Field of Dreams

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) has an interesting, baseball-laced background.  His father had a brief career as a minor league baseball player and tried to pass down the traditional American love of baseball down to Ray, but as a rebellious teen about to throw himself completely into the hippie lifestyle of the sixties, Ray wanted nothing to do with his father or baseball.  Now, at age thirty-six, Ray is a pretty normal guy with a wife, Annie (Amy Madigan) and a little girl, Karin (Gaby Hoffmann).  He decides to become a farmer in Iowa and soon, starts hearing a voice in his cornfield.

“If you build it, he will come.”  The voice is vague, mysterious and rather haunting, Ray can’t find a way to shake it.  Through a vision, he figures out that the ‘it’ he should build is a baseball diamond and the ‘he’ will be Shoeless Joe Jackson, an expelled baseball player his father used to tell him stories about.  To build this field would mean destroying some of his crop, a huge financial risk.  To not build is more logical and safe, but would only leave Ray with a huge what-if.  He realizes a part of him that fears aging, turning into his father and never doing anything great.  What if his father ignored voices?  It’s a huge leap of faith, but building this diamond could be his only chance.

So Ray and Annie decide to go for it and build a beautiful baseball diamond right next to their corn and house.  Now everyone in this little Iowa farm town thinks they’re crazy.  It takes a long time, and just when the financial issues are rising up, Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) shows up to play ball.  Soon, more dead ball players come out of the field, but only the people who believe can see them.

As the financial issues become more serious, the voice returns, with Ray and Annie interpreting that it wants Ray to take Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones), a controversial author of the sixties, to a baseball game.  When you’ve done this much at the whim of a disembodied voice, you’ve got to see it through to the end.

Now, I know that some people look at Field of Dreams as just a baseball movie, it’s not.  Baseball just happens to be the physical theme that can be passed down from generations, with stories and action that can make anyone feel in their prime.  It works well to bring out a simple past-time.  The film does recognize that baseball is not the most important thing a man can do in his life, even if it is his dream.  When we meet Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster), we understand how close he was to his dream of becoming a baseball star.  He only played for five minutes in the majors and went on to become a doctor.  For Ray, he finds this to be a tragedy, to come so close to a dream and back down to a normal vocation.  Graham puts a larger perspective on his decision, saying, “Son, if I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes… now that would have been a tragedy.”  Baseball is a dream life, those five minutes on the field should be cherished, but the world does not revolve around it.

While this idea is mystical, intriguing and wonderful one thing really irks me…does this idea only apply to baseball?  Could there be another person somewhere hearing voices and having visions to build a giant greenhouse where dead gardeners will show up and his/her dead and estranged parent will show up and they’ll bond by watering some flowers together?  I don’t mean that to sound condescending, but rather hopeful.  Why should there only be a personal heaven built for baseball players?  How many people have ignored the voices and left the rest of us hanging in the non-exclusive parts of heaven?  If you ever hear a voice telling you to build an outdoor theater showing Raider of the Lost Ark with a never ending supply of beer and chicken wings, don’t ignore it and let me say thank you in advance.

“Iowa?  I could have sworn this was heaven.”

Dances with Wolves

Set during the Civil War, Dances with Wolves tells the story of a Union soldier, John Dunbar (Kevin Costner), who through his own suicide attempt aided the army to win a battle, and upon promotion, requested to be stationed at a post on the edge of the frontier.  Utterly alone there, where he hopes to see herds of wild buffalo and Indians he befriends a wolf he calls Two-Socks and becomes accepted by an entire tribe of Sioux Indians.

From the moment John rides his horse across the battlefield, arms to the heavens just asking to die, we know he’s not like the other soldiers.  I don’t think he gives two cents about the war.  The fact that he wants to be out in the frontier alone, to witness it before it is gone and overrun by the white men, shows a respect for nature that his peers don’t have.  He writes with a more intelligent and insightful tone than I would expect from any average Joe from the Civil War era.  He’s one of the few men of his time who could befriend and understand the Sioux.

Though John has an obvious lone wolf mentality, he still has a need for human connection that drives him to seek friendship with the Sioux.  The moment where he has Kicking Bird (Graham Greene) and Wind In His Hair (Rodney A. Grant) at his place and tries to ask about the buffalo is amazing.  John gets on his knees, puts his hands to his head to represent horns and tries to mimic a buffalo’s movement.  Wind in his Hair, the warrior, just dismisses John as crazy and wants to go, but Kicking Bird, a holy man, is more curious and tries to communicate.

