Baseball Movies (Believe it or Not) and Passion

I recently saw the end of Field of Dreams on television, one of those movies that whenever I stumble across it I end up watching from that point to the end. (Two others are The Usual Suspects and Shawshank Redemption. I've watched the end of those movies more times than I can count.) When Field of Dreams first came out I almost didn't go see it because I thought it was a movie about baseball and I simply wasn't interested. I did go, it was the only thing playing at the time that a friend wanted to see, and I'm very glad I did. It's sort of a modern fairly tale, I guess, and it's about a lot of things but mostly it's about father's and sons. I've probably seen it all the way through twenty or more times and I doubt I've ever made it to the end without crying. Okay, my mother used to say she cried at supermarket openings and I am her son. Don't get me wrong, it's funny and charming, not sad at all, but the emotional impact always hits me broadside.

Interesting that I was objecting because it was a baseball movie; turns out three of my favorite films (of which there are hundreds, I must confess) are baseball movies: Field of Dreams, of course, then Bull Durham (another movie with Kevin Costner, who I insist I don't like, but really love in both of these films) and The Natural with Robert Redford (who I almost always love.) League of Their Own is another good baseball movie, not high on my favorites list but good in any case.

Bull Durham is interesting for many reasons. It was the first time I saw Tim Robins, who I have come to think is one of the bigger talents of the last few decades, and who is close to the top of the list of people I want to meet and work with. The next thing I saw him in was Jacob's Ladder (a strangely compelling, surreal contemplation on war, responsibility and individual redemption that stays with me even though I've only seen it a very few times) and I was shocked to realize it was the same actor who played the punk kid in Bull Durham.

In any case, Field of Dreams is about a man "who never did a crazy thing in his life until he heard The Voice," which tells him to plow a third of his corn field under and build a baseball diamond on it so that Shoeless Joe Jackson (played by Ray Liotta fairly early in his career) can redeem himself from the 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal. But, as is often the case where it's used in American stories from Bernard Malamud on, baseball is really a symbol for something else, something often quintessentially American, but also something universal. Baseball is the one thing Costner's character had to connect with his father, who died before they reconciled, and is something he teaches to his daughter. It is the one thing he can use to connect on a personal level with his favorite author (played magnificently larger than life by James Earl Jones), even though the author refuses to admit he ever liked the sport. It makes me want to be a fan of the sport so that I can have that same connection with my father. Of course, that wouldn't help, as my father isn't a fan of it, either, as far as I know, so we'll have to stick with movies and writing as our bond.

Often, there is something intangible that makes a movie work. In the case of Field of Dreams, a lot of its success was due to the passion that everyone who made the film had for the project. They all believed in it and that belief practically glows from the screen. Passion is my favorite word and I am attracted to that kind of passion even when it is directed toward something I am not passionate about.

In Bull Durham, I think, baseball stands in for passion. And it's a very passionate film. It's a very different movie from Field of Dreams, much more lusty, and Costner is again quite good in it. It was where I fell in love with Susan Sarandon and, as I say, where I discovered Tim Robins. (It seems it was where Susan Sarandon discovered him, also, they've been living together ever since.) It makes the distinction between youthful, undisciplined passion, embodied by Robins' character, and that of Costner's, no less lusty, but grown up, matured, partly because of the added element of respect. One of the best speeches Costner has ever delivered on screen is the "what I believe in" speech. What he believes in includes the hanging curve ball, the soul and the small of a woman's back. Every time I watch that film, by the end of that speech, I believe in all those things, also.

Where Field of Dreams finds a powerful emotional core in its gentle examination of family ties and following a dream, Bull Durham is simply a delight from beginning to end. It is delightful to watch this young buck (Robins) be forced to grow up and this slightly over the hill ringer (Costner) fight against making his peace with the world. And Kevin Costner is in both of them, of all things. Who knew?

Geoff Hoff is co-owner of Joseph Coaler Productions and, with Steve Mancini, co-wrote the satirical novel "Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend".