Romantic Film Locations Blog

One of the reasons I got interested in Romantic Film Locations was all of those wonderful Jane Austen adaptations of the 1990s. I loved the films so much that I wanted to watch them over and over, dissect every scene, and find all of the gorgeous locations. This was the early days of the Internet for me, but I found many like-minded folks at a website called The Republic of Pemberley. I can’t believe that the site is still going! Clearly there are a lot of new Jane Austen film fans who can’t get enough of Colin Firth’s Darcy “look” and discussions about who was a better Knightley (Mark Strong or Jeremy Northam).

So if you are Austen inclined, put on your best web manners and browse around the postings at Pemberley. You’re bound to be all astonishment or at least excessively diverted!

If you haven’t already seen it, the excellent Film London website is chock full of good film location information. There are even movie maps for Bridget Jones’s Diary and Love Actually that you can print and take with you on your travels to London. Each month they feature a great movie location which will inspire you to dust off your passport and get those plane reservations made.

In other news, I rewatched Joe Versus the Volcano for the umpteenth time this week. I swear the beginning of that film is life changing. Again, here is an example of using monochromatic sets and costumes to an advantage. Joe works in an industrial plant office with faulty fluorescent lighting and bad coffee. His suit is dull gray, his desk is gray, the walls are gloomy gray and everyone looks slightly green around the gills. Then in the privacy of his corner of the office, Joe takes a lamp out of the filing cabinet and plugs it in. The lamp bulb glows with amber light and illuminates the colorful rotating shade. The shade depicts a tropical island paradise. Joe stares at it fascinated.

I love those moments of pleasure… don’t you?

Alfonso Cuaron is an award winning Mexican director who helmed one of my favorite movies – A Little Princess – and is responsible for other cinematic delights such as Great Expectations with Gwyneth and the third Potter film (and in my opinion the finest). Not to mention Y Tu Mama Tambien!

Cuaron is well known for his use of the color green in his films, partly because the color green can be lit with either warm or cool undertones. In A Little Princess, he blends different shades of green to color everything from costumes to buildings giving the whole film a lush, fairytale-like palette. Every so often the green gets broken up by a bold color like burnt orange or lemon yellow similar to the way Jean-Pierre Jeunet used red to break up his greenish tinged fable Amelie (another of my favorites – maybe I like green films?)

Since A Little Princess was not a romantic film per se (although one could argue that the presence of handsome Irish actor Liam Cunningham does get the heart beating a bit faster), I won’t be profiling it on this site. But as it is one of my favorite films I will tell you that it was shot mostly on Hollywood sets with a foray into India for some establishing shots.

The screenplay was adapted by Richard LaGravenese who has written a slew of brilliant scripts including The Ref, The Fisher King, and Living Out Loud (with Holly Hunter).  I wouldn’t say that A Little Princess had a brilliant script but it works because ultimately it’s a childrens film

The great Patrick Doyle scored the film (soundtrack available at Amazon) with my favorite tracks being those influenced by baroque composer Michael Hyden especially in the WWI sequences. For more on Patrick Doyle visit this nicely put together fan site.

Hello and welcome to the Romantic Film Locations blog. I have always been interested in film locations but I could probably trace it back to seeing the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Gorgeous operative Barbara Bach slinking around Egypt in that fabulous evening gown? Yep, that’s who I wanted to be.

Since then I’ve turned my sights toward Western Europe… and England specifically. My desire fueled by the Jane Austen adaptations of the mid-nineties with their lush landscapes and stately homes

I hope you will forgive the site not being completely ready – it is a work in progress. Do check back often as I have plenty more to say on the subject.