For more than 50 years, the late James Earl Jones the name in the film's titles was reason enough to devote several hours to a film. Was it always a satisfying two hours? As someone who sat through Alan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, Three Fugitives, and The Soul Man, I can confidently say no.
This is more than good. Jones was a working actor who took the "working" part seriously. As he told journalist Joe Leydon in 1989"This is my profession. I have to make a living at it, because I can't make a living any other way." So when you don't get an offer to say The Great White Hope every time out, you roll up your sleeves and spend some time on the set of Blood Tide, Best of the Best and Excessive. Force” without apology. Those checks keep you alive while you wait for the next Star Wars to land on your desk.
And yet, as Jones told Leydon, there were two other reasons for making a film. One was the story. If he believed the script contained a story worth telling, he would sign on to see what he could make of it with his director and fellow actors. The other was more elusive. "Sometimes I just see a role that I want to do," Jones said. And when that connection was strong enough, Jones could cry — as he did when he made Field of Dreams.
Kevin Costner's opening speech was obscured by James Earl Jones
Adapted from the amazing novel by V.P. Kinsella "Shoeless Joe" Field of Dreams by Phil Alden Robinson is a movie that shouldn't work, let alone exist. Kevin Costner wasn't Mr. Baseball at this point (he'd only starred in the wittily rambunctious "Bull Durham"), which meant this wasn't a home run in the opinion of studio executives. Robinson only made the popular nostalgia hit "In the Mood," so the story of an Iowa farmer who plows under his biggest crop to build a baseball field to house the shoeless ghost of Joe Jackson felt like an ill-advised venture. (although it's obvious now grist for the remake mill).
Why, pray tell, did Jones sign? "The film insists that you participate with your heart more than your mind," he explained, "More than your critical objects." Jones realized he had made the right call when he saw the finished film for the first time. While most people don't start crying until the film's powerful final scene, Jones found himself tearing up as Ray Kinsella's (Costner) opening narration about everything leading up to the moment he first heard the disembodied voice in the cornfield—including and his difficult, unresolved relationship with his dead father—began. James Horner's beautiful score proved particularly effective in it, but there was something more to this response. "And I didn't know why," he said. "I couldn't explain it to myself.
James Earl Jones, of course, did a brilliant job because he didn't know how to do anything else. Indeed, I'm not sure anyone has ever given a more moving speech about the importance of baseball in America than Jones' Terence Mann. He was a gift as an actor.
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