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The Shipping News - Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Lasse Hallström
Threat advisory: Elevated - Significant risk of entertaining activities
Movie propaganda
A struggling newspaper writer, Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) returns to the small fishing town in Newfoundland his family has long lived in, after their mother, Petal Bear (Cate Blanchett), ran off with his two daughters and sold them into prostitution. Though he's had little success thus far in life, his Shipping News column finds an audience, and his experiences in the town change his life.
Persons of interest
- Kevin Spacey .... Quoyle
- Cate Blanchett .... Petal Bear
- Julianne Moore .... Wavey
- Judi Dench .... Agnis
- Jason Behr .... Dennis Buggit
- Scott Glenn .... Jack Buggit
- Rhys Ifans .... Nutbeem
- Katherine Moennig .... Ms Moosup
- Gordon Pinsent .... Billy Pretty
- Pete Postlethwaite .... Tert X Card
- E Annie Proulx .... Author
- Ronald Bass .... Screenwriter
- Tom Epperson .... Screenwriter
- Lasse Hallström .... Director
Cinematic intelligence sources
- The Shipping News QuickTime movie trailers
- About Newfoundland
- Studios and distributors:
Intelligence analyst
Special Agent Matti
Theatrical report
A good little romance drama with a dash of mystery thrown in. You should be warned that The Shipping News is a film for grown ups who don't mind a story that travels at the pace of a melting snowflake. It's about people and the discoveries they make about themselves and the way they interact with other people, especially the ones who are seeking to discover things about themselves. Like everything else about a tiny village that huddles in the deep north of Canada, the humour and the performances are understated to the degree that the Nintendo generation might not be able to see that it's there. I assure you that it is (I am X generation).
The Shipping News almost has that foreign language feeling to it, not because the accents are impenetrable but because the camera is free to record things that are happening to people rather than things that people have decided will happen.
Think art.
Media intelligence (DVD)
- Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English, Italian
- Picture: Widescreen 1.33:1
- Special features:
- Behind-the-scenes
- Commentary
- Documentary: Dive beneath the surface of the Shipping News
- Galleries:
- Photo archive
- Portraits
- Scenic views
- Subtitles: English, English captions, Italian
Security censorship classification
M (Adult themes, medium level sex scene, medium level coarse language)
Surveillance time
107 minutes (1:47 hours)
Not for public release in Australia before date
Film: 7 February 2002
DVD rental: 23 October 2002
VHS rental: 23 October 2002
DVD retail: 4 June 2003
VHS retail: 4 June 2003
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About Newfoundland:
Geography
Newfoundland is a triangular shaped island of 112,000 kilometres, which lies in the north-east corner of North America. Dramatic headlands, deep fjords and innumerable coves and offshore islands distinguish the coastline. The topography of Newfoundland's interior is severe - deeply carved by glacial activity and punctuated throughout by dark coniferous forest, lakes and rivers.
History
Newfoundland has a long and storied history. The original people of Newfoundland were the Beothuck Indians. They are generally believed to be people of eastern descent, possibly Malaysian. It is believed they journeyed across the Bering Strait to North America and were pursued by other warring factions, until they found a safe haven in Newfoundland.
The first data of sea exploration dates back to 1000 CE when the Greenland Norse settlers tried and failed to colonise Newfoundland, calling it Vinland. There is evidence that settlers may have even preceded the Norse by 350 years.
Basque settlers from France and Spain whaled off the coast of Newfoundland a century before Columbus sailed to the Americas.
Then, in 1947, John Cabot attempted to find a northern spice route that Columbus had missed. A man born in Genovese, Cabot bet that the British crown would be interested in investing in such a route. After only 35 days, he discovered land, but not Asia. What he found was an excellent fishing coast teeming with cod. Despite the presence of over 1000 Basque fishing vessels, Cabot claimed the land for England.
After years of contesting whether or not this new land should belong to the French or English, in 1904 the French exchanged their claims for a piece of coastline in Africa.
Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949 after a tremendously bitter and much-contested referendum. The pains of industrialisation and Newfoundland's population moving to "growth centres" in the 1950s caused many people to feel abandoned, relocated and frightened. There were promises of jobs, away from the dangers of the sea.
In the end, the policy failed because the factories were never really able to materialise. But the effects of modernisation and industrialisation still are omnipresent. In 1965 the Newfoundland section of the trans-Canada highway opened and, with industrialisation, health conditions improved. At the time of confederation, the average life span was 48 years old; Now it's 74 and rising.
But the time of confederation brought tough times to many people. For years, people flew their flag at half mast on the anniversary. As one former resident, Theodore Symes, describes in the book Beyond the road, "Leaving behind your home that you built with your own hands and your fishing gear that you'd worked all your life - are behind, gone. You were coming to another place, and you weren't going back no more."
Language
People have said that Newfoundland's language and culture are indicative of the location of its capital: St John's. Located in the furthest north-east tip of the country, St John's seems to be trying to get as far away from Canada and the Americas as possible and turn instead towards Europe. The language of Newfoundland is a very unique English dialect that borrows from its English and Irish forbears, blending its own brand of slang.
Economy
The major industry is cod fishing. For years, countless European fisherman - from the Vikings to the Basques - have journeyed to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland to mine the rich seas for codfish - considered one of the most useful fish in existence.
Architecture
Quoyle's family's home in The Shipping News is a classic example of Newfoundland architecture. Often these salt box houses would have large rope tying them down to be able to sustain the often 167+ kilometre per hour winds.
Weather
Of all the major Canadian cities, St John's is the foggiest (124 days), snowiest (359 cm), wettest (1514 mm), windiest (24.3 km/h average speed) and cloudiest (1497 hours of sunshine). Newfoundland has a deserved reputation as one of the stormiest places on the continent. it also has the most variable weather anywhere.
