guitar anachronisms

Subject: guitar anachronisms
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 11 Mar 06 - 11:15 AM

My wife tells me I'm nit-picking, but it interferes with my enjoyment of a movie when I know a lot of money has been spent on getting things accurate and instruments are ignored. WALK THE LINE lists Martin Guitars in the credits, but both the Johnny Cash and Elvis characters play Martins in the 1950s which were obviously made after the mid-sixties. Martin didn't start using black binding and pick guards till mid-sixties (1965, if I remember correctly.)
This also happened in the Woody Guthrie movie where Woody (David Caridine)started off playing an old Gibson that was quite in keeping with the period, but when it got broken, he replaced it with a Mossman, which didn't exist till after his death.
Does this bother anyone else, or is my wife right?

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Mar 06 - 12:11 PM

Your wife is always right - now go do something useful around the house before you really get yourself in trouble ...

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Mar 06 - 02:58 PM

Don't worry, GUEST Jim, you're in good company. I'm forever criticizing films for anachronistic hairstyles, lipstick colours, vehicles, harness on horses, weapons (especially military rifles) and, of course, speech forms in dialogue; why should instruments get a free pass?

I was in Chapters (big chain bookstore) yesterday, and almost fled when the soundtrack from "Walk the Line" was piped through the store muzak system. Whoever is imitating Johnny Cash is so un-Cashlike it's painful, although every note is sung and played as a perfect copy of the original recorded performance. "I Get Rhythm (When I Get the Blues)" may have been the worst travesty, but "Hey Porter" came awfully close. Anyone who does a Johnny Cash song really has to develop a new interpretation of it; the man was a one-off.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: labougie
Date: 11 Mar 06 - 03:33 PM

All very small beer compared to a memorable scene in 'Titanic' during which the skipper yells "Hard a' port' and the helmsman promptly spins the wheel to starboard!

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Bert
Date: 11 Mar 06 - 05:16 PM

Or in 'Giant' where the square dance caller turns around to talk to someone and the call is still coming out over the speakers.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 11 Mar 06 - 05:21 PM

I'm the same way Jim. One of my favorites is when Steven Segall grabs a guitar out of the hands of a drunk musician falling off the stage. The drunk has a cheap nylon string guitar but then they show Segall playing a Martin D45 ! Marty Stewart was in the same scene. I would have thought he would have said something to the director.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Peace
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 02:15 AM

Saw an old western some time ago in which the cowboys were riding into the afternoon somewhere during the 1870s, and across the sky swept a jet leaving a contrail.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 02:30 AM

It's fun to kvetch about such stuff, but you have to keep it in perspective. I kinda ruined a viewing of the re-release of Spartacus a few years back by pointing out my friend that one of the battle scenes had cavalry using stirrup'd saddles - stirrups were developed closer to the middle ages, I believe.

I thought I was so cute & clever to actually know stuff like that, but the detail bothered my friend enough to wreck the experience. Nowadays, I make sure I save any stuff like that for the 'after' discussions.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 03:49 AM

labougie

some scenes in Titanic were flipped...


Peace
"across the sky swept a jet leaving a contrail. "

No - that wa a UFO...


Wesley S

just because he was in the same scene, he may never have seen the difference - since things are often done separately and edited together later. Or else he refused to play just any old crappy guitar except his ow. ...er...

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Cool Beans
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 12:19 PM

I'm generally like you, Jim, but nobody gives a damn. So your wife is right and we're wrong.
By the way, there's an explanation for the "Titanic" thing. The issue was raised when the movie came out, nut I can't remember the explanation.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 12:26 PM

Why on earth would anyone's enjoyment of Spartacus be in any way affected by quite interesting bit of information? Was your friend working under the assumption those were archive shots of Roman cavalry in action?

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: GUEST,M.Ted
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 12:34 PM

And anyway, the director would have known about it before it even happened--

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Anglogeezer
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 12:45 PM

labougie wrote :-
"All very small beer compared to a memorable scene in 'Titanic' during which the skipper yells "Hard a' port' and the helmsman promptly spins the wheel to starboard!"

It was, I believe a hangover from the days of smaller ships and tiller steering when, in order to steer to PORT and therefore move the rudder to PORT the tiller would have to go to STARBOARD.

The officer would not tell the helmsman which way to turn the wheel but which way he wanted the rudder to go and the ship to turn.

Jake

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 12:57 PM

Isn't this the way large ships are still steered - i.e., if you want to steer the ship to starboard, you turn the wheel to port?

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 02:26 PM

Labougie - in fact the order should have been (and in the actual real-life incident, was) 'Hard a'starboard' because the engines had been put in reverse, which reverses the effect of the helm. To turn to port with engines reversed, you turn the helm to starboard.

GUEST - no it f***ing isn't! :-)

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 03:07 PM

I hope they make quite certain of those kind of things in advance...

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 03:42 PM

I was watching for such things in WTL, but frankly I wouldn't have recognized many such errors. I was just looking to see which guitars they were using, which they didn't let us see very well. But I think if I HAD noticed such errors, it would be more for my amusement than that it would have wrecked the movie for me.

