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Field of Dreams

1989 film by Phil Alden Robinson

Field of Dreams is a 1989 film about an Iowa corn farmer who hears a voice telling him: "If you build it, he will come." He interprets this as an instruction to build a baseball diamond in his fields; after he does, Shoeless Joe Jackson and other dead baseball players emerge from the cornfields to play ball.

If you believe the impossible, the incredible can come true.
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson. Screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson, based upon the book Shoeless Joe (1982) by W. P. Kinsella
All his life, Ray Kinsella was searching for his dreams. Then one day, his dreams came looking for him. taglines

The Voice

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If you build it, he will come.

Dialogue

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I'd wake up at night with the smell of the ball park in my nose, the cool of the grass on my feet... The thrill of the grass.
Ray: I bet it's good to be playing again, huh?
Shoeless Joe: Getting thrown out of baseball was like having part of me amputated. I've heard that old men wake up and scratch itchy legs that have been dust for over fifty years. That was me. I'd wake up at night with the smell of the ball park in my nose, the cool of the grass on my feet... The thrill of the grass.
...
Shoeless Joe: Man, I did love this game. I'd have played for food money. It was the game... The sounds, the smells. Did you ever hold a ball or a glove to your face?
Ray: Yeah.
Shoeless Joe: I used to love travelling on the trains from town to town. The hotels... brass spittoons in the lobbies, brass beds in the rooms. It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep. Shoot, I'd play for nothing!
Annie Kinsella: Terence Mann was a voice of reason during a time of great madness. He coined the phrase, "Make love, not war". Where others were chanting, "Burn, baby burn", he talked about love, and peace and understanding. I cherished every one of his books, and I dearly wish he had written some more. And I think that if you had experienced even a little bit of the Sixties, you might feel the same way too.
Beulah Gasnick: I experienced the Sixties.
Annie Kinsella: No, I think you had two '50's and moved right in to the '70's.
Beulah Gasnick: Well, your husband plowed under his corn and built a baseball field!...The weirdo!
Annie Kinsella: At least he is not a book burner, you Nazi cow!
Beulah Gasnick: At least I'm not married to the biggest horse's ass in three counties!
...
Annie Kinsella: Who's for Eva Braun here? Who wants to burn books? Who wants to spit on the Constitution of the United States of America, anybody? Now who's for the Bill of Rights? Who thinks that freedom is a pretty darn good thing? Who thinks that we have to stand up to the kind of censorship that they had under Stalin?
Terence Mann: I'm going to beat you with a crowbar until you leave.
Ray Kinsella: You can't do that.
Terence Mann: There are rules here? No, there are no rules here. [advances with crowbar]
Ray Kinsella: You're a pacifist!
Terence Mann: [stops] Shit.
Ray Kinsella: My name's Ray Kinsella. You used my father's name in one of your stories: John Kinsella.
Terence Mann: You're seeing a whole team of psychiatrists, aren't you?
 
I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves.
Ray Kinsella: Don't you miss being involved?
Terence Mann: I was the East Coast distributor of 'involved'. I ate it, drank it, and breathed it. Then they killed Martin, they killed Bobby, they elected Tricky Dick twice. And people like you think I must be miserable because I'm not involved anymore. Well, I've got news for you. I spent all my misery years ago. I have no more pain for anything. I gave at the office.
Ray Kinsella: So, what do you want?
Terence Mann: I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves. I want my privacy.
Ray Kinsella: I mean, what do you want? [Gestures toward concession stand.]
Terence Mann: Oh. Dog and a beer.
Ray Kinsella: Two of those.
Concession stand worker: Seven bucks.
 
