One of the often misquoted lines from the wonderful fantasy film Field Of Dreams, the phrase “If you build it, they will come” is actually “If you build it, he will come.” So why is it misquoted?
My thought is that we all have dreams we want to build. We all have hopes that others will believe in that dream. It is hard to believe in someone else’s dream because to us it is intangible, a spark of electrons in someone’s head that triggers an endorphin rush or feeling of depressions as a dream is being dreamt or built.
For background, Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) a farmer in Iowa with a massive cornfield is convinced by a persuasive benevolent voice to plow up a good chunk of that field and build a baseball diamond with the phrase “If you build it, he will come”. Once built, famous (dead) players from the past appear from the cornfield to play the game once again. But only Ray, his wife, and young daughter can see them.
At one point in the film, there are people that are people trying to convince Ray to sell the land since he destroyed a crop that would have provided the family income. Sounds like we took a left turn into a modern horror film of dementia and controlling spirits. Far from it. But the people who can’t see the game believe it is.
He built it so the mysterious he would come and as well learn later to ease his pain. It’s not that the others don’t believe in man, they don’t believe in his dream. They don’t believe it because they can’t see it. But at one point, Ray is told, “people will come” by someone other than his family that believed in his dream.
I think the ultimate reason that this film is fantasy is that it is really, really, hard to get someone to believe in your dream until you build it and can be seen. But we sometimes need those to see it with their hearts, not their heads. They have to believe that it’s not “If you build it” they have to believe that you are the one to build it RIGHT so they will come.
And this film is built pretty right.
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