Why Field Of Dreams made James Earl Jones burst into tears

For more than 50 years, the late James Earl Jones’ name in a movie’s credits was reason enough to spend a couple of hours on a movie. Was it always a satisfactory two hours? As someone who saw “Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold,” “Three Runaways” and “Soul Man,” I can confidently say no.

This is more than fine. Jones was a working actor who took the “work” part seriously. As he told journalist Joe Leydon in 1989“This is my profession. I need to make a living from it, because I can’t make a living any other way.” So when you’re not offered a deal on, say, “The Great White Hope” every time, you roll up your sleeves and spend some time on the sets of “Blood Tide,” “Best of the Best” and “Excessive.” Strength” unapologetically. Those paychecks keep you afloat while you wait for the next “Star Wars” to drop on your desk.

And yet, as Jones told Leydon, there were two other reasons for him to make a film. One was the story. If he thought the script contained a story worth telling, he would sign up to see what he could do with it with his director and fellow actors. The other was more elusive. “Sometimes I just see a role I want to play,” Jones said. And when that connection was strong enough, Jones could be moved to tears, as he was when he made “Field of Dreams.”

Adapted from WP Kinsella’s offbeat novel “Shoeless Joe,” Phil Alden Robinson’s “Field of Dreams” is the kind of movie that shouldn’t work, much less exist. Kevin Costner wasn’t Mr. Baseball at the time (he’d only starred in the witty and edgy “Bull Durham” at this point), which meant this wasn’t a home run in the eyes of studio executives. Robinson had only done the popular nostalgia piece “In the Mood,” so the story of an Iowa farmer plowing under his main crop to build a baseball field that will house the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson seemed like an ill-advised endeavor. (although now it is obviously material for the remake factory).

Why, pray tell, did Jones sign? “The film insists that you participate with your heart rather than your mind,” he explained, “more than your critical installations.” Jones realized he had made the right decision 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 crying as Ray Kinsella (Costner) recounted everything that preceded the moment he first heard the disembodied voice in the field. corn, including their difficult and unresolved relationship. with his dead father – he began. James Horner’s beautiful score was particularly effective in convincing him, but there was something more to this response. “And I didn’t know why,” he said. “I couldn’t explain it to myself. When I got to the scenes with my character, I wasn’t objective; I couldn’t tell if I was doing a good job or not.”

James Earl Jones, of course, was doing a brilliant job because he didn’t know how to do anything else. In fact, I’m not sure anyone has ever given a more moving speech about the importance of baseball in America than Jones’ Terence Mann. It was an actor’s gift.