Hearing about Brad Pitt and Steven Soderbergh going around with palms out looking for alternative financing for their celluloid version of Michael Lewis’ ‘Moneyball’ got me thinking and reminded me about one of the inspirations for this blog.
Perhaps the most important paper I wrote in my college career was about baseball… sort of. First, Henry Breitrose was the professor; and ‘The History of Film’ was the class. The paper was important because it was the last class – the last required class at that – I needed in order to graduate. We saw all the important titles and all the important pioneers: Eisenstein, Griffith, Welles. I was ready for my close-up, until it was time to write the final paper -the theme of which was entirely of our choosing. We essentially had to find examples of the techniques about which we learned in a certain genre of film.
It being spring quarter and me spending a majority of my time in the press box at the diamond anyway I chose sports movies as the genre. The theme essentially was how baseball movies are not about baseball, but baseball is only the medium through which the story is conveyed. As my subjects I chose ‘Pride of the Yankees’, and ‘Field of Dreams’ for sure. I think I also chose ‘The Natural’, but I cannot be sure. ‘Bang The Drum Slowly’ sounds right also, maybe it was ‘Bad News Bears’, but I cannot find the floppy disk that holds the paper.
What I argued was that ‘Pride’ was more about having pride in yourself than about baseball; ‘Field’ about the familial bonds created by the game; ‘Natural’ about doing the right thing no matter what the circumstance; and ‘Drum’ about overcoming life’s obstacles.
I do recall that the paper did well in the class too. If I can find it, I will certainly reprint it. We’ll see if my thesis holds water. Notice how I did not choose ‘Major League’.