Director: Carson Lund
Writer: Michael Basta, Nate Fisher, Carson Lund
Stars: Jason Barbieri, Lou Basta, Cliff Blake
Synopsis: Grown men’s recreational baseball game stretches to extra innings on their beloved field’s final day before demolition. Humor and nostalgia intertwine as daylight fades, signaling an era’s end.
Where to begin with Carson Lund’s deceptively described Eephus, which is celebrating its North American premiere in the Main Slate of the 62nd New York Film Festival. At face value, the film is about two amateur baseball teams coming together for one last hurrah at their beloved Soldier’s Field; it’s being torn down soon after decades of hosting recreational games. We learn this while hearing a radio broadcast over the opening credits, voiced by none other than legendary documentary filmmaker Fredrick Wiseman. He asks his listeners to ponder whether or not the field will actually be missed, or if they’ll make the drive to another field a bit farther away. It’s here that Eephus stakes its claim as being something beyond just a generic sports film. There’s no town rallying around the fight to save the field. The plans are drawn, the decisions are finalized, and the digging begins in a few weeks. This final game captured in Eephus is a bittersweet post-mortem. But isn’t baseball immortal? It may be, but this massive ensemble certainly isn’t. And they take any opportunity to let it be known. These individuals, clearly having spent years, if not decades, at Soldier’s Field, let their wear-and-tear show. But they can’t simply put the bat down. They’re there for one last game, and it’s in this final game that Lund’s audience will both get to know these characters as three-dimensional humans, but also as complete strangers, walking off the diamond just as unceremoniously and mysteriously as they walked onto it. For a film so focused on capturing the tangible nature of a sport, Eephus does a tremendous job at placing its focus on the mysterious nature of life, and how we react when something we thought would be around forever will no longer remain as it was.
I admittedly am not the biggest baseball fan, but I’ve recently become enamored with it. A large part of that is due to the brilliant John DeMarsico, the Game Director for the New York Mets at SNY. A lifelong cinephile, DeMarsico has injected a lot of life and creative flair into how he’s capturing live telecasts. Whether pulling from Kill Bill or The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, DeMarsico is finding the beauty and the emotion in what many might think of as mundane. And in some ways, Eephus is a bit mundane. But that’s by design! It respects and admires the patient tone of baseball, and highlights it in a way much like DeMarsico is doing with these live games. In an interview, DeMarsico said, “You don’t know what the storylines are going to be, but every game has its own isolated little story that you can tell. It’s just a matter of finding it every day.” And Lund has crafted a storyline out of that beauty in Eephus.
Much like DeMarsico has done with the telecast of Mets games, Lund and cinematographer Greg Tango capture the baseball game in Eephus with such elegance and grace. It’s also given the same pedestal as any televised baseball game. This may just be a recreational game played amongst neighbors and casual acquaintances, but it’s also much more than that. This is the end of an era, and as such, the dugout is captured with all the mysticism and excitement of a real game. Whether the camera is on base looking over the shoulder of a runner, or atop the pitcher’s mound looking right down the barrel of whoever is at-bat, Tango provides a tangibility to the essential nature of the baseball game at play. But part of the beauty of Eephus is how the heart of this film, and what allows it to soar in the hearts of its audience, lies in the players.
As written earlier, it would appear that many of these players have been showing up to Soldier’s Field for quite some time. They all have their fair share of quips for one another, and more than a few qualms to go around regarding behavior and general skills. One would think that these men have gotten to know one another over the years. And at first glance, that might seem to be the case. The more likely scenario? They only know the most generic information about one another, and with some of the players, even that might be pushing it. Baseball is a game that primarily takes place in fleeting moments. Conversations are had when opposing players are momentarily on base. The dugout is, more often than not, full of remarks about their pain or about the upcoming play. Now, the conversations revolve around what’s to come next in their lives. It’s not necessarily that these men don’t care about the people they’ve surrounded themselves with for years. It’s just that, in the moment, the game takes precedence. And once the final inning wraps up, there’s not time for much else. Maybe a few beers are grabbed afterwards at the local watering hole. But it’s tough to imagine these men attending a barbecue together. This field, however rundown and cast aside it might be, is sacred ground to them. It is an escape; everything to them, yet nothing more than a place. It provides them the ability to shut everything else out in the world, and to channel all their focus into a singular thing. In sociology terms, it’s known as a third place. These places are a necessity of life. So what happens when we build our lives around such places, only to someday lose that escape?
