{"id":9371,"date":"2021-08-13T05:58:40","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T05:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/?p=9371"},"modified":"2021-08-13T06:10:03","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T06:10:03","slug":"kevin-costner-on-field-of-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/?p=9371","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Costner on \u201cField of Dreams\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

May 3, 1989 | <\/strong>Kevin Costner was all set to make Revenge<\/em>, a violent melodrama about illicit love and bloody retribution, when he was asked to read a script for a kinder, gentler film.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told them I wasn\u2019t available,\u201d Costner said recently in his posh Manhattan hotel suite during a promotional press gathering. \u201cBut they told me just to take a look at this, that they knew I really liked great writing, that maybe I might appreciate it, that maybe I might want to work with the writer sometime.\u2019<\/p>\n

Costner grinned at the memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d he said, \u201cthey really did a number on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Costner isn\u2019t complaining: The script has reached the screen as the very best movie of his career to date, Field of Dreams<\/em><\/a>, a beautifully written, flawlessly played fairy tale of love, hope and redemption.<\/p>\n

Costner already was a star before Field of Dreams<\/em>, thanks to The Untouchables<\/em>, No Way Out<\/em> and, most important, last summer’s sexy sleeper hit, Bull Durham<\/em>. With Field of Dreams<\/em>, however, the 34-year-old actor takes a giant step onto higher ground. As Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer who heeds a supernatural summons to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield, Costner joins the ranks of such homespun, all-American leading men as Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper \u2014 two actors who, not coincidentally, are among Costner\u2019s idols.<\/p>\n

The comparisons are flattering, Costner conceded, but he is reluctant to make much of them. Pressed on the subject, he allowed that, \u201cYes, I think Jimmy Stewart could have played this character.\u201d So Ray Kinsella is a Jimmy Stewart role? \u201cWell, no,\u201d Costner replied, grinning once again. \u201cThat\u2019s misleading. I thought of it as mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, it was a role some well-meaning advisers suggested he avoid. Afterall, they counseled, Costner had just finished a movie about baseball, Bull Durham<\/em>. And Field of Dreams<\/em>, with its earnest celebration of family ties, and its delicate interweaving of the matter-of-fact and the magical, hardly seemed like a sure-fire commercial project.<\/p>\n

Worse, they warned, there were other, image-conscious considerations. After the steamy sensuality of Bull Durham<\/em> and No Way Out<\/em>, Costner’s female fans expected something a bit more, ahem, revealing from Costner. But Field of Dreams<\/em> would have Costner cast as a happily married family man, deeply concerned about his relationship with the father he lost years ago. On paper, if not on the screen, Field of Dreams<\/em> appeared skewed more toward male moviegoers, not the millions of female ticket buyers who proclaimed Costner the thinking woman\u2019s sex symbol.<\/p>\n

Costner listened politely, nodded sympathetically, then followed his own instincts.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can’t walk around being timid,\u201d he said, settling deeper into the plush couch while resting his boots on a glass coffee table. \u201cYou can\u2019t walk around trying to please, looking for endorsement. And you can\u2019t be, like, making movies that have double endings all the time, to try to find which one will please people in previews.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, if a movie\u2019s not everything that I want it to be, I don\u2019t want to go slit my wrists. But I do work real hard for them to be good. Movies have to be about something. If they\u2019re about dreams, or they\u2019re about violence, or if they’re about love, or if they’re about an era \u2014 then they have to attack those areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Revenge<\/em>, which he filmed after wrapping up Field of Dreams<\/em>, Costner plays a retired Air Force pilot who has a torrid affair with the beautiful wife (Madeline Stowe) of his best friend, a powerful Mexican business (Anthony Quinn). The title should give you some idea of what happens next.<\/p>\n