People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom.
Terence Mann: What was the awful thing you said?
Ray Kinsella: I said I could never respect a man whose hero was a criminal.
Terence Mann: Who was his hero?
Ray Kinsella: Shoeless Joe Jackson.
Terence Mann: You knew he wasn't a criminal. [Ray nods.] Then why did you say it?
Ray Kinsella: I was seventeen. [Terence nods.]
Terence Mann: So this is your penance.
Ray Kinsella: I know. I can't bring my father back...
Terence Mann: ...so the least you can do is bring back his hero.
Dr. Graham: It was like coming this close to your dreams and then watch them brush past you like a stranger in a crowd. At the time, you don't think much of it. 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. And now, Ray Kinsella, I want to ask you a question. What's so interesting about a half an inning that would make you come all the way from Iowa to talk to me about it 50 years after it happened?
Ray Kinsella: I really didn't know till just now, but I think it's to ask you if you could do anything you wanted, if you could have a-a wish.
Dr. Graham: And that you're the kind of a man who could grant me that wish?
Ray Kinsella: I don't know. I'm just asking.
Dr. Graham: Well, you know, I-I never got to bat in the major leagues. I'd have liked to have had that chance just once, to stare down a big-league pitcher. To stare him down, then just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn't. That's what I wish for. The chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingle in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases, stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish, Ray Kinsella. That's my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?
Ray Kinsella: What would you say if I said yes?
Dr. Graham: I think I'd actually believe you.
Ray Kinsella: Well, sir, there's a place where things like that happen, and if you want to go, I can take you.
Dr. Graham: This is my most special place in all the world, Ray. Once a place touches you like this, the wind never blows so cold again. You feel for it, like it was your child. I can't leave Chisholm.
...
Ray Kinsella: Fifty years ago, for five minutes you came within... y-you came this close. It would kill some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they'd consider it a tragedy.
Dr. Graham: Son, if I'd only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes... now that would have been a tragedy.
Ray Kinsella: By the time I was ten, playing baseball got to be like eating vegetables or taking out the garbage. So when I was fourteen I started refusing. Can you believe that? An American boy refusing to have a catch with his father.
Terence Mann: Why fourteen?
Ray Kinsella: That's when I read "The Boat Rocker", by Terence Mann.
Terence Mann: Oh, God.
Ray Kinsella: Never played catch with him again.
Terence Mann: You see? That's the kind of crap people are always trying to lay on me. It's not my fault you wouldn't play catch with your father!
 
This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.
Terence Mann: Ray. People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up 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 $20 per person". 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 out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.
Mark: Ray, when the bank opens in the morning, they'll foreclose.
Terence Mann: People will come, Ray.
Mark: You're broke, Ray. You sell now, or you'll lose everything.
Terence Mann: The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game; it's 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.
[Shoeless Joe Jackson has asked Terence Mann to come with them to the cornfield, but Ray is upset because he wasn't invited]
Ray Kinsella: I did it all, I listened to the voices, I did what they told me, and not once did I ask what's in it for me!
Shoeless Joe Jackson: What are you saying, Ray?
Ray Kinsella: I'm saying... what's in it for me?
Shoeless Joe Jackson: Is that why you did this? For you? I think you better stay here, Ray.
Terence Mann: Ray, there was a reason they chose me, just as there was a reason they chose you and this field.
Ray Kinsella: Why?
Terence Mann: I gave an interview.
Ray Kinsella: What interview? What are you talking about?
Terence Mann: The one about Ebbets Field. The one that charged you up and sent you all the way out to Boston to find me.
Ray Kinsella: You lied to me.
Terence Mann: Well, you were kidnapping me at the time, you big jerk!
Ray Kinsella: Well, you lied to me!
Terence Mann: You said your finger was a gun!
Ray Kinsella: That's a good point.
Terence Mann: Ray. Ray. Listen to me, Ray. Listen to me. There is something out there, Ray, and if I have the courage to go through with this, what a story it'll make: "Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa".
Ray Kinsella: What are you grinning at, you ghost?
Shoeless Joe: "If you build it -" [gestures toward catcher, who is Ray's father, John Kinsella] "- he will come."
Ray: "Ease his pain. Go the distance." It was him!
Shoeless Joe: No, Ray. It was you.
 
Is this heaven?
Ray Kinsella: You catch a good game.
John Kinsella: Thank you. It's so beautiful here. For me, well, for me, it's like a dream come true. Can I ask you something? Is, is this heaven?
Ray Kinsella: It's — it's Iowa.
John Kinsella: I could have sworn it was heaven.
Ray: Is there a heaven?
John Kinsella: Oh, yeah. It's the place where dreams come true.
Ray: Maybe this is heaven.
John Kinsella: Well, good night Ray.
Ray Kinsella: Good night, John.
[They shake hands and John begins to walk away]
Ray Kinsella: Hey... Dad?
[John turns]
Ray Kinsella: [choked up] You wanna have a catch?
John Kinsella: I'd like that. Very much.

Taglines

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  • All his life, Ray Kinsella was searching for his dreams. Then one day, his dreams came looking for him.
  • If you believe the impossible, the incredible can come true.

Cast

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