Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 1 April

Field of Dreams (Robinson, 1989)

Last week saw the open­ing games of the new base­ball sea­son in North America. It’s a pas­time I don’t much care for (or under­stand) but I am always amazed at how it brings out the best in American filmmakers.

Films like The Natural, Bull Durham, A League of Their Own, 8 Men Out and even – I’m sure I am in some­thing of a minor­ity here – Million Dollar Arm speak to the romantic place the sport has in the culture.

The best remains Phil Alden Robinson’s clas­sic Field of Dreams, and the appear­ance of a new 4K UHD collector’s set (includ­ing a fancy len­ticular box and a selec­tion of post­cards) promp­ted me to per­suade the fam­ily to watch it with me once again on Saturday night. (Actually, it was the 22-year-old’s first view­ing! How have I failed in this aspect of his edu­ca­tion up to now? His response as the cred­its rolled? “That was the best film ever.”)

Back dur­ing the 2021 lock­downs, when I was filling in on At the Movies and strug­gling for new release con­tent, I chose Field of Dreams as some­thing to help get us through the dis­lo­ca­tion and anxi­ety:

It stars Kevin Costner at the peak of his Hollywood every­man phase as Ray, a reluct­ant Iowa farm­er who hears a voice in his corn­field one day telling him that “If you build it he will come”.

Baseball fan Ray thinks that means that if he ploughs under a few acres of his crops and installs a pitch­ing mound, bases, home plate, and lights for night games, then dis­graced former White Sox hit­ter Shoeless Joe Jackson will come back and play ball one more time.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple and the voice starts mak­ing even more cryptic demands.

…

The more you watch it the more you get out of it. You soon real­ise that base­ball is just con­text and that what you are watch­ing is a gentle por­trait of intergen­er­a­tion­al angst, a chan­ging America, a fam­ily that’s found love and now has to work out how to send that love where it is needed.

On Ray’s quix­ot­ic jour­ney he meets a dis­af­fected author, an age­ing coun­try doc­tor and a wide-eyed young ball­play­er and his mis­sion is to dis­cov­er the con­nec­tion between them all – and to him.

…

This time around I was struck by the spir­itu­al dimen­sion – I’ve always been moved by the fam­ily stuff – but that sense of embra­cing the unknown, the adven­ture bey­ond the life we have here was what I felt most strongly last night. Or maybe it’s just the accept­ance of the unknown, the unknow­able, that I felt.

Transcendant.

Where to watch Field of Dreams

Worldwide Physical Media: 4K UHD disc from ViaVision (only six left in stock apparently)

Aotearoa: Digital rental

Australia: Streaming on Paramount+, FoxtelNow, Stan or Binge

Canada: Streaming on Netflix

Ireland: Streaming on Sky

India: Digital rent­al from Amazon

USA: Digital rental

UK: Streaming on Sky