Have you ever encountered that a distinct and spectral whisper keeps revolving around you? Actually, this plot was presented in a movie called “Field of Dreams” which was filmed in 1989. In the movie, such an odd thing happened to a young man, Ray. What is more ridiculous is that Ray decided to follow the instructions given by the phantom voice, even though he was on the edge of bankruptcy, whereas most of us are afraid of pursuing or following our yearning hearts, eventually, there is no chance to regret.
The movie review, “A Baseball Diamond Becomes the Stuff of Dreams”, written by Caryn James and published in the New York Times, asserted that this movie did a fantastic job in adapting the novel, “Shoeless Joe”, to film. In his article, James first set the stage for his argument by unfolding the appearance of “Shoeless Joe”, an illusory phantom, and then he commended the director’s superb trick which perfectly combined the visual images with the reality via drawing a comparison to the novel version.
James continued by discussing two messages received by Ray, “If you build it, he will come” and “ease his pain”. Meanwhile, the consummate performance of several main actors met with James’s considerable criticism and acclaim. Furthermore, he mentioned a famous figure, Jimmy Stewart, and a representative speech, Capraesque speech, which powerfully firm up the persuasion of his estimation. However, the excessive dialogue appeared in some plots confused the author.
Even though, ultimately, he held that the movie did an awesome job in overall, which appealed to the audience regardless of its loss of balance. The author, James, began his tribute to the movie by showing us a ludicrous narrative that a bunch of translucent ghosts who came from the past appeared in the blazing-bright baseball field. He effectively balanced appeals to emotion and characters in an attempt to move his readers from a state of scratching the surface of the article to engaging in it by drawing images in mind, more exactly, stimulating their imagination.
To verify that “Field of dreams” is an idealistic film that treasures America’s icons, Jimmy Stewart, a famous celebrity whose movie clip was shown in “Fields of Dreams”, was mentioned in the article. Needless to say, this influential figure, in that time, can hook the reader’s attention once his name appeared. James shrewdly grasped onto this and achieved his goal of certifying and toughening his credibility of the eccentric job of this movie.
Then James praised the distinguished trick, employed by the director Mr. Robinson, which not only exerted a peculiar fascination on the audience, but also flawlessly integrated the mirage and the real plots. Moreover, he could hardly conceal his acclaim, for the terrific trick which applied to transform sentimentality to true emotion. A succession of adjectives utilized in his article goes like that, the short route that has led to this point in “Field of Dreams” goes to the heart of a work so smartly written, so beautifully filmed, so perfectly acted, that it does the almost impossible trick of transforming emotions.
Such neat and brief phrases are very compelling, convincing and appealing. What is more, James highlighted the shrewd variations exploited by Phil Alden Robinson. To make it more reliable, he drew a comparison to the novel, “Shoeless Joe”. In James’s article, the special advantage of the movie is the added plots which recalled characters’ passion of their college life. Furthermore, he made it known to readers the director’s information. More details related to the person whom the author wanted to praise can enhance his acknowledge and admiration toward the director.
Throughout his piece, James quoted some movie dialogues which strengthened his credibility and appeal to logos, as well as built his argument. These dialogues include, “if you build it, he will come”, “ease his pain”, “I’d have played for small money; I’d have played for nothing”, and so on. Citing these dialogues enhanced James’s credibility by showing that he assessed this movie from a rational perspective, and gave a reliable valuation that the movie is well-done. Additionally, in some extent, those dialogues make the movie scene recurring and evoke reader’s memories concerning those plots.
Apart from the above, James also expressed praise toward each main actor specifically. He commented that Ray Liotta makes Shoeless Joe ethereal and real at once, a relic of an earlier age much more than a ghost from the past. As for Mr. Jones, he put that Mr. Jones is magnificent at revealing the slow fading of Mnn’s skepticism. What is more, James lauded the two main actors respectively. In his article, Mr. Costner does not make one false move, which means the performance by him did surprise James. Also, Ms. Madigan was acclaimed to give Annie a good humor and a no-nonsense voice of reason.
Nevertheless, the criticism about the excessive dialogue of this movie, contrasting to the novel, did not make any sense while, conversely, weaken its persuasive. James claimed that the way a dialogue, selected from Mr. Jones’s speech, stated was very plain and candid which failed to fascinate the audience. It goes that “This field, this team, is a part of our past, Ray, it reminds us of what was good and what can be again”. Nonetheless, this sentence was simple and frankly written without any excessive words here, which directly against James’s opinion. Plus, this dialogue goes to the heart of this movie and make people think deeply.
Though James began this article by effectively catching readers’ eye and then cited some quotes of the film as well as credible information, he loses his power in the end when he claimed the inappropriate existence of some excessive dialogues but failed to accurately identify his opinion. Moreover, A successful movie review should have a forceful presence to persuade the reader to love a movie, or not. The emotion in this article is murky, which pose an obstacle to arousing readers’ interest. James could have more seriously driven the point home that this movie was marvelous.