A moment like that hardly ever happen often today, we don’t try to understand one another, or we just don’t have the need.  The closest I’ve come to such a moment was being lost in a German city and asking an old man on a bench for directions.  I didn’t speak German and he didn’t speak English, but we both knew just enough Spanish to help me find my way.  Today, I would just pull up the GPS on my phone and deny myself a meaningful human interaction.

Thankfully, the tribe has a way to get past the language barrier quickly.  At a young age, a white woman, Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell) was adopted by Kicking Bird and can still speak English.  Reluctantly, she helps translate John’s English, revealing to Kicking Bird how insightful and friendly John is compared to other white men.  As the bond between John and the tribe grows, Stands With A Fist teaches him to speak the Sioux language, they fall in love and become a married couple within the Sioux tribe.  Unfortunately, John is still a Union soldier and when men find that he has “turned injun,” he and the whole tribe are seen as a traitorous threat.

Of the seven Oscars the film won, the Cinematography of Dances with Wolves is what completely blew me away.  I don’t think I could have even imagined the rolling hills and plains of the west looking this majestic.  There are beautiful images of wind whipping through the tall prairie grass, the mountains far in the distance and the lake still enough too see a perfect reflection of horses on the other side.  It’s just amazing to see such natural beauty of the few places left in the American frontier captured so well.  And the buffalo scenes make your eyes grow wide and still your breath.

Dances with Wolves is one of those films everyone should see at some point.  This film is especially important to the few who know we have Native American ancestors.  It does not only preserve a culture and time that is now gone because of the narrow minded ambition of men, but teaches us about embracing, learning from and accepting people different from you.

“I was just thinking that of all the trails in this life, there are some that matter most.  It is the trail of a true human being.  I think you are on this trail, and it is good to see.”

JFK

Even now, nearly fifty years since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, there are still arguments and scrutiny over exactly what happened on November 22, 1963.  I realize that there are many people who have strong feelings on either side of the issue, but for the sake of an accurate review of the film and the reasoning it presents, all ideas following are based from the film and are not my personal opinion or interest.  Oliver Stone made JFK to make us rethink, so let’s not immediately shut that down.

With a mixture of facts and opinions, the film details the work of Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), the District Attorney of New Orleans, who believes there is more to the Kennedy assassination than the public was told.  He takes it upon himself to open up old files and investigate, pulling up an array of characters, some of them old acquaintances of Lee Harvey Oswald.  Soon, he speculates that the conspiracy goes all the way up to the White House.  All his time and energy spent on the case, and poking his nose around, causes a strain on his family life and could eventually put them in danger.  Nonetheless, he persists, driven by his need for uncovering the truth and bringing justice to the American people.

Where the film truly excels is in its editing.  At many points in the film, someone is narrating an episode from the past.  Within these narrations we are shown flashbacks or bits of news coverage to illustrate and better understand their story.  To do this in a compelling way that flows visually with minimal distractions and discontinuity is challenging enough, but these pieces of masterful editing also bring the viewer more understanding and emotional investment in the narrative of the film.  Often, these moments are quick with many perspectives going on at once.  It can be like a juggling act, but amazingly, we do not notice the hands in motion.

The way Garrison presents his evidence, especially towards the end of the film is stirring and powerful.  Unless you have decided long ago not to take anything Garrison says seriously, it is hard not to be moved by his statements.  We have seen him devote the time and energy to this case and we realize the implications at hand whether he succeeds or not.  To some extent, we’re not just rooting for justice over Kennedy’s murder, but for Garrison to succeed in all his work.  Pinning him against the cool, coy, assumed bad-guy Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones) only helps this cause.

Though the film is partially based on opinions, the fact is, we do live in a world where a modern president of the United States was killed in broad daylight in front of innocent civilians and not everyone agrees why or how this happened.  No matter what you personally believe on the subject, JFK pulls a compelling argument all in favor of seeking the truth for the good people who are still looking for it.

“Who grieves for Lee Harvey Oswald?  Buried in a cheap grave under the name ‘Oswald’?  Nobody.”