Much like its namesake pitch, “Eephus” is a slow and methodical film, rising and falling at its own pace.
Director Carson Lund, who grew up playing baseball, said he was inspired by the characters he’s met on the field and in the dugout.
“All the downtime that happens during a baseball game is such an opportunity for, I think, great character detail. That was sort of the starting point for writing the script,” he told GBH’s The Culture Show.
“Eephus” was shot at a ball field in Douglas, Massachusetts. And there’s another local tie to the film: former Red Sox pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee. Lund wanted to find someone known for throwing an eephus to be part of the film, so they recruited Lee to appear for a single inning.
“The thing about him, as Boston fans know, is he’s resistant to authority. And a script is a form of authority for him. He’ll read it, he’ll digest the ideas, and then he’ll come back with his own ideas. What he says in the film — it’s better than anything we could’ve written,” he said. “He comes with all this baseball lore and all these quotes and memories, and he brings that into the performance in this film.”
“Eephus” is set in the 1990s, and a sense of timelessness permeates the film.
“I think this film’s so much about the importance of being present in the world ... among the communities that we value and doing the things we love,” said Lund. “I think if this film were set in the modern day, you would have far more distractions.”
Lund sees baseball as a useful framing mechanism, better suited to telling a story than other, more fast-paced sports.
“Up until very recently it had no clock attached to it. ... Now we have the pitch clock, which is an attempt to speed up the game and make it fit modern attention spans. I think with that, there comes some losses in terms of the poetry of the game. That’s a deeper theme in the film, the idea that this game ... can technically go on forever,” he said.
“It’s a game that links us to American history, it links us to our childhood, it’s always rooted in the past,” he said. “There’s this sort of time warp that happens with the game of baseball relative to other sports ... that makes it very unique and makes it a really fascinating space for reflection and for character and for drama.”