Wherever your third place may be, it’s likely thought of as an institution of sorts. We can never imagine a world without it. The reason? Because they’re normally larger than us. A historic movie theater, a massive park with a beautiful, towering tree to sit under, a café or dive bar to sit and watch people go by as you sip your favorite beverage. They’ve likely been around for ages, long before we ever came around to make them an integral part of our lives. In Eephus, Soldier’s Field is that third place. And it would appear that it’s been a staple in the town for generations. Take Franny (Cliff Blake), for example. He looks to be the sage of the field, penciling in his aged scorebook with this final game. It’s likely a place that’s been around since before his time. Perhaps he started keeping score as a pastime. Maybe he did it simply for the love of the game. Maybe he did it because he recognized that, while its players may come and go, there is history embedded in every bleacher seat. In every blade of grass, and in each corner of the diamond. And however trivial some things may seem in the larger scope of the world, these personally historical moments matter. At one point, one of the children of a father playing in the game asks, “Why do they care so much? Don’t they have more important things going on?” And that’s precisely the point of Eephus.
When watching a movie (a personal escape), of course I have much else going on in my life. But for whatever the runtime of my choice might be, I have given myself up to that filmmaker. It’s essential to throw your all into what you love. So the men in Eephus have done so weekend after weekend for years… and they’re being repaid by having it ripped away. Some teammates begin discussing what they’ve been getting into to prepare for no longer having the field. Some are watching movies, others reading books. But it’s easy to tell that the passion isn’t there. When discussing the alternative field as an option for a place to play, it’s immediately out of the question. It’s too far (30 minutes at most) or there’s a septic issue (the whole outfield will be gross). The list goes on and on. The real reason? Likely the simple fact that it’s not their field. The memories they have made in this institution matter because they happened there. They’d rather put it down and step away with dignity than settle for a new place. Are they cutting off their nose to spite their face? Perhaps, but it’s upon hearing about the namesake of this film that maybe we begin to understand the headspace of these players.
The eephus pitch, as one of the pitchers who uses it details, is a technique both simple and complex. It’s a pitch that’s not often utilized, mainly due to its difficulty to pull off. The pitcher appears to be preparing for a fast curve ball. Only instead, the ball moves incredibly slow, and has a high arc to confuse the batter. When one reserve player hears about it, he confuses the next pitch he sees with an eephus pitch. The eephus pitcher details that, in reality, they look similar, but what was just seen was in actuality a very bad curveball being thrown. They acknowledge some of the similarities, but in practice, there is a world of difference between the two. As the game drags on and the light becomes lost, the players complain, some abandon their position, and some question how they’ll continue. And it’s in these final at-bats that the players attempt to finally embrace the loss they’re about to face. Not just the loss of the game, but the loss of this part of their life. There’s a scene in the film that I feel perfectly captures the magnificent and sprawling nature of the intimate Eephus. A player at-bat tells his wife and two children to watch. He strikes out and they head home. There’s an immediate joke made off-screen, and it’s uproariously funny. That’s immediately followed up by a devastating remark from the player who struck out. And then, a teammate poses a simple question that slowly brings a smile to the face of the batter. In three deft set-ups, Eephus pulls you through a range of emotions with ease, embedding you more and more into the emotional resonance at stake at Soldier’s Field on this random evening. A bittersweet ode to the institutions that provide us comfort, Eephus is one of the most emotionally rich films of the year, and an absolute joy from beginning to end.
Eephus is celebrating its North American premiere as part of the Main Slate of the 62nd New York Film Festival.