2016 TCM Film Festival – FIELD OF DREAMS And ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

This past weekend, Hollywood celebrated the 7th annual Turner Classic Movie Film Festival, and this year’s slate of films did not disappoint.

Shown over 4 days and in multiple theaters along Hollywood Boulevard, the festival continues to draw bigger and bigger crowds each year.

This year’s festival treated classic film fans to over 70 movies and special guests, including Angela Lansbury, Faye Dunaway, Rita Moreno, Francis Ford Coppola, and Carl Reiner – just to name a few.

With so many films showing, its hard to choose what to see, but WAMG attended a few of the classics, along with some special presentations.

FIELD OF DREAMS (1989)

The story goes that while Kevin Costner was filming Bull Durham (1988) he came across the script for Field of Dreams. Producers weren’t holding out for him because they assumed he wouldn’t want to do 2 “baseball movies” in a row. And thank god they were wrong. Set in an Iowa cornfield, Field of Dreams tells the story of Ray Kinsella (Costner), a farmer who hears voices telling him “If you build it, he will come” – but he has no idea who “he” is. Turns out there are a couple of possibilities. The ghost of infamous ball player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (played quietly sublime by Ray Liotta) or subversive writer and activist Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), or even Ray’s own father, who died before Ray could tell him what he really meant to him and have a father/son “catch” on the ball field.

What makes this movie such a classic is that it taps into the basic emotion of sentimentality (“Is this heaven?”…”no, it’s Iowa”) That and the fact that all the characters in the story believe 100% in the reason for building the baseball field, even though on its face, it’s a ridiculous idea. Yes, the presence of the great “ghosts” of baseball all turning up from the afterlife to play ball definitely puts this film in the “fantasy” genre, but it’s not hard to get lost in its innocence and heartwarming ending.

*Fun fact* – At the time Field of Dreams was released, it was the highest grossing film ever about baseball. It has since been surpassed by – wait for it… A League of Their Own (girls baseball…yeah!!)

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST (1975)

Only 3 films have won what Oscar aficionados call the “Big 5” – best picture, actor, actress, director and screenplay.  IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934), ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST (1975), and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991).

When it happened in 1975, gold statues were given to stars Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher, director Milos Forman, and writers Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman; producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas also took home best picture statues.

The grim subject matter and tragic ending aside, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is such a good film, it’s considered a classic by most. TCM host Ben Mankiewicz calls it “the best movie ever made.”

At the screening we were treated to a conversation with 2 of the movies stars, Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd. Among other things, both said that this film came along very early in their film careers and they were ecstatic “just to be doing a movie with Nicholson.” DeVito had played the same role in the live stage production for about a year, more than 10 years before the film was made, with Kirk Douglas, Gene Wilder and William Daniels. Douglas retained the rights to make a film version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for a decade, but was unable to find a studio willing to make it with him. Eventually, he gave the rights to his son Michael, who succeeded in getting the film produced. At that time, Kirk Douglas was deemed too old for the role of McMurphy, and the role was given to Jack Nicholson.