The moment Kevin Costner knew Field Of Dreams would become a classic

There is no secret to making a classic film. There is no tried-and-true formula or can’t-miss piece of source material that equates to a masterpiece, provided you get the right director, script(s) and cast. And as Francis Ford Coppola realized when he made The Godfather, there’s no guarantee that once you’ve seemingly put all the right pieces in place, the studio will sit back and let you shoot.

It can also sneak up on you all the time. Director Michael Curtiz thought he was making escapist entertainment about World War II when he took the reins of Casablanca, but despite stars Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman not getting along on set, it ended up churning out a film that many people consider the pinnacle of Hollywood filmmaking. On the other hand, when famed director Robert Benton made Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Billy Bathgate, one of Tom Stoppard’s greatest novels of the second half of the 20th century, he misfired despite being given a cast that included including Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman. , Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci and Stephen Hill.

So it’s always interesting to hear from the artists on the other end of the production, maybe years and years later, about when they realized they were creating a classic, if at all. It was shockingly early for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams.

During the press conference in 2004 In honor of the 15th anniversary of the DVD release of Field of Dreams, Costner revealed that there was no particular element that told him what made the film special. It was just “imagination”. According to Costner:

“I was very grateful to be cast in this film. I remember clearly reading it on my couch and thinking, I really want to be in this movie. I remember thinking, what a beautiful (film). I felt like I had a huge secret. knew that in a year everyone else would know the secret.”

This probably came as a surprise to you Ray Liotta, who was not impressed with the script. In any case, there was, however, a moment during filming that for Costner showed that “Field of Dreams” was a project born under the right sign. As he said at the press conference:

“There’s a scene where we’re saying goodbye to Joe Jackson and he disappears into the corn as he walks away, there’s a mist hanging over the corn. Phil saw this fog coming, it was coming from left field and hanging around in the middle of the field. Phil shot the scene quickly, and then the cloud began to move away, never to return, I can’t count on the cinema.”

If you’re a fan of the movie, you can probably hear James Horner’s dreamy line when you think of this scene. In this day and age, this moment would probably be reproduced with CGI. But in 1989, you had to be quick on your feet and roll the cameras. Nature provides, and “Field of Dreams” continues to fascinate 35 years later.