Shipping News, The : Production Notes


ABOUT THE STORY

Here is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.


THE SHIPPING NEWS, page 1

The Shipping News is the tale of Quoyle, a hapless man whose life has been filled with failure and pain, seeking to find solace in his harsh, yet beautiful, ancestral home of Newfoundland. Set amidst a wintry landscape and anchored by powerful story of renewal, The Shipping News is a story of love, healing and rediscovering ones vitality.

Hallström was immediately drawn to the story when he first read the novel. "The storytelling of Annie Proulx has few boundaries: It mixes drama with comedy and farce, poetic beauty with absolute trivia and factual journalistic reports on life in Newfoundland. Also, I am drawn to anything that tries to portray people honestly and realistically. " Often funny and sometimes heart-wrenching, in The Shipping News Hallström's characterizations rely less on sentimentality and exhibit candid insights into the human spirit.

Hallström's first challenge was breaking down the story to truly understand his protagonist. "The Shipping News centers on the story of a man who from very early on was deprived of his self-esteem by abusive parents, who led a life of no self respect and who through the course of this story finds a way to regain that respect and start a new life," Hallström asserts. "This is the story about his awakening, about his resurfacing to a life of self-esteem. He is awakened to find a world where he is met with respect and where love becomes a real possibility. " In this bleak wintry fishing village, Quoyle finds the warmth he so desperately needs.

Many associated with the project note that Hallström was uniquely qualified to handle this challenging story because he possesses a rare sensibility that helps a very subtle story spring to life. "Lasse is one of the great humanists," producer Leslie Holleran imparts. "He loves to explore the wonderful, imperfect nature of human beings -- their strengths, weaknesses and contradictions," Holleran notes. The Shipping News is a quiet tale of a man on the mend; Hallström needed to approach the material with a very sensitive touch.

Adds producer Irwin Winkler: "Lasse is a man who's always dealt with odd characters, a man who's always found humanity in the strangest places. Even going back to My Life as a Dog. "

Producer Goldstein Knowlton notes, "My Life as a Dog happens to be one of my top favorite films ever. Lasse's sensibility and his way of dissecting and then presenting human foibles and human emotions is very touching. It's very authentic and it doesn't happen all that often in film. "

Kevin Spacey (Quoyle) insisted that Hallström direct the film because, as he says, "no one does family like Lasse. At its heart, this is a story not just about Quoyle's discovery of himself and his untapped potential, but it's also a story of family, of those connections that are made through generations and inform who each of us are. " Hallström's body of work-- from My Life as a Dog to What's Eating Gilbert Grape to The Cider House Rules --illustrates his ability to deal with odd characters in complicated familial situations and find humanity in unusual places. The material is consciously unemotional and understated, so the approach needed to be unlike anything Hallström had ever done before.

Hallström worked hard to understand Quoyle's character and believes one of his strengths, as a director, is his ability to identify with the misfit. "My attraction to depicting outsiders has to do with the fact that I have been there, on the outside," Hallström replies. "I can relate to it and recognize it. That is one main reason why I tell stories -- to have people recognize their inner feelings, to receive confirmation that they are not alone in the world. " There is a little underdog in everyone, and in The Shipping News it is nearly impossible not to root for Quoyle.

The filmmakers eliminated a few of the novel's subplots and peripheral characters; for example, Quoyle has two daughters in the novel and only one in the film. However, Quoyle's on screen depiction remains true to Proulx's characterization. "The Quoyle character may be a bit more of an awkward man in the novel," Hallström notes. "We suggest that there was more potential in Quoyle from the very start, a potential that was forced under the surface by a childhood of abuse. " Healing is happening just under the surface with Quoyle. Quietly conveying this to an audience as an actor is extremely difficult.

Spacey acknowledges the unique acting challenges that the role presented, and credits his director with helping him to navigate difficult emotional terrain. "I felt that I had never in film played a role that was quite like Quoyle. There isn't an ironic, glib, or cynical bone in his body. And the challenge of the role was that he's not a character that is actively trying to do anything," continues Spacey. "Life just keeps happening to him, so it's a very reactive role. "

Hallström knows how to draw an understated performance from his actors and draw upon the nuances of a story. "Inhibition is a big issue for Lasse -- non-confrontation, inhibition and a kind of silent rage against that," Holleran imparts. "The simplicity, the elegance of a single act defining a relationship -- a hard-edged father tossing a clinging child into water to teach him to swim -- had great import for Lasse. There are people, certainly from generations past, who might defend this kind of parenting - you know a sort of 'tough love', don't coddle the children, brand of toughness is best for kids in the long run. But Hallström has a different vision of how to treat children.

Known to have a deep empathy for children, "Lasse can always relate to, in a very visceral way, the pain, torture and humiliations of childhood. It's a theme he revisits in all of his movies," Holleran observes. He uses deep empathy for Quoyle's experiences as a child, to more fully understand who he is as an adult.

Revealing all the strains of history and the revelation of deep secrets proved to be one of the great challenges of telling this story cinematically. All involved in The Shipping News were concerned with how to explain Quoyle's family history and how to subtly capture the essence of the complex place from which they come. "Early on in the development," Holleran says, "we discussed incorporating Quoyle's past, the dark history of his family and dream sequences into the present day narrative. From a savage background comes Guy Quoyle, who begets our protagonist, a wholly different, almost evolutionary man. Here now is a Quoyle who can barely fend for himself in the smallest of ways. " The audience can imagine the parent that Guy was and instantly recognize why Quoyle has grown to be a meek, ineffectual man.

"Trying to find a way to link that man with the wonderful disclosures -- the dark paths, the history of the old Quoyles was a challenge," Holleran states. "Although certain characters reveal truths to Quoyle, we also needed access to his interior life -- his thoughts and dreams. "

The filmmakers enhanced Quoyle's back-story (both personal and ancestral) by allowing the supporting characters to develop a more active relationship with the protagonist. "Annie Proulx imbued the Quoyle House with a distinct personality, not to mention a established Bunny as someone who intuits - she's 'sensitive,' as they say in Newfoundland. So we decided to imply that Bunny could understand the moaning cables, the language of the house, the difficult things that had taken place there. We would therefore have another path to the past. With that premise, we also felt that Petal's own savageness -- her sexual, predatory nature -- was indicative of the Quoyles' vicious past," Holleran explains.

