Film thot
Have you ever watched a movie that had been filmed in a location you knew really well-your home town, say, or your college campus-and been struck hard by some sequence where they get the geography badly wrong? The classic case is a long walk (usually a conversation) that could never be walked in that sequence: going in very different directions, say, and jumping around very different parts of town. Other cases could include heading clearly west by the sun yet ending up in a place that's really well to the east (or vice versa). Turns out this film-making technique is so clever and deliberate that it has a specific name-"creative geography"-and it's credited to a specific inventor-Lev Kuleshov, in the 1920s. (Though I have also seen it attributed to Jean Cocteau.) The point is, these things don't belong on the imdb "Goofs" page, they're being done on purpose as cinema cleverness. I really have to learn to let go at the movies, and not expect them to relate to the real world any more than to the books or history they're "based" on.
Case in point: the movie A Change of Seasons (Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine, Bo Derek) was filmed in my home town (the first half of it, anyway); I kept nudging C all through the Williamstown outdoor scenes, with remarks like "You can't get there from there!" and things. The one long walk-and-talk scene that actually stayed all on the same street, I note in retrospect, was a night scene; I guess if the audience can't really see the scenery, the director figures it might as well be the real thing. It was even the right street to walk to the house that was "their" house in the movie- which was the house I lived in from 2.5 years old to almost 5! I really nudged C every time that showed up. Then towards the end of the movie Anthony Hopkins hitches a ride in to Boston, and gets let out at the intersection of Mass Ave and Mem Drive. We were seeing the movie at MIT, and the whole hall cheered at that point; I muttered something like "Yeah, it's been like that for me the whole time" under my breath.
Not all that recommended as a movie, btw. I just bring it up for the personal anecdote value.
Case in point: the movie A Change of Seasons (Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine, Bo Derek) was filmed in my home town (the first half of it, anyway); I kept nudging C all through the Williamstown outdoor scenes, with remarks like "You can't get there from there!" and things. The one long walk-and-talk scene that actually stayed all on the same street, I note in retrospect, was a night scene; I guess if the audience can't really see the scenery, the director figures it might as well be the real thing. It was even the right street to walk to the house that was "their" house in the movie- which was the house I lived in from 2.5 years old to almost 5! I really nudged C every time that showed up. Then towards the end of the movie Anthony Hopkins hitches a ride in to Boston, and gets let out at the intersection of Mass Ave and Mem Drive. We were seeing the movie at MIT, and the whole hall cheered at that point; I muttered something like "Yeah, it's been like that for me the whole time" under my breath.
Not all that recommended as a movie, btw. I just bring it up for the personal anecdote value.