Re: PC: resend

[Christian Axsiom <rcaxsiom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 03:44 PM 7/10/98 -0400, you wrote:
>     Hello all...
>
>     Normally, I do not consider myself such a consumer of fine movies to
>     make such a call, but I could not resist this one...
>
>     I just viewed the ICE STORM last night for the first time. ...

	I haven't seen ICE STORM myself, but Rod brings up an interesting point.
It's always interesting to see how filmmakers portray the more technical
details of the past.  I remember my suspension of disbelief being jolted
during JFK when I saw a stack train with BN (I think) containers moving by
in the background of one scene -- and this was supposed to be 1963!!!
	If these details give viewers a false idea of history or geography (or
anything else for that matter), then I think the filmmakers should have
their cameras confiscated :^), but usually these things are fairly
incidental.  Oliver Stone really couldn't have rung up BN and said, "Look,
I'm shooting JFK today, you think could run some mint condition 1960s
boxcars and Geeps by today instead of the stacks?"*  And certainly a
smaller film's director or production designer would love to have had a
perfectly preserved station, line, and rolling stock to use in the film,
but as we know all too well, it's not 1970 anymore!  WE all can spot the
errors, but the majority of their viewers won't know or care.  I think we
should cut ICE STORM and its makers some slack.  In fact, given what I saw
in JFK, and the millions of errors that probably creep into other movies,
we should probably applaud them for remembering PENN CENTRAL at all.  BTW,
I don't want to go off topic, but anyone know of any other glaring
cinematic errors?  Does Oliver Stone win the grand prize for his 1963 BN
stacks? 

*Admittedly, Stone could have shot the scene in a different spot, or if he
wanted a train in the shot, he could have shot it on a shortline or at a
museum with more appropriate rolling stock.  Who knows? Maybe he thought
about it and decided it wasn't worth the expense to keep the railfans
happy?  I don't think so.  I'll bet they set up the shot, did several
takes, and their happened to be a train passing when they got "THE take."
And Stone could have thought it was more important to have the rest of the
location look right (at the expense of rail accuracy), or perhaps he
thought no one would pay enough attention to the train to notice.  Little
did he know ... 
________________________________________________

Christian Axsiom
Geography Department
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University
144 Eggers Hall
Syracuse, NY  13244-1090
(315) 443-9294