PROULX ON NEWFOUNDLAND &

QUICK FACTS ABOUT THE ISLAND

The film is set in Newfoundland a rough, rugged and boldly beautiful island off the coast of Canada. Novelist E. Annie Proulx discovered the island and was instantly transfixed by the honest, good-natured people, the harsh, powerful weather, and the sharp, jagged topography.

Years ago, Proulx stumbled upon a map of Newfoundland that first intrigued her. The names of the places she found on the map suggested a rich and dark history that she was mesmerized by -- places such as: Dead Man's Cove, Seldom Come Bay and Bay of Despair, Exploits River, Plunder Beach.

Proulx decided to play this mysterious island a visit. "Within ten minutes after arriving, I had fallen in love," explains Proulx. She had found her muse; she just needed to find her story.

To learn more about the culture and history of Newfoundland, Proulx harkened back to her days as an academic (she received her doctorate in history) and found herself in the library pouring through history and sociology books. But she didn't stop there. She studied maps, listened to local music and songs, researched the lives of fisherman, learned about boating and read a year's worth of local newspapers.

Initially, Proulx wanted to write about the fishing industry's problems in Newfoundland. But soon she discovered that Newfoundland would allow her to "step back two generations into what rural America must have been like in terms of cooperation and a cohesive almost-now-forgotten life," explains Proulx. She visited nearly a dozen times and never stayed very long.

As Proulx once described her experience to The New York Times: "I just listened. Drifted through. Sat around tables. Told ghost stories. Listened. Went out in boats. Hung out. Everywhere I went I fell into conversations with people. People there are good talkers and everybody's got stories. "

Hallström followed Proulx's lead. Having read the book, he knew he absolutely must shoot the adaptation in Newfoundland. To fully embrace the novel, he needed to experience the chilliness of Newfoundland and the warmth of its people. "You can't replace the look of Newfoundland, and the inspiration of that place," notes Hallström. "The land contributed so much to ideas and last minute impulses for improvisation, or where to put the camera. It's such a big part of the inspiration to make this movie, and meeting the locals, and getting to know the people there. It was the experience of a lifetime. " A rich tapestry of both beauty and severity, Newfoundland proved to be the key to bringing The Shipping News to life

Below are some quick facts about the history and economy of Newfoundland*.

Geography. Newfoundland is a triangular shaped island of 112,000 kilometers, which lies in the northeast 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.

The 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 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 A. D. when the Greenland Norse settlers tried and failed to colonize 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, Cabot 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 industrialization and Newfoundland's population moving to "growth centers" in the 1950's 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 materialize. But the effects of modernization and industrialization still are omnipresent. In 1965, the Newfoundland section of the Trans Canada Highway opened.

And, with industrialization, 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 Northeast 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 forbearers, blending its own brand of slang.

The 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 100+ mile and hour winds.

The 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.

ABOUT THE CHARACTERS, DIRECTION AND PERFORMANCE

For Quoyle was a failure at loneliness, yearned to be gregarious, to know his company was a pleasure to others.

THE SHIPPING NEWS, page 4

The Shipping News is filled with memorable characters most of which have highly unusual names -- Petal Bear, Bunny, Wavey Prowse, Beety, Nutbeem and Bill Pretty. The explanation for many of those names is simple -- Proulx picked her favorite 50 or 60 names out of the phone book, she looked at listings from the mortuaries, and list of officials from local fisheries and gas works companies. As Proulx explains, "I want names that are going to fit the place and person I am writing about. A name is like a magnet, you don't want to loose it. " The names evoke the persona of the people-whether tough and brittle or sanguine and wise. The names honestly and forthrightly reveal the characters behind them.

Only Quoyle's name has particular significance. "Quoyle" is the old English spelling for a coil of rope. Proulx was inspired by an old book of knots that she found; it illustrated the fact that knots are incredible useful, if used correctly. It was a nice metaphor for her that something so bland and so simple had so many possibilities.

Lasse Hallström was entrusted with bringing these complicated and rich characters to the screen. Known as an actors' director, Hallström works with the actors to create as much freedom, complexity, and truth within each of his characters. "My interest is in performance," Hallström states. "I'm from the vein of Milos Forman, John Cassavettes, Ken Loach -- the approach to filmmaking that encourages improvisation. I tend to make many of the creative decisions at the last minute or the day before shooting a scene, in order to keep things alive and fresh and allow for the experience of all of the previous shooting of the film to inform the day's work. The creative involvement from the actor is crucial to me. I encourage his or her ideas on all levels, on performance, story, dialogue. " The richness and depth of Proulx's characters provided both the director and actors with the freedom to experiment with and develop the characters.

Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey flexes new muscles as Quoyle -- a man who, "bereft, brimming with grief and thwarted love," metamorphoses into a more vital human being. And getting the nuance of his performance just right was essential to the successful depiction of the novel. As Holleran succinctly puts it: "For Lasse, everything must ring true. " The challenge of capturing Quoyle's quiet complexity was a real draw for Spacey.

Spacey thrived in the collaborative nature of his relationship with Lasse. As he notes, "I was very unsure a lot of the time about where Quoyle was, or where I needed to be, because the growth that he goes through as a character is so subtle, and so minute that it's not a series of big events that happen. It's incremental moments that patiently add up to the whole. You look so forward to having someone there as a director who's able to weave a difficult tapestry together. " Hallström was able to provide Spacey with a broad overview of the character at key moments that helped to keep Spacey's portrayal maneuvered and nuanced.