The movie, set for a September release, is said to be extremely violent, for which Costner makes no apologies. Indeed, he is concerned only that timid studio executives may trim the bloodshed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have to attack what revenge is all about. That it\u2019s vulgar, that it\u2019s mean. That, ultimately, people\u2019s lives are wrecked because of it. And it\u2019s only a temporary relief. I mean, revenge is satisfying on a certain level, to a certain point, in your life. But then there\u2019s repercussions that come after it. And the movie, I think, explores that.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, whether it\u2019s commercial or not, that\u2019s where you really get into trouble \u2014 trying to pander. I happen to think you\u2019ll like this movie. Maybe you won’t think of it as one of the best, but you’ll definitely think something was going on. At least you\u2019ll honor the try.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the case of Field of Dreams<\/em>, Costner honored the richly developed screenplay director Phil Alden Robinson adapted from W.P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel, Shoeless Joe<\/em>. It\u2019s an incredible story, with the extraordinary presented in the context of the ordinary: The voice Ray hears in the cornfield belongs to Shoeless Joe Jackson, the baseball great who was banned from the\u00a0sport he loved after the 1919 \u201cBlack Sox\u201d scandal. Shoeless Joe sends Ray on a quest, a cross-country journey that leads to second chances and, more important, restored dreams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe movie is very life-affirming, I think,\u201d Costner said. \u201cSee, I think people throw away their dreams too early. Especially in this country. You know, you have to have a car, you have to get a house, and you have to get a lot of things. I\u2019ve made the analogy of a plane going down, and people are jettisoning all the weight, to keep the plane up. And I think, in America, dreams are the first things to go for people. They get out of college, their life starts, and they throw their dreams away.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think dreams should be the last things to go in our lives. Dreams are the things you go down with, I think. Somebody said they would clutch a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean. Well, I would write \u2018dreams\u2019 on that piece of wood.\u201d<\/p>\n

To his credit, Costner has lived by his words. While working toward a business degree at California State University at Fullerton, he appeared in several community theater productions, and thoroughly enjoyed himself. After graduation, he landed a job with a marketing firm \u2014 and quit in less than six weeks, to dedicate himself to acting.<\/p>\n

Costner married his college sweetheart \u2014 Cindy Silva, who once played Snow White for Disneyland tourists \u2014 and moved to Los Angeles, to seek work. He made his movie debut in a low-budget feature, Stacy\u2019s Knights<\/em>, then hit the big time when he joined the ensemble cast of Lawrence Kasdan\u2019s The Big Chill<\/em>. Costner\u2019s role was trimmed from the completed film, but not before Costner made a lasting impression on his director. Two years later, Kasdan hired the\u00a0handsome young actor to play a boisterous gunslinger in Silverado<\/em>. Audiences and critics took notice, and Costner\u2019s career took off.<\/p>\n

Stardom has brought Costner considerable power, which he uses judiciously. \u201cWhen we were preparing this film,\u201d says Field of Dreams<\/em> writer-director Phil Alden Robinson, \u201cKevin told me, \u2018You may feel a lot of pressure from the studio to change things in the script. But I will be your rock. I’ll be behind you, saying, \u2018Don’t change it!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

On the set, said co-star James Earl Jones<\/a>, \u201cKevin fought only for a better scene. He\u2019s so entered in his talent, as well as in his person, his own psyche, that he can see in all directions around himself, around his reality. He could not let a scene go by if it wasn\u2019t accurate. Not just his work, but the whole scene. That\u2019s what he fought for \u2014 not for his own star turns. He\u2019ll make a good director because of that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Pasadena home he shares with his wife and their three children \u2014 Annie, 4; Lily, 2; and Joe, 1 \u2014 Costner is working on a screenplay for his first directorial effort, a not-yet-titled drama about a U.S. Cavalry officer who has a cultural clash with Plains Indians in the 1860s. Like Field of Dreams<\/em>, it is not considered a high-concept, highly commercial project. Costner doesn’t care: He obtained his financial backing from foreign investors, and is determined to make exactly the movie he wants to make. He knows it won\u2019t be easy. But, then again, he figures, why should it be?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the good things in your life always seem to be a struggle,\u201d Costner said. \u201cIt\u2019s always the things that you want that seem to be a bit more of a struggle than the things you can naturally do. It\u2019s not any different in movies than it is in your personal life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think everyone\u2019s looking for fresh air. Everybody’s looking for something to spark them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in Field of Dreams<\/em>, Kevin Costner found just what he was looking for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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