Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams is a 1989 fantasy film which tells the story of a man who builds a baseball diamond in his Iowa corn field.

It stars Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Gaby Hoffmann, Ray Liotta, Timothy Busfield, James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster and Frank Whaley. (Madigan and Hoffman also appeared in Uncle Buck the same year.)

The movie was adapted by Phil Alden Robinson from the novel Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella. It was directed by Robinson.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

In the original novel, Shoeless Joe, the character played by James Earl Jones, called Terrence Mann in the movie, is J. D. Salinger. In 1947, Salinger wrote a story called A Young Girl In 1941 With No Waist At All featuring a character named Ray Kinsella.

The character played by Burt Lancaster and Frank Whaley, Archie "Moonlight" Graham, was a real baseball player. The background of the character is his true life.

In the movie, the scene where Shoeless Joe Jackson (Liotta) talks to Ray Kinsella, Costner's character, about Heaven, fog is seen creeping out of the corn field and across the diamond. This was not a special effect -- the fog had actually come in at the time. Director Robinson decided to keep shooting, he felt the fog gave an eerie feel to the scene.

The studio built the baseball diamond on an actual farm in Dyersville, Iowa. After filming was completed, the family owning the farm kept the field, and added a small hut where visitors could buy souvenirs.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon appear as extras and are uncredited.

Synopsis

A child of the Sixties, Ray Kinsella is convinced by his wife to move from Berkeley and live on a farm in Iowa. He's 30 years old and up to his ears in mortgage debt when he hears a mysterious voice in his cornfield. "If you build it, he will come." Annie and his daughter don't hear it.

The next time he hears the voice, he also sees three visions of a baseball field illuminated for a night game, as well as a vision of Shoeless Joe Jackson. He becomes convinced that he's supposed to construct a ballfield so that Shoeless Joe, suspended from major leagues in a gambling scandal, can play baseball again. Annie thinks he's crazy but also thinks that "If you really think you should do this, then you ought to do it." (For Unificationists, this presents a poignant contrast with the situation of Noah, whose wife opposed his crazy idea of building a huge boat on top of a mountain to escape flooding.)

To the jeers of his neighbors, Ray plows under several acres of ripening corn and constructs a full-size ball field next to his house. It looks great, but nothing happens, and a year later he's in "moderate to severe financial difficulties". He can keep the field, but that makes it "awfully hard to keep the farm" as his wife sympathetically points out. At this point, his daughter pops to announce, "There's a man on your lawn."

Famous Quotes

Shoeless Joe Jackson: Is this heaven?

Ray Kinsella: No, it's Iowa.

Well, you know I... I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn't. That's what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases -- stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish, Ray Kinsella. That's my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?

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's 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 they're heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. And 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.