Film Festival Assignment

I watched the movie "Field of Dreams". The movie is about a man that owns a farm and hears a voice that he should build a baseball field in the middle of it. He goes through a lot of trouble, mainly financially, to build the field and faces a lot of criticism for taking good farming land and turning it into a baseball field. No one really understands his need to build this field or the need to have it sit empty. Eventually the ghosts of old famous baseball players start showing up to play on it and his family is privy to private games of some of the greats. This illustrates his passion for baseball and the way that he always wished to see this great players in action.

I think that metaphorical criticism would be a good way to dissect this film. Metaphorical criticism is looking at one thing as if it were another. So by saying "this farm is a baseball field" it symbolizes the man's dream of seeing great players play together and his ability to control some of the action and do what he wants and achieve his goals.

With a broader metaphor of "life is a baseball game/field" the movie gives way to the thought that you generally get another chance at things. For example, an old man comes to the farm just to see the field. But upon getting there he is able to walk onto the field and turn into one of the ghosts and he gets to play with the teams. This is his second chance at playing with the greats because he played on game in real-life but struck out during his one at-bat. He's able to face the same pitcher again and get a good hit out of it which is all he wants.