leeper@mtgzx.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) (05/02/89)
FIELD OF DREAMS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A complex and witty fantasy film that
features great performances by James Earl Jones and Kevin
Costner. Even if you do not like our (stupid) national
pastime, this film about ghosts of the White Sox and a quest
is a solidly entertaining fantasy. Rating: low +3.
I do not like baseball. And because I do not like baseball, baseball
films do not work on me as well as they do on other people. Most baseball
movies assume that there is something somehow noble about playing baseball.
I don't buy that. A good baseball for me is one that would still be good if
you substituted professional wrestling as the game. PRIDE OF THE YANKEES
just does not stack up very well under this criterion. You have to consider
baseball important to respect Gehrig. BULL DURHAM is an okay but not great
character comedy. BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY would still be a good study of the
relationship of two men. I find that even with no respect for baseball, THE
NATURAL remains a fine fantasy allegory of talent and treachery, of darkness
and light. Now another baseball fantasy has come along with enough human
values, enough fine acting, and a good enough script that it is well worth
seeing even if (like me) you hate baseball. FIELD OF DREAMS is a real
surprise: a (usually) genuine piece of quality writing for the screen.
Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella: a would-be ball player's son, a
college activist in the late 1960s, and now an Iowa farmer. One day while
working in the field he hears a disembodied voice tell him, "If you build
it, he will come." After days of puzzling over hearing the message
repeated, he has a vision that the "he" is Shoeless Joe Jackson of the White
Sox (and, incidentally, of EIGHT MEN OUT), a personal hero of Ray's dead
father. "It" seems to refer to a baseball diamond to be placed in Ray's
cornfield. In time, the eight convicted White Sox have been wished out of
the cornfield and are playing baseball in the field. Then another message
comes and Ray finds himself on a mysterious mission to Boston to find
controversial 1960s writer Terence Mann, supremely played by James Earl
Jones. Jones's performance is quirky and brilliant. Mann's first meeting
with Ray is worth the ticket price all by itself. Ray continues his
ridiculous set of tasks and quests until at the end it all comes together
and makes sense.
Faults? Well, over the rest of the story there is superimposed a
rather prosaic "save the farm" plot that gets into the way of some of the
better story-telling. Then toward the end of the film there is a rather
gratuitous piece of cheap suspense. It is needed for the larger plot--
almost every shot in this film is--but the actual cause of the suspense
seems forced. Universal has taken a chance on an intelligent fantasy film
with a complex script and has made one of the best films of the year. I
would give it a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale. Pity it was about baseball.
Mark R. Leeper
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leeper@mtgzx.att.com
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leepermoriarty@tc.fluke.com (Jeff Meyer) (05/03/89)
FIELD OF DREAMS
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1989 Jeff Meyer
Summary: The Best Film of the Year (so far)
No, I'm not a baseball fan, and yes, maybe this film is a bit too Utopian
for some of you. That's your problem. There is no film I've seen this year
that I've enjoyed more than FIELD OF DREAMS; it combines an absolute sterling
story and script with excellent performances, and I enjoyed the living
daylights out of it.
First the story -- and don't worry, I'd feel criminal if I gave anything
away. All I'll say is that it's about a novice farmer in Iowa who hears voices
in his cornfield, and it weaves heaven, nature and baseball in and out of one
of the most graceful plot designs I've seen placed on the screen. I can tell
you what it has in it, though. It's got a basic plot that twirls around on
about 6 different axes, each independent but linked to the others, each
beautiful in its own right, each culminating in a resolution (actually, the
same resolution) and each catching me completely off-guard when it touched
down. It has characters who get their personalities across in about three
minutes (aided by some very skillful actors); I found them uncommonly easy to
laugh with and impossible to forget. It contains some of the most beautiful
images I can remember, looked for in a place few others would give a second
glance to. And it has more imagination and creativity than any fifteen films
out there today.
The actors uniformly absorb the spirit of their characters and literally
radiate them out. I kept wondering if Costner's role in BULL DURHAM would
slide over to FIELD OF DREAMS, on my part or on his. It doesn't; he is a
character the others react to, and when he finally has the spotlight... well,
it's a fine thing to see, a fine thing. Amy Madigan has *never* been better;
she juices her role into three-dimensionality in about thirty seconds. A
delight! James Earl Jones is absolutely a pleasure to watch; his unrolling of
his character from the tight, cynical ball it arrives in was a pleasure in
itself. The players are all good, especially Ray Liota as Shoeless Joe
(certainly a change in roles for him), and Burt Lancaster is himself, which
should be enough. Only the guy from "thirty-something" seemed stuck in a rather
deadpan manner as the heavy, but that's really having to scratch at the dirt
for criticisms.
This is a picture of dreams, of images, of men fading into the shadowed
green of a cornfield, and of white spheres fading into the dusk beyond the
lights. It's romantic, and hopeful and it believes in magic and family and
baseball. And probably Mom. I don't know about apple pie, but I'll give it
the benefit of the doubt.
What do I give it? An A. $6 movie. Go for it.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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