wistfully
recalling the "smell of the ballpark in my nose and the cool of the grass
on my feet. The thrill of the grass. . . ."
The
But
"Field of Dreams," based on W.P. Kinsella’s
book "Shoeless Joe," is about a lot more than baseball. It’s also
about lost dreams, generational ties and discovering magic in the back yard. So director Phil Alden Robinson can be excused when he interrupts
an interview about his new film and the role of baseball in American life, and
insists that he needs to explain the "Robinson theory of my
generation."
"We’re
the first generation in this century not to divest ourselves at 21 of those
things that defined us as teenagers," Robinson, 39, says of the baby-boom
generation. "We still maintain as options a willingness to wear jeans, to
question authority, to listen to rock ’n roll. We’ve maintained all those
things that defined us as teens. I think that’s healthy."
But
teen-age dreams—whether visions for life or just those crazy impulses that
seemed to define the 60s—had a rougher time surviving the wear and tear of the
years, says Robinson.
In
"Field of Dreams,"" Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella,
builds the ball field for Shoeless Joe after hearing a voice in his cornfield
say, "If you build it, he will come." Later, he nearly loses his farm
as he sets off on a cross-country search for a famous reclusive author (played
by James Earl Jones) and another old baseball pro (Burt Lancaster). Again, because a voice told him to.
"When
you’re 19 or 20 and you want to do something crazy you do it," Robinson
says. "I’ve struggled a lot with the whole issue of what you do with your
dreams (as an adult)," he adds. "I like to believe that there’s still
a way to hang onto the same kind of freedoms." Robinson then recalls the
time that he and his college roommates draped a parachute across a flagpole
outside their house and not one neighbor in that working-class section of
In
writing the screenplay for "Field of Dreams," Robinson said he attempted
to stay as close as possible to Kinsella’s dialogue
in the book, which has become a cult favorite among baseball fans. But he added
one speech in which Costner describes his fear of turning into his father, a
man who always seemed old, who had stopped dreaming long before his son arrived
on the scene.
When
Costner’s character hears a voice early in the film, he’s ready to listen.
"Here’s a guy in his late 30s, presented with the choice of doing
something completely illogical," Robinson says. "Taking that step
into the void symbolized who we are, our legacy of the
60s."
But
Robinson also makes sure that Costner’s character finds much of his dream at
home, in his wife (Amy Madigan) and daughter (Gaby Hoffman). That, too, is part
of the Robinson theory on the baby-boom generation.
"We’re
now going through a second coming of age," the director says. "We’ve
deferred what it means to be grown-ups," including marriage and children.
This is not just idol philosophizing: Robinson himself is ready to look inward,
to focus on friends and family. "I’ve deferred life for my career,"
says the unmarried director. So, after the release of "Field of
Dreams," . . . Robinson is taking a year-long sabbatical to focus on
friends, family, relationships. "Read my
lips," he says, "no more movies."
By doing so, Robinson will
be walking away from
His
big break in
If
early reviews are any indication of audience reaction, "Field of
Dreams" is likely to polarize audiences. Syndicated film critic Roger
Ebert calls the movie "completely original and visionary." But Time
magazine’s Richard Corliss sees it as a "male weepie at its wussiest."
Robinson
first tried to launch the project in 1982 after Kinsella’s
book was published, but he couldn’t generate much interest. "The general
response was, ‘We can see why you love this book but you can’t make a movie out
of it,’" he recalls.
The
"Shoeless Joe" project first wound up at Fox, but that studio
ultimately decided not to make it. Together with the brother producer team of
Lawrence and Charles Gordon, Robinson took his screenplay to Universal. As they
were closing the deal, Universal motion picture group chairman Thomas Pollock
joked, "This was the kind of movie that you only make if you hear a voice
telling you to."
Robinson
responded, "If you make it, they will come."
Costner
was the first actor to come to mind for the lead, says Robinson, but he and the
producers were so sure he wouldn’t be interested in doing another baseball
movie after "Bull Durham" that they didn’t even add his name to their
list. A Universal executive, however, made sure the script got in Costner’s
hands, and he came to them.
"It
was a great, great screenplay," Costner recalls. "I saw and believed
in the fantasy of this movie."
Costner
said he "wasn’t at all worried about" appearing in another film about
baseball. But he admits that among his advisers "there was some concern
about it." Costner promised to back up Robinson if the studio began
tinkering with the film’s fantasy elements and dialogue. But they never came to
blows with Universal—until the studio, concerned about the bleak fate of past
baseball movies at the box office, changed its title
to "Field of Dreams."
"I
loved the title ‘Shoeless Joe’; It’s a title for a movie about dreams
deferred," Robinson says, recalling the lost dreams of the innocent
Shoeless Joe at the hands of baseball’s corrupt owners. Robinson fought and
fought, but Universal wouldn’t budge on the title change. Finally, the day came
when the director had to break the bad news to the book’s Canadian author, Kinsella. Robinson recalls that he felt sick as he dialed
the phone.
But
Kinsella took the news in good humor: "Shoeless
Joe" had been the publisher’s idea for a title, Kinsella
told Robinson. They thought it would sell better. Kinsella
had always wanted to call his book "The Dream Field."
The following is taken
from an article that appeared in the
Director
Phil Alden Robinson struggled for five years to make "Field of
Dreams." It was, as the saying goes in
"It
was painful," Robinson recalled. "When we were on the set, I was
saying practically every day, ‘I will never do this again.’ I was just really
overwhelmed by the difficulty of the job. You’re just constantly surrounded by
doubt, mostly your own."
"And
it turned out to be a much more physically difficult movie than any of us
imagined—we were shooting during a drought, which was very depressing, to see
these farmers all around us not being able to grow their crops."
"It
was very physically uncomfortable—105 degrees and very humid. . . . And we had
an extremely difficult schedule all based on the projected growth of the
corn."
But
the corn wouldn’t grow.
Kevin
Costner had to leave to make another film on Aug. 15. James Earl Jones was back
and forth to "Three Fugitives," which he was shooting simultaneously.
Burt Lancaster had a commitment in
And
the corn wouldn’t grow.
They
shot everything else they could, interiors and scenes outside the farm, waiting
for nature to take its course. Nature didn’t. "I said, ‘The first scene in
the movie, when Kevin hears the voice, it’s got to be up to his shoulders.’ Two
weeks before we hit the corn (scenes) it was ankle high."
Robinson’s
movie had gotten caught in a drought—the worst drought since the days of the
dust bowl. Desperate, Robinson dammed up a stream and drenched his fields,
using all his planned emergency days to buy extra time. By stretching his
schedule 10 days (he ended up two weeks over budget) and pouring a small
fortune into irrigation, he managed to get shoulder-high corn.
Happily,
all the efforts paid off. The movie opened to solid profits, albeit in a so-far
limited release, and Robinson was especially gratified by the individual
responses of audience members.
"One
guy said, ‘I’m going through tough times, and I needed something to make me
believe, and this film has done it.’ A lot of people say, ‘I haven’t talked to
my folks for a while; I’m going to call my dad.’ So a year or two years of
agony was absolutely worth it."