What a fabulous series!! To coincide with opening day and all that … the start of baseball season. I love people who think UP film festivals like this one. I love some of the observations:
Comedy, like baseball, is a whatever-works kind of activity: it doesn’t matter much how you get the laugh or how you move the runner over, so long as you do it. And the game is in a sense inherently comic, just because there’s so much failure in it.
That’s the dirty little secret of the best baseball picture of all, Ron Shelton’s 1988 “Bull Durham,” whose hero, one Crash Davis, is a 30-something catcher chasing the dubious record of most home runs by a minor leaguer. This movie is about success in failure, surviving your dreams rather than about fulfilling them, which gives it an appealing, and kind of sneaky, modesty: it’s all bunts and hard slides and singles slapped through holes in the infield, and it winds up beating the swing-for-the-fences baseball epics of its era by a country mile.
I love Field of Dreams myself – in particular that WIFE – and I agree that that film (at least for me) is not so much about baseball, but about what baseball means to those of us who love it. It’s history, it’s family, it’s memory, it’s the 5 senses … Etc.
I LOVE the idea of this film festival, I love that it’s being hosted at MOMA and I am going to try and catch some of these films on the big screen.
Great idea, but I’m surprised that some good movies are missing (probably due to copyright law, or, more likely due to the “non-art” ):
1. Pride of the Yankees
2. Damn Yankees (Okay, this way not the best adaptation of a Broadway play, but still)
3. Major League (A bit hokey, but still a good baseball film)
4. Little Big League (same comments as #3)
Movies I’m glad they didn’t show:
1. Major League sequels (the only worse sports related sequel to these is Caddyshack II)
2. Rookie of the Year (if I hear “Pitcher’s got a big butt! one more time at the ball park, the kid who utters is going to regret he even knows the sport of baseball)
You can never do a series like this and please everyone. I don’t know what you mean by “non-art”.
I was glad to see 8 Men Out on the list – and wondered where Pride of the Yankees were as well.
Oh – and i was also glad to see that early Robert DeNiro film about the baseball player – shit, now the title has escaped me. I loved that movie – Bang the Drum Slowly – that’s it!!!
Also – I just love it that one night they have a documentary made by Edvard Much – the next night they’re showing League of their Own … hahahahaha
Wonderful!!
Okay, showing my bias against institutions like MOMA… I’m assuming (wrongly?) that they didn’t even try to get a movie like Major League as it wouldn’t reach their standard of film “as art”…
Slightly, OT, we (meaning the city of Greenville) has just built a mini-Fenway Park for our minor league team “The Greenville Drive”; single A, lower level, for the BoSox (sigh, don’t even get me started on how we squandered our ability to retain the Double A Braves team). I can send you pictures of opening day (Thursday) if you’re interested.
You’re biased against MoMA? How ridiculous.
I think sports that are not played within the confines (even friendly ones!) of a clock, or count laps, have a bit more of a cerebral appeal. Baseball, I think, would be on of the few that blend the personal challenge of ability with the testosterone charged (or otherwise charged) rush of playing against someone or another team. There is also the idea of community, that when the individual does well, it contributes and betters the condition of those around him. I think it is the films that reach into that metaphor have a greater and lasting impact.
Love Pride of The Yankees (I think there should be a commemorative quarter with Lou Gehrig on one side and Gary Cooper on the other!) — no disputing or disrespecting that but it really is a film about one mans tremendous story. I dont think it reaches into the broader enduring appeal that baseball has for a lot of us. And by us, I could mean, just me.
Theres a little of Sisyphus in baseball. Even the worst team is likely to win a third of the time, and the best team lose a third of the time. Its that middle ground over which we battle, day in, day out, over the long season.
Thats what really cool about Amy in Field of Dreams; shes a player. She endures, she excels, she cheers on her teammate, and when it comes to her time at the plate, she doesnt knock one out of the park, but she does get a line drive hit: You Nazi Cow! (great line!).
hahahahahahahahaha Dave – I love that you saw that that “Nazi cow” moment was HER time at the plate!! What a beautiful observation!!! Never got that before! You are so right!!
I definitely see what you are saying – and I think you’re onto something. The game itself – baseball ITSELF – not one individual player – what does it mean to us? As a community? As a nation, etc? What is the metaphor?
You know … I loved The Rookie as well – GOD, did I love The Rookie – but I would put that in the category that you describe of one man’s amazing story as opposed to a film about the meaning of the game itself.
For me, aside from all of the huge and weighty emotional memories of time shared with my Dad involving baseball, the metaphor reflects our want to work hard doing something we love; where our individual achievements have a winning impact on the community, the team around us.
George Wills book Men at Work really points out that despite our fantasies about going to the ballpark everyday, with the thrill of the grass and the smell of beer and hot dogs, it is work for these guys, just like going to a factory, or an office, or a theatre might be for others in a less more ordinary.
Half the game is fielding; defending, protecting. Half the game calls for individual achievement at the plate; which is really for the whole teams benefit. Its just that its played out under the sun in a beautiful setting. You lived in Chicago didnt you? Tell me, is there any place on earth, constructed by humans, as beautiful as Wrigley Field? One day at Wrigley, for me, beats a thousand anywhere else. And you are right the game is beautiful. After so many years, so much improvement in ability by working athletes the distances alone between plates it always comes to inches so many close calls as in life we all have so many close calls inches away from being safe or failing it comes down to what? Inches! Reliance on our own ability mixed whether we like it or not with other people. Actually, Robert DeNiro as Al Capone summarizes it beautifully in The Untouchables — just before he bashes some guys head in with a baseball bat.
uhm, that should be “a life more ordinary..”
Dave – great speech, actually.
“A man becomes preeminent, he’s expected to have… enthusiasms… What is that which brings me joy? Baseball! A man stands at the plate, he stands alone; that is the time for individual achievement. But in the field? Part. of. a. team.”
I forget if Untouchables is set in ’32 or ’34, but if the former, he would have gotten to see the Cubbies in the Series, and Ruth’s Called Shot off of Charlie Root.
Who is this “dave” and how does he come up with these insightful comments??
methadone