Certainly, the admiration for Spacey was not lacking by anyone on the project. "Kevin is an actor with a very precise instrument, a man of intelligence with a great sense of humor," Hallström notes. "Kevin has always portrayed the more quick-witted characters. This time he plays a man of slower wit, one with many kinds of inhibitions. Quoyle is an introverted character, so Kevin had to rely less on verbal expression this time. It is a part that requires an emotional honesty, and he delivers. "

Known as a jokester, Spacey kept the cast and crew laughing when the cameras were off. "Kevin's a wonderful actor," notes Judi Dench, who portrays Quoyle's aunt. "He was also extremely difficult to work with because he made me laugh a great deal. That's no help to anybody. " Spacey made sure everyone enjoyed his or her time in chilly Newfoundland.

Acclaimed Australian actress Cate Blanchett assumes the pivotal role of Petal Bear, Quoyle's explosive young wife. "What's great about The Shipping News is that it's not at all sentimental," Blanchett states. "My function in the story is to be the bad egg, and I relished it. I think it's great to play characters that aren't very likable -- particularly as a woman. Usually it's all about the girl next door. I would not want to live next door to Petal. " Ruthless, manipulative and sexy, Blanchett's acting prowess leaves an indelible mark on the audience -- and on Quoyle.

A key element to appreciating Petal is to understand why Petal initially is attracted to Quoyle. "Petal wants as much as she can get as fast as she can get it," Blanchett explains. "I think her attraction to Quoyle is incredibly simple. Their relationship is fast and furious for a couple of months -- six years of misery follows. Petal tries to get free of him, shake him off, and it doesn't work. " In the end, it was "a month of fiery happiness. Then six kinked years of suffering. "

Petal's disdain for Quoyle only serves to further destroy his self-confidence and poison his relationship with his daughter, Bunny. "From Petal's perspective, Quoyle's someone who's just on a continual downward slide. She can't stand Quoyle's cringing hesitancy. Everything he does makes her 'wish him in the pit' -- I think that's the expression in the book. "

In turn, Spacey needed to resolve why Quoyle would become so deeply in love with someone as abusive as Petal. As Spacey notes, "We meet Quoyle at perhaps his lowest point. He's had all of these really pathetic jobs that are not fulfilling and he meets a woman who sort of captures his imagination and his fantasy of everything he's ever been missing in his life. And she's a person that chooses to cast a spell on him. " Of course, it becomes clear almost from the start that this relationship will not go anywhere and that Petal is only serving her own self-interest.

In the course of the production, this relationship working was not apparent until the very end of the shoot because, even though Petal appears in interstitial dream sequences and a limited number of scenes at the beginning of the film, Blanchett was unavailable until the final weeks of principal photography.

Julianne Moore plays Wavey, a woman who reflects the all the beauty and good nature of Newfoundland. Moore was drawn to the film primarily by the opportunity to work with Lasse Hallström. "Lasse is an extraordinary talent," Moore notes. "His direction is extremely lovely, subtle work. And you always feel that he's getting what he wants very easily. "

Hallström contends he always wanted to work with Moore as well. "She is an intelligent actress with great versatility and a very accurate choice for the part of Wavey Prowse -- the Newfoundland woman who is so strongly rooted in place. "

Moore sees the story as a universal tale of family and community. "The Shipping News is about how individuals find a community and how family takes a major place in our lives -- how it shapes who we are and influences everything," Moore contends. "It's also about people who sometimes don't think that they deserve to be loved, or to be a member of a family or a community. It's about learning that you belong somewhere. "

Moore continues, "The movie is as much about place as it is about people. These are people who were born here, who choose to be here, who have a sense of identity as Newfoundlanders. Newfoundlanders have endured so much in terms of the remote location and the weather that they can almost take anything. There's a real resiliency to the people who live there. "

In stark contrast to Petal Bear, Wavey Prowse is a single mother, native Newfoundlander and the focal point of Quoyle's transformation. "What interests me most about Wavey is that she's somebody who is apparently straightforward, but has a big secret," states Julianne Moore. Moore relished in the contradiction.

What draws Wavey to Quoyle? "Quoyle is somebody who's struggling with the same kind of relationship issues that Wavey's struggling with," Moore notes. Initially, it's their children that bring them together

The Gainer triplets, who hail from Baytown, Texas, play Bunny, the belligerent offspring of Quoyle and Petal Bear. The girls all worked hard, like many others in the cast, to understand their character. "Bunny is a troubled child who loves Petal but doesn't even know her well enough to call her mom," Alyssa says. "And her father doesn't understand how to care for her," Kaitlyn says.

Bunny's relationship with her father has certainly been corrupted by the constant berating of Petal, who ceaselessly refers to him as boring. Bunny's resentment for her father comes to a boil when she loses Petal and is left alone with him.

Hallström has a long history of casting children in key roles and eliciting a strong performance. "I have been very lucky with the casting of children throughout my filmmaking career," he continues. "Those triplets are special. They are real kids, uninfluenced by that certain obvious television performance style of precociousness, of imitation of adults. These kids were naturals, very sincere, very ambitious with their work, still playful and allowed to behave like children, by their parents and by us, both on and off the screen. "

Three great actors playing one part kept them fresh to deliver with the kind of strength that they needed for such a pivotal role. "All of them are wonderfully good and completely seamless," proclaims Judi Dench, who portrays Bunny's Aunt Agnis Hamm. "We did a long scene one day, and I said to Kaitlyn at the end, 'Jolly good, how wonderful. You must be exhausted!' 'No, Alyssa had only come on the shift about half an hour before. ' I wish I had two others just like me!"

Aunt Agnis bears many resemblances to Bunny in that she has a deeper understanding of the sorted, meaningful history of the Quoyles. She bears a burden that is not immediately apparent and reveals itself in small gestures of both vulnerability and coldness.

Dench, who recently received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Armande in Chocolat (1988), relished another opportunity to collaborate with Hallström. "Lasse is very gentle, and he's got a wonderful sense of humor," Dench remarks. "When you're working with him you just know that the ship is going to be plowed through the waters right. "

Hallström, in kind, thinks the world of Dench. "Judi Dench is one of my favorite actresses," Hallström reveals. "After having worked with her last year, I knew that Judi would perfectly capture the complexity of Agnis. Agnis has grown up in Newfoundland and experienced the harshness of that world. Those experiences are reflected in her character. She is unsentimental, practical and direct but there is a generosity, warmth and a sense of humor about her. " Her character requires strength, and Dench naturally exudes pride and confidence.

