Grim Forecasts = Happy Filming for “The Road”

If you’re a fan of nature and it’s bleakest, “The Road” is the movie for you! 

Interesting little article in Sunday’s New York Post about filming “The Road,” the adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy book which opens on Wednesday. The main idea is that while most movies pray for good weather while shooting outside, “The Road” crew was basically hoping for the worst conditions possible. In other words, if you’re already tired of gray skies and winter, this movie is not for you.

Viggo Mortensen, who stars in the movie, describes what they wanted:

“We needed it to look grim and do a lot of [the atmosphere] in camera, as opposed to a lot of other movies that rely on special effects for that kind of thing…We had to count on the sky and everything looking right. We had mostly miserable, freezing, snowy weather, so we were lucky.”

The article also talks about how they looked for basically the worst, ugliest locations they could find to recreate the post-apocalypse world of the movie–places like Mt. St. Helena, post-Katrina New Orleans, and, um, Pennsylvania. To quote:

Much of “The Road” was shot in Pennsylvania, chosen, in part, for its wealth of dreary locales. (You won’t be hearing that message from the state tourism board.) Director John Hillcoat filmed in old coal fields, a burned-down amusement park and, perhaps bleakest of all, Pittsburgh.

You can’t argue with the old coal fields part, but I must wonder a little about Pittsburgh; I’ve always heard it’s a lovely city.

Anyway, you can read the whole article here. Again, “The Road” opens this week, and if you think that it doesn’t sound like a holiday movie, well, Viggo disagrees:

“There is something uplifting and spiritual about this story without being heavy-handed in any way. It seems appropriate as you’re getting towards Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

Indeed. Always listen to Viggo.