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| Dreams and the Field Thereof |
| 04.26.04 (12:16 pm) [edit] |
I have this friend. We talk frequently and when we do, we agree on many things. This is as it should be between friends. Perhaps the defining phrase of frienship itself is "I know what you mean." Or the telegraph version, "Me too." So I find it interesting and perhaps a bit disconcerting when we disagree, especially when the disagreement seems total.
One of my favorite movies is Field of Dreams. In fact, I often say that it is my second favorite movie of all time. However, whenever I mention this film or quote a line from it, my friend immediately points a finger to her open mouth and with tongue hanging out makes a universal gesture of cinematic disdain. It pains me to so violently disagree with a friend, but in the face of, well, such a face, it seems futile to discuss it further. But discuss I must.
First, let me point out that while I disagree with my friend, I can understand her point of view. In my more cynical moments I can see that Field of Dreams is sappy, hokey and emotionally manipulative. For me, the main plot of Ray Kinsella trying to reach a rapprochement with his father actually doesn't resonate too deeply with me as I love my Dad, always have and always will. So, if that is true, why do I tear up during the opening credits? The answer, my dear friend, lies in three supporting characters and the performances that brought them to life.
The first of these is the reclusive writer, Terrance Mann, played by James Earl Jones. Jones gives a wonderful performance ranging from his anger and outrage when first approached by the possibly deranged Ray Kinsella, to his childlike joy at being asked to go "out" with the players. Jones gets most of the movie's good lines and knocks them for homeruns. If the hair on the back of your neck isn't standing at attention when he extols baseball's place in American culture, you don't understand America or baseball. It's a tour de force. At the end of that speech he also gets to deliver one of the most devastating critiques of modern American culture ever. He explains to Ray that people will come to see the baseball field, and they will hand over twenty bucks to do so because "it is money they have, and peace they lack." Cut! Wrap! Print! Just nine words to accurately sum up where we stand as a people. And when James Earl Jones says it, it almost sounds like the Almighty himself.
Jones may get the great lines, but it is Burt Lancaster who puts the lump in my throat. Lancaster plays the elderly Doc Graham, so elderly in fact that when Kinsella and Mann turn up in his home town of Chisolm, Minnesota, he has been dead six years. After talking to just about the whole town, all our two heroes can come up with is that Doc Graham was a great guy. Like Will Rogers with a black bag, Graham never met anyone he didn't like, or didn't help in some way. Always there, always generous with his time and money, Doc was the soul and conscience of his town.
Finally, the magic intervenes and Ray Kinsella gets to meet Doc Graham on a moonlit night. What the former baseball player, "Moonlight" Graham, has to say grounds the entire movie. Yes, he loved baseball, his lifelong dream. Yes, he only played for five minutes in the major leagues. After a beautiful speach describing the beauty of the game and his aching desire to play it, he tells Ray that he would not do his life over to be a baseball star. As Ray tries to understand how a man can come so close to his dream and not attain it, Graham lets him know what life is really about. "Ray," he says plainly "if I had only gotten to be a doctor for 5 minutes, that would have been a tragedy."
For me, the emotional climax of the movie is when "Moonlight" comes off the Field and morphs into Doc Graham to save Ray's daughter Karen. Once again, Graham gives up a boy's game for his higher calling. I can't help but wince that I have never felt a calling so strongly or one as noble. As Doc Graham leaves the field, the players compliment him in the understated way that men playing games have, and I always find myself whispering with them "Wayda be Doc."
Even as Doc Graham shows once again what is really important, and it ain't baseball, he doesn't make the movie. The character that makes the movie is Ray's wife Annie. Without Annie, there would be no Field of Dreams. Without hearing the voice, without seeing the vision, it is Annie who believes. She believes in the dream even more than Ray does, because she believes in Ray even more than he can.
Every person deserves an Annie in their life. It is Annie's unflinching devotion to Ray and his dream that gives Ray the courage to continue. Not only her belief, but her encouragement and support are key to the realization of Ray's dream. Where would Ray be without her telling him to do it? Who takes care of the family while he is off chasing phantoms? If you have an Annie in your life, consider yourself blessed, your dreams are within reach.
At the end of the movie, Ray's father asks if he is in heaven. Ray replies in his corny way, "No, it's Iowa." But this time he is not satisfied with such an obvious truth. Ray asks what heaven is, and he is informed that "heaven is the place where dreams come true." When Ray answers "maybe this is heaven, then" the camera cuts to Annie and Karen sitting on the front porch. Heaven, then, is in Annie's arms, for it is there that the dreams came true. If you have found your Annie, fall into their arms, whomsoever they may be, and let them make your dreams come true.
And that Charlie Brown, is what the movie is all about.
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posted by: billyv (reply)
post date: 04.28.04 (8:43 am)
It would have been a great movie if the character Ray would have been played by any body else than that block of wood Kevin Costner.
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