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The Field
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Irish director Jim Sheridan made The Field after scoring an art house hit and Oscar nominations for his previous film, My Left Foot. Set in Ireland during the 1930s, this ambitious and hard-hitting drama is about one man's obsession with a plot of land that his family has tended for generations. The results are decidedly mixed, and it's obvious that this kind of tragic allegory is better suited for the stage (where it originated as a play by John B Keane). What makes the film worthwhile is the Oscar-nominated performance by Richard Harris as "Bull" McCabe, the fiercely stubborn man who's nurtured a prime field of rented land for decades, only to lose it when the owner auctions the land to an unwelcome American (Tom Berenger). Rather than sacrifice his life's work to this brazen invader, McCabe wages a personal war with powerfully tragic results. It's unfortunate that this potent drama never really connects on an emotional level, but Harris is never less than fascinating in a role that virtually seems to consume him as an actor. His performance approaches greatness, even when the film falls somewhat short of its dramatic ambitions. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
Richard Harris in his element
Review date: 2007-11-24 Rating: 6 out of 10
For the first ten minutes or so, I was pretty sure I was going to hate The Field. Every Irish cliché in casting and plotting is present: burly men with short tempers and long memories of the Potato Famine, family secrets, dead sons, weak heirs and overbearing fathers, Brenda Fricker's silent tough-as-nails wife, Francis Tomelty's widow woman scorned for the crime of coming from another village, Jenny Conley's tinker's girl, even the village priest played by an actor out of Father Ted and a score full of fiddles and ondes martinets from Elmer Bernstein. And look, isn't that John Hurt with blacked out teeth playing the village eejit? It is that. There's no evil English landlord, but at times there's the very real threat that it's going to spin off into Victorian melodrama, especially with Richard Harris, an actor not exactly known for his subtlety at the time, in the lead as "The Bull," who'll do anything to prevent the field of the title that represents two generations of his family's blood, sweat and tears ending up in American Tom Berenger's hands and buried under concrete. Thank the lord an American didn't direct it or we'd be seeing the little people as well.
Yet despite the melodramatic bear-traps that litter John B. Keane's play, screenwriter/director Jim Sheridan manages to turn it into something increasingly compelling. While not the most cinematic of directors, he does bring something truly elemental to the mix as Harris' patriarch sets himself against Heaven and Earth to guarantee a poisoned legacy his son doesn't even want rather than face the prospect that his entire life, and the lives of his parents and a dead son have been wasted. Indeed, seen standing in front of a waterfall he's almost a force of nature himself, and one so defiantly proud that he's clearly heading for the mightiest of falls. The first couple of reels may be more than a little awkward, but it's worth persevering with, not least for Harris' powerful and controlled performance that avoids sinking into scenery-chewing and finds its greatest power in his silence.
The only extra is the trailer while the transfer, disappointingly, is fullscreen.
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Reviews
The green field of Eire, O
Review date: 2007-04-19 Rating: 8 out of 10
I'm a bit puzzled by the existing reviews except for Mary's, who at least doesn't disparage clear allegory for not being recondite enough.
Irish reviewers at the time of the movie noticed the final scene's riff on one of the Cu Chulainn myths, with him beating back the waves from the body of the son he himself had killed in a fit of madness, the more-than-passing resemblance of the contours of The Field in question to the 32 county-island, the homage to the classic black-and-white film The Informer in the pub scene where Bird is accused, the priest's material comfort and lack of any understanding of the Lockean notion that toiling the land, not ownership of capital, conveys title to being able to continue working the land.
Notice that the lyric that is this movie is strengthened by the way it's leavened with, not slavishly templated by, allegorical references and specifically-Irish mythic tropes: a straight allegory would have had the Bull refusing rent to the English landlady, since Dev had the Saorstat na hEireann cease payments to the UK on the annuitites agreement of the turn of the century, under which the State bought out the colonizers' titles so the toilers could own the land they toiled.
This is a complex movie about Irish nationalism refracted within the tiniest salient touchstone scenario: a farming family (with all the inherit-the-wind-or-the-land? resonances there), a single village on the borders of the Gaeltacht, a particular moment when the Market, not the Sassenach, first loomed as a threat to the envisioned free pastoral nation.
Highly recommended.