Dench relishes in the density of her character. "I don't want to say too much about Agnis because she's rather a mystery," Dench avows. "But after arriving in Newfoundland, I knew immediately why Agnis would long to come back to her roots -- however dark those roots were. "

The Gammy Bird characters -- portrayed by a wildly diverse group of actors from the United States (Scott Glenn), Wales (Rhys Ifans), Great Britain (Pete Postlethwaite) and Newfoundland (Gordon Pinsent) -- represent the first sense of community, friendship and male camaraderie that Quoyle experiences in his new life. "As a group, we make a very peculiar kind of collage," Pinsent observes.

Throughout principal photography in Newfoundland, The Gammy Bird actors lived together at Bishop White's Inn in Trinity -- an experience that clearly informed their performances. "The characters know each other's foibles, what they eat, drink," Postlethwaite responds. "They behave like any group of people who work closely together day in day out really. They're always firing off at each other; that's the way they get on. "

Scott Glenn assumes the role of Jack Buggit, the owner of the newspaper and the man who grants Quoyle his first moral victory. "Lasse said, 'I see Jack as the puppet master of the entire story,'" Glenn recalls. "He molds everything to fit his version of the world, including the lives of everyone in town. " Buggit is known as what they refer to in Newfoundland as "sensitive" - he has a great wisdom about people and can size up a situation just by looking at someone. Glenn explains, "He's able to look into the soul of matters, the soul of people -- to figure out not only events that are going to happen, but what somebody needs to make their life better. "

Jack Buggitt is much more comfortable with the sea, with nature than with people. Glenn observes, "I live in Idaho, and I know trappers and Native Americans who live up in the mountains. People who live in and around nature all the time gain a deep wisdom, I think. " The staff at The Gammy Bird and around town, recognize Jack Buggitt as a very wise soul.

Jack gives assignments that compel each of The Gammy Bird characters to face their own personal demons. With Quoyle, it's covering local car wrecks. Billy Pretty, a confirmed bachelor who wants nothing to do with marriage or family, is in charge of the home page. Canadian icon and native Newfoundlander Gordon Pinsent plays Pretty. "People send Billy baby booties, bake-off recipes and things. He also writes under an alias -- a character called Junior Sugg, a gossip columnist. But every time Billy gets a free moment he goes out on his boat and becomes the fisherman again," Pinsent explains.

Pinsent takes special care of Quoyle without taking away his dignity, a very Newfie personality trait. "My character is rather in tune or one with the personality of the island, the temperament of the island," Pinsent continues. "I think Billy sees something in Quoyle -- perhaps the need to be his own man and not to follow his ancestry. Quoyle needs a certain confidence. So Billy does his very best to transfer some of his wisdom to Quoyle. "

Lasse instantly understood what Pinsent could bring to the film. "Gordon's the soul of Newfoundland and such a wonderful human being," Hallström professes. He was an inspiration for all of us. I wanted to bring him home. "

Dench felt a bit of envy that Pinsent understood this world so instinctively. "I was taking dialect lessons, and in walked Gordon," Dench recalls. "Of course he looked wonderful, didn't need any make-up or a hair cut, and didn't need to know the dialect. He could get out of bed in the morning and walk straight on the set and do it properly -- despicable," she declares.

Even British transplant B. Beaufield Nutbeem, The Gammy Bird's "international correspondent", has a ludicrous relationship to his assignment. "The job Jack Buggit's given Nutbeem," Glenn explains, "is to sit by the radio and turn international broadcasts into quirky little tales to entertain the people in this town. It's the last thing in the world this guy wants to do because he learned about the death of both of his parents through the BBC. "

Rhys Ifans, the Welsh actor perhaps best known for his performance as Spike, Hugh Grant's hilarious roommate in Notting Hill (1999), plays Nutbeem. "Nutbeem's an Englishman and an adventurer -- not in the classic sense, but by chance and accident," Ifans notes. "Prior to the beginning of the story, he builds a Chinese junk and sails it from Brazil, intending to arrive at busy multi-cultural Manhattan. But Nutbeem's not the best sailor in the world or the best boat builder. He ends up on the island of Newfoundland. He gets a job at The Gammy Bird, but throughout, he's rebuilding his boat with the intention of sailing away again. "

There is a real sense of history that runs through every character in this film. Ifans adds, "How that history reveals itself is lovely, poetic. I think there's an affinity between Quoyle and Nutbeem because they're both very much outsiders in Newfoundland. "

Hallström appreciated the humor that Ifans brought to the screen. "Rhys is doing something really funny with his character," Hallström states. "He's eccentric, but he's just within the right tone. "

Ifans found the film to be a very rewarding experience. "Working with Lasse is quite extraordinary -- a real exercise in osmosis," Ifans replies. "So often you work in film and you're always obliged to deliver a performance like a strip-o-gram. Lasse enables you to deliver it quietly like a postman in the early hours of the morning. You push it silently through the letterbox. That's such a great place to find in yourself as an actor. It's a bigger leap of faith than you imagine it ever could be -- to just trust yourself and the material. And when it's this good it's joyous. "

Veteran character actor Pete Postlethwaite, who previously worked in Newfoundland on the Canadian feature "The Devine Ryans," relished the opportunity to portray The Gammy Bird's crusty managing editor, Tert X. Card. "Tert's one of those great characters to play -- just lovely," Postlethwaite adds. "He is a loner who's totally committed and devoted to this back end newspaper. Tert runs it in fact. But he gets usurped really -- by Quoyle, the last person you'd think he'd meet his comeuppance with. "

"Tert's not the boss, the last word," Postlethwaite continues. "Jack Buggit is his bread and butter, really. Tert hates the fact that he's so dependent on Jack for the job. But because he's always off fishing, Jack is completely dependent on Tert to run the thing. So there's a kind of dichotomy between the two. "

