Originally posted by Don Schulini:
This kind of things make me watch the movie over and over again, just to discover more of them. I know there's talked about other little details here before, like a Pepsi advertisement in one of the flashback scenes, and also the cars which were used for the films.
Right! Right! Right! You can watch the films hundreds of times and still pick up new evidence of FFC's fanatical attention to detail each time. Among my favorites:
--The girls at Connie's wedding have their hair tied with wool strands, and the men are wearing short ties--both because silk and synthetics (like rayon and nylon), which ordinarily would be used for hair ribbons and ties, were needed by the armed forces. Note that all the cars at the wedding have "A" gasoline rationing stickers in their windshields.
--The soft-drink posters on the walls of Sr. Vitelli's cafe in Sicily are for contemporary products sold there in the immediate postwar years.
--Although Cuban dictator Batista's wife and kids appear on screen for less than three seconds during the New Year's Eve party, the actors and the clothes they wear are
exactly what the real-life Batistas looked like and wore. The '57 Mercury Montclair that drives Michael in Cuba has a tinny European horn--
exactly what a Cuban driver of that era would have installed.
--After Batista resigns, you see crowds hitting parking meters with baseball bats. This is
exactly what happened in Havana on that night: money from the meters was supposed to go to a children's hospital, but Batista diverted it to his brother-in-law's pocket, and everyone knew it.
There are lots of other examples.
You get a major insight into FFC's dedication in "Hearts of Darkness," the superb documentary his wife Eleanor made about the filming of "Apocalypse Now." In setting up a scene at a French plantation, you see FFC telling his crew: "I want the white wine to be Chassagne Montrachet, and I want it chilled to 45 degrees." My reaction was: "What? Who the hell will know if it's Chassagne Montrachet or chilled maiden's piss, and who'll care what temperature it's served at?" Then FFC tells the crew, "And get me real French people--go to France to get them if you have to.
I want every French person watching this movie who lived through that era to believe that everything's absolutley authentic." Right, FFC! A director who sweats that level of detail will get everything else right. That's why he's the master!