At least it wasn't for a Yank burger shack
Review date: 2006-01-05 Rating: 4 out of 10
Land developers beware of Irish backwaters - they're more trouble than they're worth.
Old "Bull" McCabe (Richard Harris) and son Tadgh (Sean Bean) open THE FIELD by tossing the body of a donkey off a cliff into a body of water, and are then seen gathering seaweed, which they schlep over the mountains on their backs. It obviously isn't Kansas. As it turns out, Tadgh had killed the donkey when it broke down a wall and trespassed into the McCabe's field, a three-acre piece of pasture that Bull (and his forebears before him) have toiled over. The seaweed is used as fertilizer. After so many decades of sweat, the elder McCabe is convinced that the land is rightly his, though he pays monthly rent to an Englishwoman for the privilege of working it. Trouble erupts when the owner decides to sell THE FIELD to the highest bidder.
The film has good intentions as it attempts to illustrate the pitfalls of identifying too closely with a piece of ground rather than just letting it go when some developer expresses an interest. In this case, the evil land grabber is a rich Irish-American (Tom Berenger), who's returning to the country of his roots. He wants to pave over Bull's field and make it a staging point for a quarry. (Consider some of the lands in dispute in today's world and imagine what nice parking lots they'd make for a new Wal-Mart.)
THE FIELD is set after the English were chased from the Irish Republic, but before WWII. Harris is first rate as the old fighter who's not about to give up now despite other festering problems. McCabe's wife Maggie hasn't talked to him in eighteen years, apparently since their first-born son committed suicide, itself a millstone around Bull's neck. McCabe senior is now left with Tadgh, not the brightest bulb in the pub sign, who's not interested in inheriting Old dad's crummy lot anyhow and just wants to run off with a Gypsy temptress.
THE FIELD is a dreary piece enlivened only by Richard's performance and that of John Hurt as "Bird" O'Donnell, evidently one of Bull's hired hands, who serves as either a catalyst of trouble or silent observer of events as the plot dictates. Berenger is non-descript as the rapacious Yank, and Bean's Tadgh is totally unengaging. Even Maggie's first words to Bull after the long dry spell are curiously lacking in profundity.
Filmed entirely in Ireland, there's something to be said for the land's austere beauty as captured by the lens. However, by the end credits, I just didn't care about THE FIELD, its walls, its sheep, its cattle, its seaweed, and its crazy renter. Retire to Florida, already.
The way it is
Review date: 2005-12-31 Rating: 4 out of 10
What a load of rubbish. This film is set in rural Kerry and brings shame to this beautiful corner of the earth. First of all i wsould like to say that the script was rubbish and that Richard Harris made a crying shame of himself when accepting this hidious role. The Bull/bully is a strange character to say the least and his relationship with his wife is strange to say the least. The Yank(played with gusto) by Tom Berenger is the hero of the piece and is the one I feel sorry for as this film concludes. The sub-plot involving Tadgh(bulls son) and the tinkers daughter is astonishingly stupid. Finally I would like to say the special effects at the end were rubbish. If a film like the Terminator, which was made six years previously, can make the effects in this excuse of a film look good then the director must have a lot to answer for.
Powerful, one of Harris's best performance
Review date: 2005-10-22 Rating: 10 out of 10
Originally cast as a minor role (the priest), Richard Harris met director Jim Sheridan for dinner. At dinner Harris gradually resorted to the character of the Bull McCabe. By the end of the meal Harris had the lead part. During a lull in Harris's career, this film revived it. Harris received an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination, and secured his place as one of the great actors of all time. An extremely rich, powerful and ponient film with many layers, it is one of my favourite films. A film rich in scenery and devoid of any Hollywood glam dust. I suggest everyone to watch this movie.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Richard Harris
Sean Bean
Frances Tomelty
Brenda Fricker
John Hurt
Creators:
Richard Harris (Primary Contributor)
John Hurt (Primary Contributor)
Jack Conroy (Cinematographer)
Jim Sheridan (Writer)
J. Patrick Duffner (Editor)
Arthur Lappin (Producer)
Noel Pearson (Producer)
Steve Morrison (Producer)
John B. Keane (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: Cinema Club
Manufacturer: Cinema Club
EAN: 5014138286965
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2001-12-03
Number of discs: 1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 107 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1991-03