Great Moments From Cinema - 27

The One Constant Through Time
Movie: Field Of Dreams (Gordon Company-USA; 1989)
Director: Phil Alden Robinson
Screenplay: Phil Alden Robinson and W. P. Kinsella (Book)
Major Cast: Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta, Burt Lancaster and James Earl Jones

Film Synopsis: Kevin Costner is an Iowa farmer who hears a voice, which directs him to mow down much of his farm and build a baseball diamond. What follows is magic.

My Favorite Moment: James Earl Jones giving a speech about baseball.

Why I Like It: “If you build it, he will come”, says the voice. Well, Costner, who plays ‘Ray Kinsella’, does build it and ‘he’ does come. The movie is not a process concerning finding the identity of the mystery person, but rather about rediscovering something in life that is so pure and simple that people can lose sight of it.

The scene is towards the end where James Earl Jones, who as ‘Mufasa’ and ‘Darth Vader’ is no exception to classic quotes, gives a speech about baseball. It is so genuine and moving that it breaks your heart. Costner and his wife are trying to figure out how to meet the mortgage on their farm when their daughter suggests that they can sell their field as a tourist attraction. This is when Jones says, “Ray, people will come Ray. 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 $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has 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 of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

Amy Madigan plays Costner’s wife who supports her husband’s crazy notion because she believes in him as a person. Burt Lancaster and Ray Liotta have unforgettable performances and they inhabit their characters with sincerity, which the role deserves. Baseball is known to perhaps 10% of world’s population, but one doesn’t have to like the sport or even have heard of it to realize its importance as an American dream. In this speech, baseball is just a name for all those intangibles in our life whose value we can never measure. It is about all the things that we hold dear but take for granted. It is a cry out for us to regain our ability to feel and see the good in this world. Nominated for best picture of 1989, this is one of the most emotionally satisfying film experiences, which one can ever have. We all have the ability to build it and if we do, then he most certainly will come.