Postlethwaite's versatility was called upon to deliver a performance that was on one hand a bit brutal, and on another a bit sympathetic. Ifans notes, "With his extraordinary face and physicality, he can access Tert's brutality very easily. But Pete also has a big heart. So he brings a sense of the wounded man to the character when it would be so easy just to play him as a villain. "

Jason Behr, who currently stars as Max Evans on "Roswell," plays Dennis Buggit, the son of newspaperman Jack Buggit. "Jack's fear about losing his only living son to the sea has created this void that neither man has addressed or acknowledged in any way," Behr states. "They sort of accept it. "

Throughout production, Behr and Glenn modified their behavior to enhance and amplify the relationship between Dennis and Jack. "The very first time I met Scott was in the make-up trailer. We were all joking around, laughing, having a good time. As soon as he walked in, it got quiet. We looked at each other for a second; Scott just nodded and walked away. It was very instinctual. For the first week, I didn't say more than two words to him. At that point, the characters hadn't talked -- there weren't any open lines of communication. "

Hallström was thrilled with Glenn's performance and how he worked with his on-screen son. "Scott makes off-beat, surprising choices, but choices that ring true," Hallström comments. "He doesn't go with stereotypes. I really believed him as a fisherman in Newfoundland. He brings the necessary authority to Jack's character. "

THE GENESIS: GETTING THE FILM MADE

Producer Goldstein Knowlton (Crazy In Alabama (1999), Mumford (1999)) first read Annie Proulx's The Shipping News in galley form in 1993. "I'd never been to Newfoundland," Goldstein states. "I didn't know anything about boats or fishing. But Annie's story completely moved me. Although an adaptation seemed difficult, I couldn't stop thinking about it. "

Proulx sold the rights to Goldstein Knowlton with one prerequisite. "From the beginning, Annie said that her work is between two covers on a book shelf," Goldstein Knowlton says. "She was adamant about shooting at least part of the film in Newfoundland. "

The book was highly celebrated, but setting up the film project proved daunting. "It took me a little over a year to set it up," Goldstein Knowlton continues. "During that time, it was published and won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize. "

But her luck soon changed. While on vacation, Stacy Snider, an executive at TriStar Pictures, read the novel, contacted Proulx's agent and quickly closed a deal with Goldstein Knowlton. Sony also brought Hollywood veteran Irwin Winkler (producer of Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff and Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas (1990) - acclaimed film versions of contemporary novels) aboard.

After flirting with the project on and off for several years, all the stars aligned -- Hallström and producing partner Leslie Holleran saw a development that made it all work. Miramax had picked up The Shipping News from Sony and eventually attached Kevin Spacey, an actor that could clearly rise to the acting challenging of portraying Quoyle.

Holleran was thrilled; she originally read the novel in 1995. "I thought it was one of the most beautiful books that I had read in many years," Holleran enthuses. "Annie includes elements and addresses themes that are of continuing interest for Lasse --family, quirky characters, the vulnerable person on a journey to self discovery. " Though thematically familiar, the tone of the film impels Hallström in a slightly new direction with a more delicate, nuanced approach most reminiscent of his work in My Life as a Dog.

To help him make this magical book come alive, Hallström enlisted Academy Award nominated Chocolat (2000) screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs to rewrite the script. He put the polish on it and built the structure into it that Hallström was eager to see.

A true labor of love, The Shipping News went before the cameras on March 12, 2001 in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

ABOUT DESIGN AND SETTING

It was a strong place.

THE SHIPPING NEWS, page 34

On March 9, 2001, at Cleveland Beach in Black Point, Nova Scotia, three dogs and 49 extras costumed in heavy, woolen clothing circa 1890 pulled a green house on spruce runners across the ice. The powerful image -- reminiscent of the David Blackwood etching ("Hauling Job Sturge's House") that graces the cover of the paperback edition of E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News -- set the tone for what would become a production distinguished by amazing weather, stunning locations and a mutual affection between cast crew and the people of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

Hallström finds shooting on location to be a magical experience. "The real world offers so much more inspiration on tangible and intangible levels, offers ideas for the cameraman, for the designer, for the actor," says Hallström. "You can visually recreate the world perfectly in a studio, but you obviously don't have the advantage of inviting the real world to be a collaborator to the story. "

Although principal photography commenced and concluded on soundstages in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, the cast and crew spent more than one month in Newfoundland shooting exteriors. "Newfoundland is the end of the earth," Goldstein Knowlton says. "It's rugged and raw and far away from everything. And it's simple in the best possible sense. I think what also makes it different is that Newfoundland families have been there for 500 years. They only leave the island if they have to. And they come back. People are rooted there. "

"The Shipping News is a portrait of Newfoundland and its people," Hallström adds. "The landscape provides the metaphorical backdrop for the story. " This world has helped shape and form people. To survive here in the old days was an absolute struggle. But the harshness of life here is still present and part of the heritage. "

"There is a distinctive flavor to Newfoundland, a texture that you'll find in very few places in this part of the world," Gordon Pinsent adds.

"Architecturally and geographically, Newfoundland is different than any place I've ever been," states locations manager Charlie Harrington. "You know what it is? It's the elevation that you get from the ocean to the top of the hills in Newfoundland. It's pretty extreme, and it's a lot more rugged than any rocky coastline in Maine or Nova Scotia. "

Harrington and the creative team began work on The Shipping News by scouting the island in search of an outport that would serve as Killick-Claw, the community in which Quoyle begins his new life. "I scouted Newfoundland so that I could understand the geography, that world, that culture," production designer David Gropman explains. "We traveled all four corners of the island -- by plane, car and boat. " Trying to find a community that architecturally represented the history and culture of the people was a challenge.

Location scouting is not a perfect science. "What you're looking for in a location often evolves based on what you find," Harrington states. "We originally wanted Killick-Claw to have a very barren look like the outports on the Northern Peninsula where we thought Annie Proulx set the story. We were looking for an outport with architecture that wasn't spoiled, wasn't scattered with ranch and split-level houses. Between the Newfoundland Film Corporation and our scouts, we shot every single outport that we ever heard of in Newfoundland. "

Despite the remote location, the creative team, especially Hallström and Gropman, fell in love with the community of New Bonaventure, in the Trinity Bight area. Bound by two dramatic headlands -- Horse Chops and Bonaventure Head -- Trinity Bight is a formidable piece of the Trinity Bay coastline. Comprised of 12 outport communities, the area is home to approximately 2,000 Newfoundlanders -- most of whom are descendants of eighteenth century settlers from England's West Country and the Channel Islands.

