Timing is everything. The baseball fantasy FIELD OF DREAMS was released in 1989. Set in Iowa, the story of a farmer who turns his corn field into a baseball field that attracts the spirits of baseball icons from 1919 captivated American audiences including myself. But I was also attracted at how beautiful a stalk of corn looked (they don't call me CRAZYFILMGUY for nothing!). So imagine my delight when one of my oldest and best friends Dan announced he was getting married in 1991 and the wedding was to be in Iowa. When we played golf for his Bachelor's Party, what surrounded the golf course and fairways? You guessed it. Corn fields. Ray Liotta's Shoeless Joe Jackson asks Kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella if the baseball field surrounded by corn is heaven? Costner replies, "It's Iowa." But for a kid from Oregon, those endless corn fields were heaven.
Baseball is known as America's past time. If you ask two different people, one would tell you baseball is a great sport to watch with plenty of strategy, punctuated by strikeouts and home runs. The other person would tell you baseball is boring. It's too slow. It doesn't have enough action. As a kid, baseball was the first sport that I fell in love with and played. I was a pretty decent player for the first few years I played until we switched to metal cleats and I became afraid of getting spiked in the ankles at second base. I switched to basketball as my new favorite sport. When I became a father and had a son, baseball was the first sport he was introduced to. It was my first opportunity to share something in common with my son (besides STAR WARS movies). It was also a chance for myself and all the other fathers to relive our glory years playing catch and hitting batting practice with our offspring.
Baseball would not seem like a sport suited for the cinema yet the late 1980s was an amazing decade for the sport. It all started with Barry Levinson's THE NATURAL (1984) starring Robert Redford that was one of the most beautifully photographed films I had ever seen. John Sayles EIGHT MEN OUT (1988) would explore the story of the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson who were bribed to lose the World Series . "Shoeless" Joe focuses prominently in the plot of FIELD OF DREAMS. Kevin Costner caught the baseball bug appearing in another baseball film a year earlier than FIELD OF DREAMS in Ron Shelton's comedy BULL DURHAM (also 1988) about a minor league baseball team with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. And David S. Ward's MAJOR LEAGUE (1989) about a fictional ragtag group of players playing for the Cleveland Indians including Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Corbin Bernsen would come out the same year as FIELD OF DREAMS.
Based on the novel Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella and written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson (SNEAKERS), FIELD OF DREAMS begins with a clever, quick voiceover montage as husband, father, and neophyte farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) tells the audience about his father's love for the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox and his favorite player "Shoeless" Joe Jackson before scandal ruined Jackson's career, Ray's strained relationship with his father, and a brief history of Ray's life including attending college at University of California-Berkley during the late 60s, meeting his future wife Annie (Amy Madigan), the birth of their daughter Karin (Gaby Hoffmann), and how they came to buy a farm in Iowa. We cut to Ray walking through his fields of corn at sunset when he hears a voice whisper, "If you build it, he will come." A little startled, Ray asks Annie back at the house if she heard a voice. She didn't. Ray hears the voice at night in his bedroom, repeating the same words. The next day, Ray hears the words again only this time in the distance he sees the image of a baseball field with lights and a lone player in a white uniform. Ray realizes the voice is telling him to build a baseball field in the middle of his corn field.
Ray tells Amy his crazy vision and asks her if he's lost his mind. Ray doesn't want to lose the spontaneity in life that he felt his father did. Annie encourages Ray to follow his dream. Ray begins to plow up part of his corn field to the chagrin of his neighbors and Annie's brother Mark (Timothy Busfield) who works for the creditors that provided the loan. Ray and Annie build the field and bleachers and put up the lights. The corn stalks beyond the outfield serve as the home run fence. Annie keeps an eye on their finances. They may almost break even with part of their income now a baseball field. Little Karin breaks up their dinner discussion. Karin tells them there's a man standing on the baseball field. Ray walks out to find "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) standing before him in his White Sox uniform. Ray and Joe play catch. Ray pitches to Joe who nearly hits Ray with a line drive. Joe reminisces about what it was like to play and travel as a Major League ball player and have that taken away from him. Before disappearing back into the corn stalks, Joe asks if he can bring his teammates back next time.
