A Good Geology Movie
2009 January 6
There are plenty of movies that come out of Hollywood that we consider atrocious because of their geology related story lines. However, what would you consider to be a good geology movie?
I have one for you. And it may seem like it’s out of left field.
The Shawshank Redemption.
While geology is only discussed a few times in the film, it becomes a key piece to the underlying story – starting with Andy receiving the rock hammer. And maybe that’s why it’s such a good geology movie – because it really isn’t about geology.
Anyway, if you have never seen it, I recommend that you check it out! Here is the trailer.
You can read more about it on Wikipedia (warning – contains spoilers!).
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- Don’t Mess With a Rock Hammer [Offbeat News]
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- Conan O’Brien on the Phases of Boron
(Spoiler Alert!) That movie has two of my favorite geology quotes:
“Promise me, Red. If you ever get out, find that spot. In the base of that wall you’ll find a rock that had no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. A piece of black, volcanic glass. There’s something buried under it that I want you to have.”
“All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock-hammer damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall with it. Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved geology. I imagine it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, a million years there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes, really. Pressure and time. That and a big goddamn poster. Like I said. In prison, a man’ll do most anything to keep his mind occupied. It turns out Andy’s favorite hobby was totin’ his wall out into the exercise yard a handful at a time.”
I have another favorite movie quote, from “A River Runs Through It”:
“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. ”
At first, the author being the son of a preacher, I assumed the he was speaking of Noah’s Flood, but reading the original book I found to my surprise that the quote refers to the Ice Age Spokane floods.
Great quotes! I didn’t know about the reference to the Pleistocene floods – that would be the Scablands? One of my overall favorite movies.
Yes, the Scablands. It was such a surprise from a book about religious themes; another memorable quote was to the effect that their family were “Methodists, that is Baptists who read”
Yes, Shawshank is a great movie. Does anyone know how much of the dialogue comes from the Stephen King book and how much was just in the movie?
Speaking of movies with geology themes that don’t always make the standard list is my all-time favorite, Breaking Away. Of course, the central focus is building stone, specifically the Salem Limestone, the most commonly used building stone in the United States. And the book also features another favorite subject of mine –biking. In my upcoming book on building stone, I devote an entire chapter to the Salem.
David, the Salem Limestone and Breaking Away sounds like a blog post – if you haven’t done it already. I looked on your blog and didn’t find anything about it under a “movie” word search.