Eephus

The premise of Carson Lund's Eephus is wistful and nostalgic. The baseball field, where a local team plays, is being ripped down. However the disquisition itself is noticeably reserved and lacking in sentimentality. One way this is accomplished is by virtue of cinematic digression. There are a number of painterly moments in the film including one of a cloud, another of the woods in back of the field where balls get lost, and another of the Eephus itself. It's a high arching pitch in a baseball game. It distracts the batter and is an objective correlative for striking out.The movie creates a dialectic between the haunting sublimity of loss and the constant intrusion of present reality, which includes one scene in which the ball is literally coming at the movie audience. When it gets dark and the lights of the aged stadium go out, the players pull up their cars, using the headlights so they can meet their one objective, which is not so much to win as to finish the game. The great documentary filmmaker Fred Wiseman makes a voice over cameo appearance as a local radio announcer.

read "Never Brush Again" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star