Mark and his wife and Annie's mother visit the farm to talk sense into Ray and Annie. They can't see the rest of the 1919 Chicago White Sox team playing baseball behind them. The voice returns and tells Ray "Ease his pain." Ray and Annie attend a school board meeting where parents want to ban several books including one by Pulitzer Prize winning author Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) who was the voice of the 60s movement. Annie sticks up for Mann and denounces the censorship. Ray researches what happened to Terence Mann. He learns Mann lives in Boston and loved the Brooklyn Dodgers and had not gone to a baseball game in years. Ray believes it's Terence Mann's pain he needs to ease. Ray drives to Boston and locates Mann's apartment. Mann is not very friendly or happy to have Ray at his door. Ray tells Mann his crazy story and insists he has to take Mann to a baseball game. Mann gives in and they go to watch the Boston Red Sox. Nothing happens at the game until Ray hears the voice tell him "Go the distance." He looks up at the scoreboard which flashes the statistics for a "Moonlight" Graham. He played half an inning in the Major Leagues but never got to bat. Ray apologizes to Mann for bringing him on a wild goose chase. He drops Mann back at his apartment. As Ray turns his VW Bus around, Mann blocks his way. Mann has heard the voice too.
They head together to Chisholm, Minnesota to find "Moonlight" Graham. In Chisholm, they discover he's known as Doc Graham (Burt Lancaster) as he became a doctor. He's also been dead since 1972. Ray walks around town that night, a mist transporting him back to 1972. Ray meets Doc Graham on the sidewalk. They return to Graham's office where Graham wishes he had one at bat in the Majors. Ray asks him to return to Iowa with him but Graham declines. Ray and Mann head back to Iowa. Along the way, they pick up a young hitchhiker trying to make it as a baseball player. His name is Archie Graham (Frank Whaley). Back home, Mann is incredulous at all the old time ball players on the field. Shoeless Joe asks Archie to join the game. Archie has one at bat. Mark makes a final offer to Ray and Annie to sell the farm. They argue and Karin falls off the bleachers. She's not breathing. Young Archie crosses the first base line and transforms into the older Doc aka "Moonlight" Graham. Karin is choking on the hot dog she was eating. Doc clears her airway. Graham can't go back to his younger self. He thanks everyone and disappears into the corn field. Now, even Mark can see the baseball players. Shoeless Joe invites Mann to see what's beyond the outfield. Mann promises to write a book about it. One ball player remains on the field. It's Ray's father John Kinsella (Dwier Brown) as his young self. They talk and play catch as the sun sets and cars from all around the county with their headlights on begin to arrive to see the baseball field in the middle of a corn field. "Build it and they will come."
When I first saw FIELD OF DREAMS in 1989 (two years out of college), the whole father/son theme flew over my head which is crazy as I was fortunate enough to have a father who was around to play catch and shoot baskets with me during my formative years. In 1989, I was more captivated by the fantasy aspect of a disgraced group of baseball players from the early 20th Century returning as ghosts via a corn field portal to play baseball. Director Robinson sets the stage when Ray first hears the voice amongst the corn stalks tell him "If you build it, he will come." There's a sense of mystery to those words much like Charles Foster Kane whispering "Rosebud" on his death bed in Orson Welles CITIZEN KANE (1941). What does "If you build it, he will come" mean? Who will come? What does he need to build?
Robinson plays it close to the vest, keeping the real mystery all the way until the last five minutes of the film. At first, it seems obvious. Ray's father's favorite baseball player was Shoeless Joe Jackson. When Ray and Annie build the baseball field, Shoeless Joe appears one night to their astonishment, later bringing his Chicago White Sox teammates with him to practice. The wish has been granted. Then, Ray hears the voice tell him "Ease his pain." Those words take him on another journey away from his field of dreams, to reclusive 60s author Terence Mann. Ray doesn't find Mann in pain. Mann just wants to be left alone from former hippies who knock on his door, looking for the answer to life from him. Ray thinks taking Mann to a Red Sox baseball game will "ease his pain." Nothing happens until Ray hears one last instruction, "Go the distance" and sees a message on the scoreboard about a little known Major League player named "Moonlight" Graham. Only this time, Mann hears the voice too.
