Anyone acquainted with the life and work of Joseph Campbell will be familiar with the archetypal pattern of transformation he named the “Hero’s Journey.” It was this concept, — originally presented in 1949 in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces — that first brought Campbell public acclaim. In addition, anyone who’s viewed Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, the series of televised interviews between Campbell and Bill Moyers, knows that the idea of the “Hero’s Journey” profoundly influenced George Lucas in the creation of the original trilogy of Star Wars films.
While the original Star Wars trilogy clearly derives from Campbell’s work on the Heroic Journey, I think another film equally effectively draws inspiration from this quintessential mythic motif, namely the 1989 film Field of Dreams. Ostensibly a film about the great American pastime, Field of Dreams actually uses baseball as a springboard for exploring a number of powerful mythic and archetypal themes, including unfulfilled dreams and second chances, the righting of old wrongs, reconciliation between fathers and sons, and the power of having faith in one’s own journey.
Following the pattern of the Hero’s Journey, Field of Dreams begins in what Campbell calls the “Ordinary World,” the realm of conventional everyday life. As if seeking the most prosaic setting imaginable, this film begins in a cornfield in Iowa on a farm owned by the film’s hero, Ray Kinsella. Living with his wife Annie and a young daughter named Karin, Ray tells us with a sense of both regret and resignation that he’s never taken a risk in his life. He also tells us of his long estrangement from his now-dead father, John Kinsella, a man Ray scorned not only for abandoning his dream of becoming a major league baseball player, but also for allowing himself to be worn down by life.
All of that begins to change when Ray starts hearing a whispering voice emanating out of his cornfield cryptically telling him “Build it and he will come.” Rarely in film does one encounter such a clear and powerful example of what Campbell describes as “The Call to Adventure” the initiating stage of the Hero’s Journey. Of course, Ray desperately tries to ignore this voice, naturally assuming that he’s hallucinating, an example of what Campbell calls “The Refusal of the Call.”
For days the voice reoccurs spontaneously until Ray sees a vision of a baseball field in his corn field. Finally accepting the Call, he convinces his wife to allow him to plow the corn field under to make a baseball diamond. Nothing happens until following year, when a man mysteriously appears on the field. The family discovers that the man is the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, a renowned baseball player idolized by Ray’s father even though he had been involved in an infamous scandal regarding throwing the 1919 World Series. Soon the rest of the once-disgraced team emerge from the surrounding corn to play on the magical field Ray has created.
After a night of watching the “ghosts” practice, Ray hears the mysterious voice again, now enigmatically saying “Ease his pain.” He becomes deeply frustrated, not knowing what to do or what this newest message means. Then, after attending a PTA meeting about banning the books of a beloved Sixties countercultural author named Terrance Mann, both Ray and Annie have the same dream about Ray sitting at a baseball game with Mann. Mann is now an angry recluse living somewhere in Boston and Ray intuits that it’s Mann’s pain he is meant to ease. Using even more of his family’s dwindling resources, Ray travels to Boston and induces Mann to attend a baseball game at Fenway Park. During the game, they – and only they – see yet another puzzling message, this one displayed on the ballpark’s electronic scoreboard. The message, “Go the distance,” is linked with the name of a long-gone player named Moonlight Graham. The once reticent Mann is now convinced that he, too, bears a connection to Ray’s quest and the two set off to find Graham in order to learn the meaning of the third message.
In the interest of brevity and also to avoid spoiling the rest of the film’s plot for newcomers, suffice it to say that the remainder of Ray’s Heroic Journey includes each of the major stages Campbell suggests. In addition to a series of profound challenges and disappointments which must be faced and overcome, there’s an encounter with death leading to rebirth, and the ultimate bestowing of precious life-affirming gifts for having completed the journey.
Of these gifts, perhaps the most poignant is revealed at the end of the film, when yet another ball player walks out of the cornfield. Ray realizes that the player is his estranged father, once again a youthful man filled with hope and promise. John Kinsella asks Ray if he wants to play catch, a pastime Ray once loathed to play with his father, and he happily accepts. Ray now understands who the mysterious voice was referring to when it said “If you build it he will come.” Reconciled with his father, the disappointment and yearning that set Ray on his journey are resolved and the viewer is left with a final vision of hope and promise.
Like all works of art drawing on the insights of Hero’s Journey, Field of Dreams is a film about the quest for a deeper sense of meaning and purpose to our lives. It urges us to follow our dreams, no matter how unrealistic or impractical they may seem. It movingly illustrates the arduous struggles that must be undertaken against the forces that would block us from realizing those dreams. And, ultimately, such stories remind us of the profound gifts of wisdom and compassion, reconciliation and redemption which are bestowed on those who respond to the call of the Hero’s Journey.