Because it's three hours from St. John's (the provincial capital), Trinity Bight has a lot of outports that are relatively unchanged since the turn-of-the-century. Harrington notes, "The houses have pretty much remained intact because a lot of younger people had to move away to find jobs when the fishing industry failed. A lot of elderly people who were born in those houses still live in them. "

Most of the crew had never experienced anything quite like this. "Of all the films I've done, this is the most remote place that I've come," Harrington states. "We were three hours from the nearest airport, and there's not a lot of hotels around. We had to piece everybody out into houses, and bed and breakfasts. "

Once the filmmakers found their Killick-Claw, the next and perhaps most important location to secure was Quoyle's Point. "The key image of The Shipping News is the image of the green house being lashed down to the rock with cables that struggle to keep the house in place," Hallström explains. "This image, together with the image of people pulling the house over the ice, was really what initially drew me to the story -- the strong sense of this house being an important 'character,' a voice that speaks of Newfoundland, Quoyle's family and their past. "

Hallström continues, "That image is such a strong visualization of our idea of 'home,' the safe haven, the place that saves us from the threats of the outside world and the storms that rage. Our homes are warm and protective, guarding us from the harshness of life. "

In most of Hallström's work, home serves as a preeminent symbol, the centerpiece for the story. In My Life As A Dog, Ingemar's uncle's house is in a constant state of repair. In What's Eating Gilbert Grape, the family's country house in the middle of nowhere burns to the ground at the conclusion of the film. St. Cloud's Orphanage is a crucial place for Homer Wells' coming of age in The Cider House Rules. Finally, in Chocolat, world traveler Vianne and her daughter Anouk finally settle into the traditional French village of Lansquenet.

Production Designer Gropman explains how Hallström always seeks the most honest and simple expression of the environment or an image. Gropman states, "Naturally my first step of the process is to eliminate everything that doesn't matter -- color, textures --until we get to sort of an icon -- an image that feels so real and right that the eye doesn't have to stop when it reaches it. "

Hallström credits Gropman with helping to capture the essence of this place, which is incredibly understated, but very specific. "David has an eye for what is important to the atmosphere of the film as a whole," Hallström notes. "His work is based on an honest realism and a simplicity, wherever possible. " Holleran adds, "As with Cider House Rules, The (1999) and Chocolat (2000), David's set designs are so extraordinary, so complete and exact in considering what will take place - what will happen emotionally at these locations, they raise the level of the actors' performances. "

The physical challenges of the film were huge. For instance, in The Shipping News, the green house is very specifically perched on an impossible point in what is already an impossible environment to live in," remarks Gropman.

The lack of roads was also a giant production obstacle. "After we committed to New Bonaventure, I got into a helicopter and scouted the coast line 50 miles in either direction," locations manager Charlie Harrington recalls. "The problem with Newfoundland is that the province didn't have roads until 1965. Everybody traveled by boat. So we would find great places but there weren't any roads. We flew over Coleman's Point, which seemed perfect. But despite the fact that a whale factory operated near the land from 1903 to 1915, there weren't any roads leading to it -- just a footpath. The government of Newfoundland said, 'We'll build you a road. ' And they did. "

There is no way to trace the history of any piece of land that was being shot on. Much of rural Canada is crowned (government) land. But in Newfoundland property rights aren't very clearly delineated. "If your grandfather grew potatoes on a piece of land a hundred years ago, you can claim the land and secure the deed. " Harrington continues, "When we scouted what became Quoyle's point, for instance, we thought it was owned by the government. Then we noticed that crops had been planted there. We discovered that the Coleman family had been planting potatoes and cabbage there for fifty years. They owned the land, so we made a deal with them. "

A weather report during the pre-production in Newfoundland

National Post,

Monday, April 9, 2001


St. John's breaks its record: snowiest winter in 119 years.


605 CENTIMETRES

'We're sick of snow and hoping summer will come some day'



BY FOSTER SMITH

"More than 605 centimeters of snow -- the height of a two story building -- have fallen on the city this year, making the winter of 2000-01 the snowiest since St. John's started keeping records in 1874.

The previous record of 598. 2 centimeters of snow was set during the 1881-82 winter. ..

The reason for this year's excessive snowfall in St. John's is a jet stream that has kept snowstorms passing to the south and southeast of Newfoundland, where the provincial capital is located, instead of to the northwest of the island as is the seasonal norm.

"One thing that first hit me when we came to Newfoundland is how difficult it was going to be for us to prep this film in what was going to be the middle of winter," Gropman states. "Since I was challenged by the weather, I began to understand the challenge for the characters in the story. That very much helped inform my design. I began to realize how very basic, simple, and honest the architecture was. It had to be completely functional. Houses were small because they had to be easy to heat and maintain, and had to be built in communities that could be protected from the elements. "

The poor weather required some fancy footwork from the production team. "Because we were prepping the film in winter, it was necessary to pre-build the green house indoors on a soundstage in Halifax," Gropman indicates. "So it was built and painted, taken apart, put on the ferry to Newfoundland, and reassembled on Coleman's Point. But when we arrived on the point in Newfoundland, the first thing we had to do was remove some five to eight feet of snow. But the house has been empty for forty years when the characters first arrive. So we didn't want to disturb the landscape. So piece by piece, everything had to be brought in by snowmobiles and then carefully assembled without disturbing too much. "

Goldstein Knowlton was bowled over by the design. "I walked onto the set of the green house and said to David, 'You literally went inside my head and built this,'" Goldstein Knowlton exclaims. "I was just shocked. It's sort of rare that something matches your mind's eye. "