Now, the wristwatch in a high school production of "Brigadoon" was a wee bit over the top. That was no little thing; anyone could have noticed it. Oh, and one of the principles was wearing Earth Shoes, too. Sheesh!

Frankly, I doubt if more than one viewer in a hundred (or even fewer) would notice the guitar nuances that you mention. However, in such a production, we DO have the right to expect that they would not make such mistakes. Avoiding them would surely take little effort compared to all the rest of the effort that went into making the movie. Heck, they could have logged onto Mudcat Cafe and gotten quick answers for free!

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: johnross
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 08:12 PM

I borrowed an old Charlie Chan movie from the library last month. In this one, Charlie is working for the Secret Service in Washington, but the establishing shot of the office building where he works has the California state flag (the one with the bear) on the flagpole in front of the building.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: number 6
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 08:48 PM

Remember The Roy Roger's T.V. serial ... Roy (King of the cowboys) on his horse Trigger taking on the bad guys .... This was supposed to be back in the old days of the wild, lawless west ..... but then I always wondered why his sidekick Pat drove a jeep.

Did this bother me .... no


sIx

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 09:14 PM

I am perfectly willing to forgive The Sons of the Pioneers use of what appears to be a D-28 with a double pick guard for Sernade the Captain's Lady scene in "Rio Grand". And Ken Curtis's use of a Gibson archtop in "Ah, Ha! San Antone" from the same picture. Just because it is such a perfect film otherwise.

Don

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: frogprince
Date: 12 Mar 06 - 11:00 PM

Caught an episode of "Gunsmoke" a few months back that I hadn't seen back when. The series was set just after the civil war. A crusty old gal came riding a buckboard across the Kansas plain, singing "Strawberry Roan", which Curley Fletcher wrote somewhere around 1913.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 04:45 AM

I saw a display ad for the new Harry Potter movie today. I said to my husband, "It's time to get a new actor to play Harry Potter. It looks the director has to halt the action from time to time because the eleven-year-old hero has five o'clock shadow."

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Cod Fiddler
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 07:32 AM

There's a lovely oversight in the first Zorro film where, in the big scene at the mine, a boiler tank reaches crisis pressure. The needle on the pressure gauge is shown going into the red and the scale reads in kg/cm squared.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 07:35 AM

In Ivanhoe (set circa 1100) , the hero wanders around playing a Renaissance lute (which at one point he breaks over a soldier's head for no reason, as if something so expensive would be gaily smashed).   The soundtrack also plays authentic medieval music from about 1400. Meanwhile, everyone in the film wears synthetic colours that were invented circa 1900. But once you start on a film like Ivanhoe, you never stop.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 07:42 AM

This afternoon saw on Bris31 (I think they bought the DVD!) the Lone Ranger 'movie' which has the same footage as the 'film serial' version. I now know what "Kemo Sabe" means! :-) No guitars though...

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 07:48 AM

I vaguely recall seeing Cash making a guest appearance in Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman,/i>, during which he used a Shubb capo.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 08:59 AM

Re the Titanic, no, helms on large ships are not tillers. They turn to starb'd if you are trying to point the bow to starb'd.

But if the helm command had been preceded by "All astern flank", the helmsman might be thinking outside the box and taking the intended reverse motion of the ship into account. That's not normally what a helmsman does -- he puts the helm to starboard on a starboard command regardless of engines. But hey, it was an emergency and maybe he was rattled. Despite the engines, the vessel had forward way on, and would have responded accordingly if at all.


A

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: pavane
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 10:37 AM

And I mentioned in another thread that the TV series POLDARK showed a market scene in 1796 in Penzance (Cornwall, UK) with someone playing Jenny Lind on a melodeon.

PS who was that musician - anyone know?

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: Scoville
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 10:47 AM

I'm with Jeremiah on this one. I see the anachronisms and they either drive me nuts or strike me as hilarious, but I keep my mouth shut until I'm around people who are like-minded. My friends don't really care, so why spoil the movie? My brother cares very, very, much, so he and I can kvetch about it all we want without worrying about hurting somebody's feelings. I was afraid he and his reenactor buddies wouldn't survive when the PBS Civil War thing came on and suddenly everyone was humming that good old Civil War tune, "Ashokan Farewell". You want to piss off a Civil War musician? Request that. It's possibly more dangerous than asking a roots bluegrass man for "Rocky Top".

I've seen enough old Westerns with women in teased bangs, Gunne Sax, or even pants, to let a lot of it go unless I see somebody who is actually in danger of trying to use the movie for research.

Subject: RE: guitar anachronisms
From: John Hardly
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 11:06 AM

Well, of course you'd expect Ivanhoe lute-smashing (a la John Belushi/Stephen Bishop) what with cheap Pac Rim lutes glutting the lute market. Just another laminate Yamaha or Takamine lute anyway. Nothing to lose sleep over.

Probably bought the thing a SamAsh Lutes.