Ghost Players

Abstract

This chapter narrates the author's experience during the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Field of Dreams film. The celebration, timed to coincide with Father's Day, represented a chance for the movie's disciples and defenders — the fellowship of the Field — to experience communally the spiritual satisfactions of an intensely personal cinematic experience. For the moment they do not care about the film's many detractors, movie snobs who find it too allegorical, too Midwestern, or simply too corny. They came to nourish their souls in the company of others who have likewise come to associate the film with peace and renewal: the crisp clapboard house with its long curving verandah, the upright picket fence, the Eastergreen grass, the handsome boy-next-door movie star who might as well be Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant, and the storyline and setting that is so powerfully elemental. On that night, the Field's devoted followers, seek paradox: achieving personal salvation together.