Field of Dreams was on HBO today. And every time I watch it, I think of Bob Greene.
Greene who was fired years ago from his job as columnist at the Chicago Tribune, he wrote one of the most compelling pieces I remember. Twenty years later, I think of it between the tears after Ray Kinsella asks his dad “You wanna have a catch?”
Greene wrote that as he watched this movie in a Chicago theatre in 1989, he noticed a blind woman being escorted to a seat. He started watching her almost as much as the movie, wondering what she was thinking, how much of the story she was able to pick up.
I don’t have the article so I’m going from memory here, but I recall how Greene stopped the woman after the movie ended and interviewed her. Yes, she understood the movie and yes it was just as memorable to her as it is to people who see it.
“But what about that last scene”, Greene asked. He meant the final shot as viewers saw a line of cars lining up for miles with people willing to pay to see the field and “remember their own childhood.”
The woman, according to Greene, did not know about that scene, but sensed something dramatic. I remember she told him, “I felt like crying but was afraid somebody would notice.”
Nearly 20 years later and that movie still moves me, along with that column.
Boy…to write something like that.
I guess Field of Dreams is the guy’s version of a “chick flick”. I too get choked up when father and son play catch. That’s definitely a sign that a movie works.
I never considered how a blind person would view the film…but how powerful is Field of Dreams to even impact someone who could not see it.
I’ll admit it, that scene gets to me, too. It didn’t when I first saw it, but as I get older, it’s more effective.
The last few minutes of “It’s A Wonderful Life” does it, too…I’m sentimental softie.