Ray and Mann go the distance to Minnesota to find former Major League ball player "Moonlight" Graham to help them with their mystery. Graham had only one appearance in the major leagues, played half an inning and never got to bat. Only they learn Graham died in the early 70s. Since this is a fantasy film, Ray walk back into time that night and encounters Doc Graham on the street. The two men chat in his office. Ray offers him the chance to return to Iowa and have that at bat. Doc declines. The mystery seems to have come to an end. Ray has gone the distance from Iowa to Boston to Chisholm, Minnesota with nothing gained. On the way back to Ray's farm, Ray and Mann pick up a young hitchhiker. His last name is Graham. Archie Graham. When they return to the baseball field, Shoeless Joe and his teammates are expecting Archie. He gets his one at bat before turning back into older Doc Graham to save Ray's daughter. All the phrases have come full circle. "If you build it, he will come" is for Shoeless Joe and young Archie "Moonlight" Graham. Shoeless Joe's pain is eased by playing baseball again. Moonlight Graham's pain is eased by having one chance to swing the bat at the plate. Only at the end does director Robinson answer the real mystery by revealing the last player on the field, wearing catcher's gear. Ray's father as a young man. The field was built to reunite Ray with his father.
Ultimately, FIELD OF DREAMS is about second chances. For Shoeless Joe Jackson, it's a second chance to play the game he loved, a game that was taken away from him by fix he never had his heart in. For Terence Mann, it's a second chance to be excited about life after the 60s fervor faded away, a chance to see what's beyond the corn stalks in center field, inspiration to write another novel. For Archibald (Archie) "Moonlight" Graham, it's a second chance to step up to the plate and have a swing or two at a pitch or even get a hit (Graham hits a sacrifice fly). When young Graham turns back into older Doc Graham to save Ray's daughter from choking, Doc is content with his one and only opportunity to face a pitcher and swing a bat. And for Ray Kinsella who thinks he built the baseball field to bring back his father's idol Shoeless Joe Jackson, it becomes a second chance to play catch with his father, the younger John Kinsella he never knew, a young man who loved baseball and tried to pass on the passion to Ray with limited success. The baseball field was built to bring Ray's father back, a second chance for father and son to play catch and reconnect.
Known as the Black Sox Scandal, the story of the 1919 Chicago White Sox , Shoeless Joe Jackson, and his role in the World Series has all the makings of a Shakespeare tragedy. The White Sox were accused of fixing the Series by intentionally losing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for monetary payments from gamblers. Two years later, a trial would ensue and although the jury would bring back a verdict of not guilty, eight White Sox players including Shoeless Joe would be banned from baseball by new Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Shoeless Joe Jackson's involvement has never quite been confirmed as Jackson set a World Series record at the time with 12 base hits, a batting average of .375, and committed no errors. If the fix was on, Jackson didn't get the word or refused to comply. But he was made an example by Commissioner Landis.
Kevin Costner who plays Ray Kinsella would have quite a meteoric rise in the 1980s. Costner's cinema debut would be almost entirely cut out in Lawrence Kasdan's comedy/drama THE BIG CHILL (1983) as the former college classmate who commits suicide that brings his friends back together. Only shots of Costner's funeral attire and wrist are shown at the start of the film. Kasdan would repay Costner for that sacrifice by giving him a lead role in the his adventure western SILVERADO (1985) opposite Kevin Kline and Danny Glover. A star was born. Costner would catch fire with back to back hits in Brian DePalma's THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987) and Roger Donaldson's NO WAY OUT (1987). Going against the grain, Costner would surprise everyone by appearing in two baseball movies one after the other. BULL DURHAM would come first. In most of his early and subsequent movies, Costner usually played confident, sometimes cocky characters. But in FIELD OF DREAMS, Costner's Ray Kinsella is an every man, not very confident about farming or razing part of his crop to build a baseball field. Costner's goofy and charming and it's one of my favorite performances by him.
Usually the role of the wife to a film's big star is a thankless role. Amy Madigan blows that concept out of the water in FIELD OF DREAMS. As Annie Kinsella, Madigan is a ball of energy delight. She believes Ray's heard a voice and joins Ray in following his crazy inspiration to build a baseball field even at the risk of losing the farm. Because she believes, she can see Shoeless Joe and the other White Sox players just like Ray. Madigan's best scene is when she challenges Beulah (Lee Garlington) an angry PTA mother who wants to ban books at a school meeting. Like Costner, the 80s was a good decade for Madigan with interesting roles in Walter Hill's STREETS OF FIRE (1984), John Hughes UNCLE BUCK (1989) starring John Candy, and Robert Benton's PLACES IN THE HEART (also 1984) where Madigan would co-star with her future husband actor Ed Harris (THE TRUMAN SHOW).
