The Shipping News

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle meets Petal for the first time she gets into his car totally drenched. A bit later they stop for something to eat, and Petal's hair is completely dry. (00:04:40)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle and Bunny sit at the table in their yard talking about life and death, there is no space between their bodies. In one shot one can see their backs as a reflection in the window, with a gap of about 10 inches between them. (00:16:00)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle and Pretty come back from the car accident they drive by Wavey and her son walking on the roadside. While they are driving a housing area is passing by as background. Only the two shots that show Wavey and her son are taken in an open area next to a little graveyard, but no houses. (00:32:35)

NancyFelix

Revealing mistake: When the Quoyle ancestors pull the house across the ice the four ropes are hanging loose in spite of the strong pull one should need to move a whole house. Not to mention that the whole idea of getting a house down the cliffs in one piece, pulling it across the ice and lugging it up another cliff requires some strong imagination. (00:28:50)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle talks to Agnis when she is reading sitting on the cliffs the rock she is leaning against changes from shot to shot. In the last shot from a distance she is sitting not leaning against anything. (00:45:50)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When the protagonists fly kites on the cliffs Bunny is wearing red shoes. When they come back her shoes are grey. (00:55:45)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle and Petal sit in the restaurant she reaches for his hand. There is some juice on the table which in different shots is first totally still, then shaking wildly as if someone had hit a table leg, then still again, all within one or two seconds. (00:05:15)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle is at the window and his aunt is in the rocking chair (her cover shot), in alternating shots, the aunt has her chin resting on her hand and is looking over Quoyle's left shoulder, then looking over his right shoulder without her hand. (01:01:40)

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle, Agnis, and Bunny come to their Newfoundland house they have to leave the car at quite a distance because of the snow. When you see them arriving at the house on foot the car is parked much closer than in the previous shot. (00:19:30)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When the Quoyle house gets blown away by the storm all 2nd floor windows are open. In the next, closer shot the windows are closed. (01:34:20)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle gets fired by Card he storms out of the office, not listening any more to what Card has to say. He pushes open a swing door, then the camera is on the abusing Card for quite a while, and when it's back on Quoyle he has only reached the main door that is just a few meters away from the swing door. (01:05:10)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: After Quoyle is done recovering from his boating accident, he gets out of bed and his hand wrapped in a large, thick bandage. Then he turns around and walks through a door and his hand is no longer bandaged; in fact he doesn't even wear a bandage for the rest of the movie, even though his hand had a serious cut from the boat motor.

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle capsizes his boat, after reacting to the sight of the headless corpse, he swims over to a cooler that is floating a few yards away. As the camera pans back, showing a helpless Quoyle floating in the ocean, there is no sign of the corpse in the shot. (01:10:40)

Continuity mistake: When the protagonists come back to have a look at the remains of the house there is still a lot of rubble. When the camera moves back and you see the whole cliff one can still see the people but no more trace of the house. (01:41:35)

NancyFelix

Continuity mistake: When Quoyle meets Wavey the second time he ses her walking next to a huge black rock. When he stops the car there is no rock whatsoever but a street junction. In the next shots you see the rocks behind Wavey again. (00:44:00)

NancyFelix

Billy: It's women that's shaped like leaves, and men fall.

More quotes from The Shipping News

Trivia: When Quoyle shows his aunt and her assistant the front page of the paper he has just started to work for, his aunt says, when she sees the picture of a large yacht with all the sails up, "They took off without paying us for all the work we did." The assistant says, "When you find them and write about it, you can get the Pulitzer." The author of the book, E. Annie Proulx, actually got a Pulitzer for the book, "The Shipping News."

kh1616

More trivia for The Shipping News

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