The actors loved the house as well. "I arrived in Newfoundland on Sunday," Judi Dench recounts. "On Monday I had some things to do in the morning, so I asked John, who drove me about, to take me to the house quietly before anyone gets there. It was absolutely breathtaking. It's the space -- the great massive sea, and then that house set at the end of the point. It was just spectacular. "

Dealing with the snow was harrowing. "We removed a lot of snow from the Quoyle's Point location," Harrrington remembers. "We contacted the local ski mountain and got their snow groomer down, and pushed a lot of it into the ocean. We hired hundreds of local people -- anybody who could bring a shovel and wanted to work removed snow. We removed everything but about six inches of snow and then it got really warm and it all melted away. We had no patchy snow, so we had to bring it back in. They just thought we were crazy Hollywood people. And we probably are. "

On any given day in Newfoundland, cast and crew witnessed weather patterns characteristic of all four seasons. "When we first arrived here, the snow was literally going upwards. I had never seen that before," Ifans remembers. "I love extremes so the weather's been wonderful. "

"Our first day of shooting in Newfoundland was an absolute white out," Goldstein Knowlton states. "I got a phone call at 6 o'clock in the morning. 'Do not leave your building. It's too dangerous. ' Snowplows and trucks were off the road. But amazingly, we were shooting by one o'clock that afternoon. As they say in Newfoundland, 'If you don't like the weather, stick around for 10 minutes. '"

Horse Chops, the rocky headlands where Quoyle and Wavey reveal their feelings during a picnic with the kids, proved almost as magnificent as Coleman's Point. "We always knew that with the kite flying/picnic scenes we wanted dramatic rugged locations, and Horse Chops is exactly that," Harrington says. "But again, we had to wait for the snow to melt before we could actually make a decision -- you couldn't even get into the area and see the terrain when we first arrived. "

Once the snow disappeared, however, the weather once again became an issue. For nearly two weeks, the filmmakers waited for sunshine to film scenes at Horse Chops. When the forecast finally called for sun, cast and crew agreed to work an additional day -- Sunday.

There were quite a number of difficult challenges with Horse Chops. Goldstein Knowlton explains, "We had to pulley all of the equipment down into the headlands. But sitting on blankets in the grass watching Kevin and Julianne fly kites against very dramatic cliffs on beautiful sunny days was just brilliant. "

And, when a crewmember spotted whales off shore, filming at Horse Chops came to a complete halt, especially when the triplets saw the whales: "Seeing the whales was an awesome experience," Alyssa Gainer recounts, "they were so graceful and beautiful to watch. " "I was stunned at the size of the whales," adds sister Kaitlyn, "they were huge!" "Seeing the whales was like seeing the moose and the iceberg. It was an unexpected surprise," Lauren remarks.

Although Harrington scouted numerous islands off the coast of Trinity Bight for the Gaze Island cemetery scene, ultimately Hallström chose land near Fishers' Loft in Port Rexton. "Lasse was looking out his loft room window one morning and pointed down the hill and said, 'That would be perfect,'" Harrington laughs.

The Nova Scotia locations included The Deck Restaurant in Blanford (Skipper Will's Diner), houses in Terence Bay (Wavey's daycare center) and Herring Cove (Agnis' shop), the intersection of Highway 329 and Deep Cove Road in Blanford (Nutbeem's trailer) and Halifax's Chronicle Herald building. "The story behind the newspaper location's interesting because in the script that was handed to me Quoyle was a small time reporter at an upstate New York paper," Harrington notes. "But at the Chronicle Herald building in Halifax, we found a fantastic 1940's printing press, with great colors, great mood. Lasse decided that it would be even more effective if Quoyle had a more menial job -- sitting by one of these machines in the old printing press room -- and was later converted into a reporter by Jack Buggit. "

The Johnson property in Indian Harbor, Nova Scotia (near Peggy's Cove) served as Alvin Yark's workshop. At one point we were going to shoot in Newfoundland, but Indian Harbor was just the perfect place. It looked like Popeye's hometown. "

The water sequences were shot in various locations, including the Atlantic Ocean off of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the Centennial Pool in Halifax, and the Institute for Marine Dynamics on the campus of Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. Used primarily for research by the university and international oil companies, the facility consists of three state-of-the-art wave tanks that can recreate almost any conceivable weather conditions.

PAINTING PICTURES: THE CINEMATOGRAPHY

The cinematography evolves and matures throughout the shooting process. Lasse Hallström relies on his gut. "Usually, I don't want to have confirmation on the tone or where I'm heading by seeing dailies or cut footage," Hallström reveals. "In general, I go very much by instinct. I'm very interested in how to tell it -- where to put a camera and how to tell the story. I learned to make films by editing myself, handling the camera myself. So I have a very technical approach to it. "

The Shipping News reunites Hallström with acclaimed British cinematographer Oliver Stapleton. "On Cider House Rules, The (1999) we just got on immediately in the way that sometimes happens," Stapleton states. "It's an unspoken thing really, the relationship between a cinematographer and a director. When you feel that you're on the same page, it's extraordinary how easy it is to set up a scene. "

Stapleton aims for realism in the look of his film. "His photography is classy, simple and supportive of the performances," Hallström indicates. "His lighting style is based on observations of the movement of real light and his images can be very poetic and lyrical. He's such an instinctive cameraman. He has a visual style that really is in sync with how I view the film. "

With The Shipping News, Hallström and Stapleton decided to bleach the film stock to accurately capture the look of Newfoundland. "With the harshness and the look of Newfoundland, it seemed to be the accurate choice to bring down the colors, to accentuate the harsh nature of this part of the world," Hallström explains. "In general, a film that is bleached has a more realistic quality to it. If you don't bleach film, the colors become (at least to my eyes these days) exaggerated. When you look at a face, you want to see the face, the color tone of the face and not have the eyes wander off to bright colors. If you want to have a real approach, you have to bring the colors down. By bleaching the film, there's more black to it. It's more like 'film' -- like pictures used to look. "

"Compared with other films, The Shipping News includes the landscape in a way that is more prominent or obvious than I've done before," Hallström continues. "We're going more for wider shots to include this world. Because it's an important character in this story -- this remote world and this harsh landscape. "

