On Sunday I went and saw Field of Dreams on the big screen as part of Fathom Events TCM Big Screen Classics series.
The last time I’d seen Field of Dreams in its entirety was in 1989 at the movie theater.
I was a teenager working at United Artist Park Sierra 6 screen theater in Riverside, California at the time.
And yes, there’s something a big odd about a movie that came then being called a classic now. Time truly does march on.
Field of Dreams played in UA 6’s largest auditorium for several weeks. People couldn’t really get enough of me.
17 year old me didn’t get it. I thought it was a good movie with many memorable scenes, but I didn’t understand what exactly about this film moved people.
I’m 47 now and can say I totally get it.
When I watched Field of Dreams the other day, I found tears in my eyes a lot more than I had expected.
I understand the pain that Kevin Costner’s Ray had over never reconciling with his father.
While my dad and I have a very good relationship, the same can’t be said for me and my mom.
That happens when your family splits up when you’re a kid. I also allowed my stubborn attitudes and protective internal mechanisms to exacerbate that.
I could now empathize with the disillusionment of James Earl Jones’ character Terrence Mann as well the loss of a heartfelt dream by Burt Lancaster’s Doctor Archibald “Moonlight” Graham.
“It was like coming this close to your dreams… and then watch them brush past you like strangers in a crowd.”
“You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day.”
Yet Doc Graham also came to realize that his dream was not his calling in this life.
He may have only gotten to play five minutes in the major leagues, but as he told Ray, “If I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes… now that would have been a tragedy.”
And while that scene and Graham’s lines are superb, it was what Terrance Mann had to say about people coming to see the baseball field built in the Kinsella’s Iowa cornfield that to me is the best monologue in the movie.
It’s also an incredible commentary about America’s past time.
“Ray. People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn into 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 twenty dollars per person.” And 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 off to the bleachers and sit in their short sleeves on a perfect afternoon. And find they have reserved seats somewhere along the baselines where they sat when they were children. And cheer their heroes.
“And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as they’d 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’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.
“This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”
The ultimate pay off of Field of Dreams though is the final scenes.
Ray who had years before refused to play catch with his father before their estrangement, gets to speak to his own father, the younger version of the man that he never had a chance to get to know.
Now the spirit of his father John, resurrected along with Shoeless Joe Jackson and so many other ball players of yesteryear, is here on this baseball diamond built in an Iowa cornfield.
And their moment together, getting to finally have that catch that was denied so many years before, is the perfect ending to this magical movie.