Minor Brokeback Location Rant. Mind the Grousing--

[caras_galadhon]

You know, I love my Flist, I really do, but if one more person talks about how Alberta doesn't look like Wyoming, I'm going to have some sort of large fit. *sigh* Wyoming does not look like Wyoming circa 1963 anymore. Alberta doubles for a heck of a lot of places a heck of a lot of the time, and I'm willing to bet that if the locations for

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[hederahelix]

Erm, I don't think I've said anything lately, but I have made the complaint. But here's the thing. I thought the landscape was beautiful, but I've also spent about a month in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. I mean, the movie mentions by name the nearest town to the place I flew into on a puddle jumper. And one of the things I was most looking forward to was seeing that landscape again. The part of Wyoming I was in didn't even feel the same in a lot of ways as the part of Alberta. In fact, my main gripe was that Alberta was too pretty in the film--too green. My recollectin of Wyoming is that it was all brown and dry--if you haven't had your legs attacked by sagebrush, that might not matter, but my memory of the place is very much this dry, desolate, landscape made up of all these desolate mesas. Okay, so there was some green stuff in the mountains we went to, but not all of them, and the movie felt too wet to me. My recollection of Wyoming is much more about water being scarce even as the altitude and dry air make you require more, so my gripes were very much tied up in personal experience.

I thought that a couple of scenes had the sense of isolation down pat, and Alberta very much looked in the film to have the feel of Big Sky Country that I associate with Wyoming.

I should also add that because of that month i spent there collectively, I have very visceral imaginings of what Matthew Sheppard looked like when he was attacked and left on a fence, and the scene in Brokeback that most closely echoes that actually felt more like my memories of Wyoming than the rest of it.

I did think that the film (in gorgeous Alberta) got some of that--the loneliness, the desolation, the fragility of human life that is thrown into sharp relief when you're that far out and alone. But it felt, honestly, too lush, too wet, and too easy to live on.

This may, as I'm realizing as I type it, also be shaped by my currently living in a desert and therefore being a lot more aware of the whole water issue than I was before.

Which is a long way to say, if I said anything that upset you, I'm sorry. I've ranted about this in the past, but I might not have said why it bothered me. Honestly, my trips there were more than twenty years ago now, and it probably doesn't look the same there either.

[caras_galadhon]

the movie felt too wet to me.
I find that especially interesting since Southern Alberta is classified as a semi-arid climate -- we're by no means a total desert, but we certainly aren't the wettest place in Canada, not by any means. Now, I haven't been to Wyoming, so I cannot directly compare, but still... When I think wet, I think one province over: B.C. As you pointed out, though, that's personal experience talking.

We have very little rainfall in general -- I suspect most of the "green" and "wet" you saw in the movie is primarily a result of the runoff when the snow melts; that'd be where most of the water is coming from most of the time.

the scene in Brokeback that most closely echoes that actually felt more like my memories of Wyoming than the rest of it.
Ah, that's interesting. That'd be what they filmed either down near Lethbridge or closer to Drumheller, both of which are part of the drier strip you hit as you move east towards Saskatchewan. I believe Drumheller and surrounding areas (colloquially known as Dinosaur Country, for obvious reasons) do actually move into the classification of desert.

and too easy to live on.
That observation's much more likely fuelled by the personal experience you mentioned; I'd venture that Wyoming and Alberta share certain experiences of harshness of environment, however, the harshness here is all about dealing with the cold, which I would even venture to say can be seen as a strange sort of desert.

if I said anything that upset you, I'm sorry.
No, no, I appreciate it, but I'm not upset, more sighing and going, "Oh lord, not again. I get it. Not!Wyoming." Which isn't anything more than low-level irritation and an overwhelming urge to defend my own Province and a movie I was very minorly involved in. ^_~ I suppose it could also be stemming from a reaction to the constant hum of anger directed at "Hollywood North," as if by shooting here jobs are somehow being wrenched away from the more deserving. Which is not to say that you said anything of the sort, just that that's potentially an additional cause of my frustration.

I might not have said why it bothered me.
No, I don't think you did. And I appreciate that you have done so here, because it's quite interesting, and certainly adds some perspective. As I said in the post, you're not the only person who has pointed it out, and I guess I was just getting to the end of my mental thread with the continual repetitions of "It doesn't look like Wyoming," like that's some sort of betrayal on some level. Ah well. I got it out, and I learned something interesting about where you were coming from in the matter, which is always good. I hope I haven't upset you either?