MovieChat Forums > Local Hero (1983) Discussion > Worst Portrayal Of Stone Skimming In Cin...

Worst Portrayal Of Stone Skimming In Cinematic History

posted 9 months ago by FootOfDavros (7303)
4 replies | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong, I love this film - definitely in my all time top ten - but the stone skimming scene is an absolute disgrace.

Mac and Oldsen are (incredibly poorly) supposedly skimming stones into the ocean. "I got six" Oldsen says. "Ten!" Mac replies. Yet only, right behind them, we can see pretty fierce waves crashing down on to the beach!

Now, skimming stones into the ocean is not an impossibility in itself. Done it myself on several occasions. However it requires the gentlest of waves, probably with a retreating tide. You cannot skim them into crashing waves, like those seen, and get more than two or three at most.

Their claims of six / ten are absolutely ridiculous. Even more so because I think, in part at least, the scene is supposed to be layering Mac's character slightly by showing him respond to Oldsen's score with an exaggerated ten. However, this is absolutely lost on us viewers as we know from the framing of the picture that what they are saying could not have occurred full stop. Thus we, as the viewers, have to let it slide, conscious in the fact that the filming location is wrong and thus losing that context.

Given this loss to Mac's characterisation, I think we have to chalk this up to very poor direction in an otherwise magnificent film.

Furthermore - again this has to be put down to poor directing - the final shot should not have been allowed to stand due to Peter Capaldi's awful acting!

If you watch him literally "chucking" his stone towards the water, his body bouncing up and down / all over the place as he does so, it seems quite clear he has never skimmed a stone in his life before!

Or alternatively, at "best" he is acting as someone who has never skimmed a stone in his life before. However, this brings its own set of problems because it would mean that Forsyth has allowed a scene showing the innocent, pure counter to Mac, Oldsen to be claiming an impossibility to stand and most likely means that Mr Forsyth himself has never skimmed a stone in his life before.

Given this is clearly not the intent, again it's a further nod towards the bad direction of the scene.

[–] SOteric (139) 9 months ago

I have a sneaking suspicion that you are really avortac4. Only he/she/they would devote so many words to something so insubstantial to one of the best movies of that entire decade!

[–] FootOfDavros (7303) 9 months ago

Ha ha! Funnily enough, I started thinking of this thread:-
https://moviechat.org/tt0088763/Back-to-the-Future/650f2b62af0fbd150e20c977/The-Alarm-Clock-makes-no-sense

among many on that board, as I was writing the OP and I realised it was starting to get long, on a subject which many would see as inconsequential!

But no, I'm not them - and I still think it's very poorly done and not really insubstantial for the reason given - namely, that the flaw removes the scene's purpose.

[–] SoaringhighPV (7) 4 months ago

As you can tell, I'm constantly checking this forum for Local Hero chat. Well, 5 months isn't long in the history of the movie and news doesn't always travel fast round here.

It's almost impossible to criticise one of the best films ever made but I have to agree there are one or two, largely inconsequential, issues which do sort of slightly grate, great as it is as a complete creation. The stone skimming scene: I also have always felt it's not the best moment, both down to the sea state being completely non-conducive to stone skimming but also the unwieldy manner in which both chaps are making their attempts. Having just reviewed the scene again (not that I really needed to) the sea isn't impossible for stone skimming but extremely unsatisfactory for an amateur. I disagree though that it's wrong. It's hard to keep your balance on that type of foreshore. But it's just another quirk, I bet there's a story behind it, though if so it's not in the book. I wonder how many portrayals of stone skimming exist in cinematic history.

Anyway the stone skimming, I'm sure we'd all agree, takes absolutely nothing from the magic of the movie. As Iain Smith quoted a quote in Jonathan Melville's book: “When you make a movie it’s a movie. If they’re still talking about it in ten years’ time, it’s a film. If they’re still talking about it in fifty years’ time, it’s cinema.” OK, so we’re only at forty-one but that’s quite clearly already the case for Local Hero.

[–] FootOfDavros (7303) 4 months ago

That's a nice quote.

I wonder how many portrayals of stone skimming exist in cinematic history.

Ha! I guess I was being facetious there but I'm not sure. There must be at least one or two others but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Anyway, yes - The stone skimming certainly doesn't take away from the magic of this movie.

Was just looking at the other threads on here and it seems it was over a year ago since you were visiting some of the sites.

Unfortunately we had to postpone our own trip to Pennan. FootOfDavros Jnr has learned the Local Hero theme on bagpipes (!) and we were all set for a couple of days, visiting the Moray Firth and Pennan, where we were going to film a solo bagpipe rendition by the phone box! But I think this was last October / November and the entire North East was basically shut off access-wise due to storms...