“Field of Dreams” coming to the Colfax Municipal Building’s Cozy Theater July 24
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — Whether you are a baseball fan or simply enjoy a good story about the supernatural, the movie “Field of Dreams” is coming to the Colfax Municipal Building’s Cozy Theater July 24.
The 1989 film was chosen in 2017 for preservation in the United States Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being historically and culturally significant.
Set in Iowa, “Field of Dreams” is a film adaptation of the novel “Shoeless Joe” by W.P. Kinsella published in 1982.
Shoeless Joe Jackson played Major League Baseball in the early 1900s and is remembered for his performance in baseball and for an alleged association with the Black Sox Scandal.
The Black Sox Scandal refers to members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, who allegedly participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series.
Jackson was banned from playing baseball after the 1920 season by Major League Baseball’s first commissioner.
Whether Jackson was, in fact, guilty has been fiercely debated.
In “Field of Dreams,” Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, is a novice corn farmer who lives on their Iowa farm with his wife, Annie, played by Amy Madigan, and their daughter, Karin, played by Gaby Hoffmann.
Also starring in the film are James Earl Jones as Terence Mann; Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson; and Burt Lancaster as Archibald “Moonlight” Graham.
Ray Kinsella had a troubled relationship with his late father, John Kinsella, who was a devoted and loyal baseball fan.
One evening while walking out in his corn field, Ray heard a voice whispering, “If you build it, he will come” and also sees a vision of a baseball diamond in his corn field.
Although skeptical of the idea, Annie agrees to Ray plowing down part his corn field to build a baseball field. During construction of the field, he tells Karin about the Black Sox Scandal of 1919.
After months had passed, one night, a man in a baseball uniform appears on the baseball field that used to be a corn field, and Ray recognizes the man as Shoeless Joe Jackson.
Ray’s father idolized Shoeless Joe, and delighted to play baseball again, Shoeless Joe asked if others can play on the baseball field. He returns later with the seven other players banned from baseball as a result of the 1919 scandal.
At the age of 17, Ray got into an argument with his father, John, about whether Shoeless Joe Jackson was innocent or guilty. Ray believed he was guilty while his father maintained that Shoeless Joe was innocent. Since then, Ray regretted that he had never reconciled with his father before his father’s death.
Through a series of events, other players come to Ray’s baseball field to play, and eventually one of the players turns out to be Ray’s father as a young man.
At the end of the film, Ray and his father play catch while Annie watches, and in the distance, hundreds of cars can be seen driving toward the baseball field, just as Karin and Mann had predicted — that people would come to watch baseball.
“Field of Dreams” at the Colfax Municipal Building’s Cozy Theater is sponsored by the Colfax Commercial Club, the Colfax Municipal Building Restoration Group and the Colfax Public Library.
The Colfax Commercial Club will provide concessions.
No admission is being charged for the movie.
“Field of Dreams” will begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 24, in the Cozy Theater.
The next event in the municipal building auditorium will be the Missoula Children’s Theater production of “Jack and the Beanstalk” in August.
September will feature “The Church of Cash,” a tribute to Johnny Cash.
Keep an eye on the Colfax Messenger for additional details about upcoming events at the Cozy Theater.
