The Field

The Field is a 1990 Irish drama film directed by Jim Sheridan, adapted from John B. Keane's 1965 play of the same name, starring Richard Harris as the tenant farmer "Bull" McCabe, who resorts to violence when the field he has rented and tended for decades is put up for public auction.^{6 • 10} The film was produced by Noel Pearson with Granada Television and Sovereign Pictures, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13, 1990, and earned Harris an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.^{1 • 2 • 9}

Production

The late Ray McAnally was the first choice for Bull McCabe, and it was McAnally who suggested making a film version of the play to Noel Pearson. After McAnally's sudden death in 1989, Richard Harris was chosen for the lead.⁷ Sheridan re-read the play while shooting My Left Foot, his directorial debut, and The Field was his first film after it.^{8 • 11}

Production was not smooth. Harris made his views on the editorial process known during filming, and the disagreement with Sheridan became public, though the matters were ultimately resolved between the two parties.⁷ Sheridan described Harris as "as mad as a brush" and found him very difficult to control.¹ Filming took place in Connemara, County Galway, including the location Gaynor's Pub in Leenane.¹ The crew included cinematographer Jack Conroy, editor J. Patrick Duffner, and composer Elmer Bernstein.¹¹

Adaptation from the play

The film version contains much more physical action than the stage play, and The Field may be Keane's most famous play because of the adaptation.¹² One change was to the outsider: on stage the incomer is a returning exile and a native of Galway, while on film he is an Irish-American.¹² In both versions the incomer is murdered because of a man's insatiable lust for property.¹² Sheridan's film avoids the constant blue skies and friendly locals of John Ford's The Quiet Man (1952), representing the landscape as infertile and shrouded in mist and using close-ups to emphasize the poverty and parochialism of the community.¹²

Reception

The film struck a chord with local audiences, becoming the top performing film at the 1990 Irish box office.⁴ The Irish Times review responded sympathetically to the Bull's predicament, noting that the more he attempts to exert his control, the more he loses control over his land and himself.⁴ Overseas critics greeted the film as embracing familiar Irish themes, sometimes in a manner that veered into derision; a Guardian critic judged that the film transcends its awkward moments.⁴

American reception was cooler. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 43% Tomatometer from 14 reviews against an 82% audience score from more than 2,500 ratings.³ Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times critic who won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975, called it a grim allegory of hard life on the land, a symbolic play transplanted uneasily to the greater realism of film, but wrote that it would always have a footnote in cinematic history because of Harris's Best Actor nomination.¹³ Vincent Canby of the New York Times gave it 2 of 5, writing that it all too often reveals its origins as a play.³ The Los Angeles Times found it freighted with symbolism and called Harris's Bull a reasonable facsimile of Ahab.¹¹

Box office and awards

The film cost an estimated IEP 5,000,000 and grossed $1,494,399 in the United States and Canada, with an opening weekend of $27,948 beginning December 25, 1990.¹ The Numbers records a domestic gross of $1,414,017, 100% of its worldwide total, from a wide release on March 1, 1991.⁵ Harris received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama, and placed third with the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association; John Hurt was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.⁹

Other films of the same name

The title also belongs to The Field (Le champ de maïs), a 2018 short film directed by Sandhya Suri about a poor agricultural laborer in India who leads a double life in the village's last remaining cornfield. It won Best International Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for the 2019 BAFTA for Best British Short Film.¹⁴

References

1. The Field (1990), IMDb
2. The Field (1990) Release info, IMDb
3. The Field, Rotten Tomatoes
4. Contemporary Irish Filmmakers, Trinity College Dublin repository
5. The Field (1991) Box Office, The Numbers
6. The Field (1990) Full cast & crew, IMDb
7. Bringing The Field To The Big Screen 1990, RTÉ Archives
8. The Field, MIFF Film Archive
9. The Field (1990) Awards, IMDb
10. The Field, Tricycle Theatre, London, The Independent
11. Movie Review: 'Field' Strewn With Symbolism, Los Angeles Times
12. Thesis on John B. Keane, University of Liverpool repository
13. The Field movie review & film summary, RogerEbert.com
14. The Field, British Council UK Films Database

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films early 1990s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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