1 | [[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/at_play_in_the_fields_of_the_lord.jpg]] |
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3 | ''At Play in the Fields of the Lord'' is a 1965 novel by Peter Matthiessen. In 1991, Brazilian director Héctor Babenco made a [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] with a cast including Creator/TomBerenger, Creator/JohnLithgow, Creator/DarylHannah, Creator/KathyBates, Creator/AidanQuinn, and Music/TomWaits. |
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5 | Deep in Brazil's Amazon basin, American Christian missionaries try to save the indigenous Niaruna tribe, while mercenaries try to wipe them out. |
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7 | ---- |
8 | !!This work provides us examples of: |
9 | * AxCrazy: [[spoiler: Randy's wife]] ends up this way, although there's clear evidence earlier in the film that her sanity isn't long for the world. Guess who they got to play her? [[ActorAllusion Kathy Bates]], of course, who'd just done an Oscar-winning star turn as Annie Wilkes in ''Misery.'' |
10 | * BadassNative: Moon |
11 | * DefectorFromDecadence: Moon |
12 | * DownerEnding: When the helicopters arrive to begin bombing the Niaruna Indian Village. |
13 | * {{Fanservice}}: Creator/DarylHannah has a nude scene. |
14 | * FanDisservice: So does Kathy Bates. |
15 | * GagPenis: When Randy asks Andie how she knew Moon wanted her, she says "Don't be such a child." |
16 | * AGodAmI: Moon takes on the identity of Kisu. |
17 | * HopeSpot: Randy gives the antibiotics to Moon. |
18 | * {{Loincloth}}: In the film version. The Niaruna wear "bellybands" in the novel. When Moon gets an erection, the bellyband hurts. |
19 | ** An explanation might be required for the bellybands: In the Amazon, men bind their foreskins and tie the binding material around their waists. |
20 | * LostTribe: Theorized to be a lost tribe of Sioux or a lost tribe of Jews. |
21 | * LoveDodecahedron: Moon likes Andie. Randy likes Andie. Randy is married. So is Andie. |
22 | * MightyWhitey: Deconstructed, since Moon is a halfbreed Cheyenne. Further deconstructed since he accidentally starts an epidemic of the common cold, killing them all. |
23 | * MushroomSamba: Moon gets a lot of tropes. |
24 | * NakedOnArrival: Moon, to the Niaruna. |
25 | * NationalGeographicNudity |
26 | ** Subverted by [[Creator/DarylHannah Andie]]'s SkinnyDipping scene. |
27 | * Myth/NativeAmericanMythology and all associated (or at least Sioux and Cheyenne) tropes. |
28 | * ANiceJewishBoy: Averted by Wolf, who is anything but nice. |
29 | * NoOneCouldHaveSurvivedThat: Moon |
30 | * NudeNatureDance: Played with, though the film version is definitely not fanservice, since it's Kathy Bates [[spoiler: and her character's basically gone nuts]]. |
31 | * PottyFailure: [[spoiler:Billy wets his bed]] at one point in the film, but in this case it's meant as an ominous sign that his illness is worsening. Specifically, [[spoiler: his malaria is progressing to blackwater fever and his kidneys are failing.]] |
32 | * RapeAsDrama: Moon sees Andie naked. But he can't have her since she's married, so he goes home and rapes his wife, Pindi. |
33 | * ShaggyDogStory: Moon wants to help the Niaruna, but in the end, he gives them the flu, which kills them. |
34 | * ShoutOut: The Music/{{Sepultura}} album ''Music/{{Roots}}'' was inspired by the film adaptation. |
35 | * TitleDrop: "I'm at play in the fields of the Lord." |
36 | * TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: [[spoiler:Billy.]] |
37 | * ValuesDissonance: An in-universe example. Young Billy is having a wonderful time with the Indian kids his age, running around as stark-naked as they are and making friends of sorts despite the language barrier; but when his mother finds him, he and his companions are [[spoiler:watching a pair of adults frolicking in a hammock]], and he's still completely undressed. This ends about as well as you'd expect given that his mother is a [[spoiler:sexually puritanical fundamentalist Christian with severe underlying issues of her own]], and Randy has to physically intervene when she starts ''beating up'' the Indians immediately afterwards. Afterwards he tears a strip off her for this, stressing the dangers implicit in her use of violence and her failure to understand that [[spoiler:the Indians don't share the missionaries' sense of morals (yet). Furthermore he tells her she risks giving her son a distorted and harmful view of human sexuality.]] When Randy's wife says "What if one of those things lays a hand on Billy?", Randy simply replies "He might like it." |
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