One of the keys to FIELD OF DREAMS success are the triumvirate of actors who play key supporting roles in the film: a Hollywood legend, a consummate Broadway and movie/TV actor, and a rising star. Casting Burt Lancaster as Doc Graham was a stroke of genius. Lancaster made a career playing morally dubious characters in films like Alexander Mackendrick's SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) and Richard Brooks ELMER GANTRY (1960). But in FIELD OF DREAMS, Lancaster's Graham is a grandfatherly soul. Watching newcomer Costner act with veteran Lancaster is a dream. James Earl Jones has the most fun arc in FIELD OF DREAM as writer Terence Mann. Mann's journey will take him from angry reclusive writer to giddy baseball fan when he sees Shoeless Joe and the others on the baseball diamond. In the book, Ray kidnaps real author and recluse J.D. Salinger of Catcher in the Rye fame. The character was changed to fictional Mann for the film. Jones became famous to millions of young filmgoers as the voice of Darth Vader in the STAR WARS films. Jones's film breakthrough came as a champion boxer in Martin Ritt's THE GREAT WHITE HOPE (1970). His illustrious career includes roles in Stanley Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE (1964), John Badham's THE BINGO LONG TRAVELING ALL-STARS & MOTOR KINGS (1976), John McTiernan's THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990), and the voice of Mufasa in Disney's animated THE LION KING (1994).
I had a man crush on Ray Liotta the moment I watched his performance as Melanie Griffith's just out of prison, ex-boyfriend Ray Sinclair in Jonathan Demme's SOMETHING WILD (1986). You couldn't take your eyes off Liotta's smoldering performance. Liotta followed that film up with FIELD OF DREAMS and soon after Martin Scorsese's GOOD FELLAS (1990). Not a bad start. Liotta would play a lot of psychopaths and crooked cops throughout his career. With FIELD OF DREAMS, Liotta shows us another side as a street wise but playful Shoeless Joe Jackson, thankful for another opportunity to play the game he loved. It's just a supporting role yet Liotta makes us care for Joe the first moment we meet him (and hear Liotta's infectious New Jersey laugh). Rounding out the stellar cast are three small but important roles. Timothy Busfield (TV's THIRTYSOMETHING) as Annie's brother Mark has the toughest role. Busfield's the heavy and Annie's brother. We don't want Mark to stop them from chasing this wild dream but we understand his angst. His sister and brother-in-law might lose their house. In the end, Mark becomes a believer too. Frank Whaley (PULP FICTION) as young Archie "Moonlight" Graham brings a nice Midwest innocence to his role. And Dwier Brown (THE CUTTING EDGE) has the Rosebud moment. He's not the sled from Charles Foster Kane's childhood in CITIZEN KANE. He's John Kinsella, the young version of Ray's father. Brown brought tears to thousands of grown men's eyes as he plays catch with his now grown son Costner. He's the reason the baseball field in the middle of a corn field was built.
It was a joy to revisit FIELD OF DREAMS, a rare gem of a film that touches the heartstrings more than I remembered the first time I saw it. It's hard to believe that a baseball fantasy film like FIELD OF DREAMS ever got made in the first place. The only other previous baseball fantasy film that comes to mind is 1958's DAMN YANKEES based on the Broadway play about a frustrated Washington Senators fan who makes a deal with the devil to help the Senators win. After FIELD OF DREAMS, five years would pass before another filmmaker would attempt a baseball fantasy film. William Dear's ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1994) about celestial angels assigned to help the California Angels win a pennant would be released starring Danny Glover, Tony Danza, and newcomers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adrian Brody, and Matthew McConaughey.
Like most sports films, it's the story outside of the baseball theme in FIELD OF DREAMS that grabs the audience. The scenes of throwing and catching and hitting the baseball are just icing on the cake. FIELD OF DREAMS was blessed with an excellent adapted screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson, experienced producers in Charles and Lawrence Gordon, and a Hall of Fame cast of Costner, Madigan, Jones, Liotta, and Lancaster. Besides a talented group of Hollywood filmmakers and actors, there's no question that the image of a baseball field surrounded by those stalks of corn that so captivated me in the theater and later my visit to Iowa had a role in the magic and success of FIELD OF DREAMS.