Weather, of course, influenced almost every stage of the photography -- from pre-production until the final day of shooting. "One of the things that happened in the prep of this film," Stapleton recounts, "was that I arrived in Nova Scotia, and it was completely covered in snow. Normally I go out with a little crew and do some tests, particularly in a landscape film where you want to actually shoot what's going to be in the movie. But I found myself marooned in this white snowscape. So I had a crew in southwest England go to some places near my house that look rather like Newfoundland. I had them shoot the initial tests there because there wasn't any green available here. Green and yellow green were crucial colors in the film. "

The filmmakers were anxious to create a stark juxtaposition between New York and Newfoundland. A task easier said then done. "The transition from New York to Newfoundland," Stapleton continues, "was scripted in a way that very much included the change of seasons. I was very keen to include snow. But we realized that we weren't going to shoot any snow if we weren't careful. So we devised a plan using plates and second unit footage where we could actually make a snowscape that would exist in Newfoundland. Quoyle, Agnis and Bunny would leave New York with no snow, arrive in Newfoundland to a landscape of snow, and then a huge rainstorm would wash it away. "

Due primarily to the actors' schedules, the filmmakers had to shoot all the interiors first, "which is the reverse of what you would normally want to do," Stapleton states. "In an ideal world, you shoot the exteriors, establish the weather and lighting conditions and then go in the studio and recreate the lighting. So basically, we lit the interiors to complement the mood of the scenes. When we shot in Newfoundland, ninety-nine percent of the time the exterior matched the interior. You can call that whatever you like -- serendipity -- but that is what happened. "

"Oliver paints pictures," Goldstein Knowlton comments. "He completely understood how to show the starkness, isolation, incredible beauty and absolute grandeur of Newfoundland. "

ABOUT THE COSTUMES

The key to quality costume designing in this type of film is to create costumes that enhance the story, work with the story, and create a more complete, believable tale. Renée Kalfus was entrusted with the duty of capturing the spirit of the people of Newfoundland. "I'm a character driven costume designer," states Kalfus. "It doesn't interest me to put something on somebody so that you notice it. I'm part of the storytelling. "

The Shipping News marks Kalfus' fifth collaboration with Lasse Hallström. "Renée has great instincts, and she is meticulous. I pretty much leave her on her own to make creative decisions. "

Kalfus enjoys working with Hallström for the freedom he provides her. "Lasse allows you to do your best work because he gives you a lot of freedom, even though he knows exactly what he wants," Kalfus states. "Lasse knows how to describe a character, the core of the personality, and my part is to find what's true about that. I want the clothes to be as real as Lasse's description of that character. "

Kalfus shares an example: "Before I talked to Kevin, I met with Lasse and asked him to tell me about Quoyle. Lasse said, 'He's a sleepwalker. He can walk into a room basically and not be seen, and that's how he leads his life. He goes into the lunchroom and sits down, alone. ' That was so much information for me. "

"Quoyle was a silhouette," she continues. "Helping Kevin be the size, have the kind of girth and frumpiness was part of my job. In working with Kevin, we arrived at that silhouette. There were discussions to begin with that Quoyle was much heavier than Kevin is, and was he going to gain weight? Were we going to pad him? Very quickly in the fittings, we realized that we didn't really have to go that route. Kevin obviously understood Quoyle and brought much of his interpretation of the character to Lasse and me. We discussed how a guy who was beaten up mentally by his father would walk around. What would he look like? What would he wear? To me, sleepwalking also meant his clothes were somewhat generic -- nothing would pop out. He's just a mass of a man walking around. "

In contrast to Quoyle, "Wavey is part of Newfoundland," Kalfus states. "She's from a small, poor fishing village. She is clever but doesn't have a lot of means. That was a nice little challenge. Julianne liked going in a really individual way -- one-of-a-kind hand knit sweaters for example. There's so much cottage industry here, and Wavey can definitely knit. There's a certain self sufficiency that manifests itself in her character, in the people of this island. "

Angis represents the strength of Newfoundland. "Agnis is a force," Kalfus continues. "She's a very strong character, very capable. Somebody who upholsters ships is a no-fuss kind of gal. And that was our approach -- strong woman, kind of a leader of the family. Her clothes reflect those characteristics. They're very kind of durable. And none of her clothes are new. "

With the Gammy Bird characters, Kalfus sought to convey the reality of men who live in, on and around water. "Jack owns The Gammy Bird but he fishes all the time," Kalfus states. "So that's his gear. Pete got into his first costume and said, "I love this, and I don't want to wear anything else. " He has a bow tie, and he's a bit officious. He's got a key ring with too many locks. Nutbeem is a romantic character. I hoped to convey that by tucking in his pants and having him wear this fabulous hand knit sweater. Billy Pretty has the same cap, a twenty-year-old parka that has really never been cleaned, and the same old pants. What's nice about that is that in the story he writes about recipes, curtains and church fairs, and he's this kind of craggy guy that you wouldn't expect. "

"I hardly changed their costumes through all of those scenes," she continues. "They had this eccentricity as an ensemble. "

Newfoundland's also a character, one that influenced the entire creative team tremendously. Kalfus states, "The Island and this story had a certain palette that emerged naturally. The Shipping News is a glacial story," Kalfus notes.

Petal introduces an entirely new element, an entirely different palette for Kalfus. "Her presence has a lot to do with color. Annie Proulx describes Petal as 'moist, hot. ' Naturally, I first thought of red, which mutated into hot pink," continues Kalfus. "In the water and dream sequences, Petal wears clothing that are dream-like, as though she's come up from the bottom of the deep blue. "

Blanchett understands that her wardrobe serves as an important element of her character and helps juxtapose her character to the rest of the story. "There's something about Petal that I always perceived as being incredibly fleshy and exposed, which is in stark contrast to the world of Newfoundland where everything's cold, contained, very bleak and stark," Blanchett observes.

"I wanted to give the clothes in The Shipping News a sense of timelessness," Kalfus concludes. "When you're telling a classic story, time shouldn't get in the way. "