On the Set of "The Shipping News"

Sometime during our trip in the Maritimes, we remembered that one of our favorite books (written by Annie Proulx, the author of "Brokeback Mountain") and movies, "The Shipping News" (starring Kevin Spacey, Judy Dent and Julianne Moore) was set on The Rock.  We made it a point to try to visit the town where the film was set.  Research indicated it was New Bonaventure, and we visited it (see our earlier blog entry, Skerwink, Trinity, Shipping News and More).

Last night, we found good internet and streamed the movie to watch it again, and captured a couple screen shots.  Here's a double-photo comparing the fictional town of Killick-Claw with the actual New Bonaventure:

And, this, of course, is Quoyle Point, where the family house sat (we were told that this house, built by the film producers in Halifax and erected here, was dismantled when filming was done).  This is the view that most people recognize from the movie:

We found the movie to be pretty accurate in how it depicts life in Newfoundland.  We heard the locals didn't like it because of negative portrayals of the Quoyle family, and because of a particular scene of drunken destruction.  But, that aside, we felt it was accurate.  The book was written either just before or just after the institution of the Cod Moratorium, so the movie doesn't address the issues raised by mass relocation of fishing families to larger towns.  Still, it depicts the central role that small, personal cod-fishing still plays in people's lives in the villages along the coast.