So one of the first things I learned upon my arrival at University of Iowa is that the much-loved 1989 Oscar-bait Field of Dreams was in fact filmed just up the road in Dyersville, IA. ("Is this heaven?" "No, it's Iowa.") What's more, the baseball field is still there--as is the white house--and the stadium lights--and the wooden bleachers Ray's daughter falls off--and the line in the gravel Moonlight Graham has to cross to revive her--and the corn fields, which at this time of year are just tall enough and green enough to still evoke the nostalgic aura of a film that even 25 years ago was already choked with Baby Boomer nostalgia. There's also a tourist stand, because of course there is.
Anyhoo, a group of us, as a thing to do and yet another excuse to get out of Iowa City, drove up there this last Labor Day, to see some dead relatives, run the bases, learn something about America and learn to believe again or whatever. Mostly just to take pictures. And get out of Iowa City for an afternoon.
As you can probably tell, I wasn't looking for much of a nostalgia buzz there. As we drove, I considered it almost kinda sad that this old movie set is still standing for whatever tourists still remember it (serious, is the film really that much beloved?). Now, I seem to remember having fond childhood memories of it, but I seriously haven't seen the flick since the Clinton administration, for I have the sneaking suspicion that if I were to revisit it now, my eyes would roll relentlessly at how unapologetically schmaltzy, saccharine, and sentimental the whole shebang is--even by the standards of sports films. But then, who knows, maybe I actually would enjoy it for just those reasons, as an all-too-rare oasis of sincerity amidst all our jaded, post-modern, ironic distance.
Or maybe I would be all the more bothered by the conspicuous lack of black baseball players, leaving only James Earl Jones to play the tired old "magic negro" trope; or maybe I would instead be fascinated by how such a blatant Reagan-era ode to conservative "Heartland" values actually trojan-horsed in a subtly progressive political agenda (anti-book-banning, celebrating counter-culture heroes, etc); or shoot, maybe, given the utter creative bankruptcy of contemporary Hollywood, I would just stand astonished at how such a weird script ever got greenlit in the first place.
Man, maybe I should rewatch the film.
Because it was actually good to be there, you see, once we arrived. It felt good. It was peaceful, contrary to all expectations or lack thereof. Part of it was just the perfect weather--this is that rare time of year when Iowa can actually fool you into thinking it's pretty, what with those endless Polar Vortexes already a fading memory. Part of it too, I'm sure, is the fact that we were literally enacting the film: they built it, and we came. "People will come, Ray," and we did. A fictional prophecy was made real. And we didn't even have to pay $20.
In fact, maybe that was just it: "People will come to Iowa," begins James Earl Jones' climactic big speech, "For reasons they can't even fathom..." And that was totally true of me--of Iowa generally, not just the baseball field (I don't even like playing baseball). For just why am I in Iowa, of all places?? Yes, yes, I came to complete a PhD, and U. Iowa's actually a well-ranked school (nothing to sneeze at in this academic market)...but I could've gotten a PhD elsewhere, and in fact wanted to. Was going to. Was ready to. But I didn't. I came here instead, driven by some impulse I still can't account for...can't fathom.
As yet another piece of Baby Boomer nostalgic schlock, Field of Dreams is probably the worst of offenders; but as a metaphor for acting on those incessant impulses against your own better judgment, well, maybe that's where the primal appeal of this film really lies, why someone has even bothered to keep that baseball field up amidst the cornfields, why folks still make the pilgrimage there, yes, even bored grad students like us. We never did find the passage to the next life in the corn stalks though, so don't ask.
No comments:
Post a Comment