Farmers, land, and developers on film

To pick up on the various articles on land in recent issues ofSolidarity, here are two films well worth seeing.

The Field (1990), directed by Jim Sheridan, is based on the play of the same name by John B Keane, first performed in 1965 in Dublin. “Bull” McCabe (Richard Harris) rents a field which he has cultivated for years, but the owner decides to sell it at an open auction. Bull thinks the land should, by right, pass to him, given all the labour he has put into it.

Peter, an American, turns up wanting to buy the field for an industrial development, creating a tense situation. Bull cannot afford to buy the field. Peter is killed after a fight between him and Bull’s son Tadhg (Sean Bean) and his body dumped in a nearby lake. The corpse is discovered and an increasingly fractious scenario ends in yet more tragedy.

A film with some loose parallels to The Field is The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), directed by Robert Redford. In New Mexico, a community of Latino farmers is pitted against real estate developers who are intent on developing a vacation resort on land which includes a farmer’s bean field. The developers shut off their water supply in an attempt to drive the famers off the land.

A complex battle pitching the local community against distant, ruthless developers ensues and almost ends in a major confrontation, which is averted by the announcement that the project has been vetoed by the State Governor.