History Film / FieldOfDreams

%% ZCE * AwkwardFatherSonBondingActivity: Baseball, for Ray and his dad.

%% * GameOfNerds: Terence Mann. Moonlight Graham also applies, he is a doctor after all.

* MissingStepsPlan: PlayedForLaughs with the case of Terence Mann; after Ray "kidnaps" him, the author's father makes repeated calls to his Boston residence and, when he doesn't answer, reports him as missing, which makes the national papers. Mann decides to contact him...then wonders aloud, "What do I ''tell'' him?"

** Played straighter when Terrence Mann initially pretends that he didn't see anything at Fenway Park, leaving Ray to think the mission was all a fool's errand. As he prepares to drive away, though, Terrence jumps into the road and reveals the truth.

* YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious: Sort of. Doc Graham knows something is up with Ray, when he asks him if he's "Moonlight" Graham.

%% ZCE * AwkwardFatherSonBondingActivity: Baseball, for Ray and his dad.

%% * GameOfNerds: Terence Mann. Moonlight Graham also applies, he is a doctor after all.

* MissingStepsPlan: PlayedForLaughs with the case of Terence Mann; after Ray "kidnaps" him, the author's father makes repeated calls to his Boston residence and, when he doesn't answer, reports him as missing, which makes the national papers. Mann decides to contact him...then wonders aloud, "What do I ''tell'' him?"

** Played straighter when Terrence Mann initially pretends that he didn't see anything at Fenway Park, leaving Ray to think the mission was all a fool's errand. As he prepares to drive away, though, Terrence jumps into the road and reveals the truth.

* YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious: Sort of. Doc Graham knows something is up with Ray, when he asks him if he's "Moonlight" Graham.

** In a meta sense, this movie is infamous among sports fans for making guys tear up watching the finale.

** Somewhat ironically, given the reason for the name change, there is a fairly well-known American stage performer named Terrence Mann in real life!
** Averted in the case of Moonlight Graham, who really did exist.

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Only believers can see them.

* PragmaticAdaptation: In the novel, Ray builds the field bit by bit (starting with the left field); in the movie, Ray builds the entire field all in one go. Plus, the movie focuses more on the magic of the field, the romanticism of baseball, and Ray's relationship with his father. It gets rid of confusing plot elements from the book such as Ray's identical twin brother Richard, and a depressing storyline with an old former ballplayer named Eddie Scissons.

* RedHerring: The voice. Ray thinks that "If you build it, he will come" refers to Shoeless Joe, "Ease his pain" refers to Terence, and "Go the distance" refers to Moonlight. [[spoiler:The voice meant Ray's father in all three instances.]]
** Moonlight ''doesn't'' hit a triple like he fantasizes about during his speech.
* RefusalOfTheCall: Subverted. Doc Graham gently turns down the chance to play on The Field, saying he'd rather be a doctor. The next morning, however, a teenage ballplayer named Archie is hitchhiking to go to minor league tryouts.

* HippieVan: The Kinsellas are shown to have been very liberal hippie-types in their youth (both went to Berkeley, both were fans of a radical author named Terence Mann, Ray jokes that his major was "the 60's"). True to their roots, Ray drives a VW bus.

** The entire PTA book banning scene was invented for the film to give Annie some characterization, and also to establish Terrance Mann as a radical author from the 1960's whose work was offensive to some (which would not have been necessary if it were Salinger.)

%% * BassoProfundo: Courtesy of James Earl Jones.

* SecretMessageWink: Moonlight Graham tells Ray his one wish: if he ever got to bat in the major leagues, to stare down the pitcher and wink, "making him think you know something he doesn't." Later, Archie bats at his first game and gives a wink to the pitcher to psych him out--giving a hint that [[spoiler:young Archie and Moonlight are one and the same.]]

Ray Kinsella (Costner) is an honest farmer with a nice family, but explains in the prologue that he and his father, who was a baseball fanatic, had a falling-out and were unable to reconcile before the latter's death. One night, Ray is out in his cornfield when he hears a disembodied voice whisper "If you build it, he will come." Surprised, he is later given a vision that what he is supposed to build is a baseball field, and that the famously disgraced (and long-deceased) "Shoeless" Joe Jackson will return from the dead to play baseball there. For obvious reasons, Ray is left wondering how he could ever get such a bizarre idea. But after a long talk with his wife Annie (Madigan), Ray decides that he wants to do something outrageous because it feels right and not be afraid of what others might think.

** [[http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/grahamo01.shtml Moonlight Graham]] was in fact a ballplayer who appeared in only one MLB game, before becoming a doctor in Chisholm, Minnesota. The film takes some liberties with his story: Graham died in 1965, but producer Creator/FrancisFordCoppola wanted to see ''Film/TheGodfather'' on a marquee, so Ray goes back to 1972 to find him. His single game was also played in 1905, not 1922.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The famously reclusive author Terence Mann was the famously reclusive author Creator/JDSalinger in the original book, but Salinger threatened to sue if he was featured in any adaptation of the novel. Also counts as a RaceLift. Mann is also [[CompositeCharacter partly based on Creator/JamesBaldwin]], a black novelist and critic strongly associated with 1960s radical politics.