Rufus Stone the movie: Trivia

A compiliation of trivia from 

the making of Rufus Stone the movie. 

The 'mirroring' by the two younger characters of their older counterparts was conceived after the Exec Producer shared a pas de deux from Petit's Proust ballet with the film's director. The swimming scene in Rufus was also partly based on this ballet.

 

Stephane Bullion - Florian Magnenet - Morel - Saint-Loup ou le combat des angeswww.youtube.com 

"Morel et Saint-Loup ou le combat des anges" interprété par Stéphane Bullion et Florian Magnenet Extrait de "Proust ou les intermittences du coeur" ...

       'Abigail', the young tattle-tale in Rufus was named after another scandalmonger, 'Abigail', from 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller.

Martha Myers-Lowe (above) who plays Abigail in Rufus Stone also played Ian Curtis' sister in the film about the band Joy Division, 'Control'.

        Flip's line, "I'm not sure if the place is ready to receive 'gentlemen callers'" is an homage to Tennessee Williams. 

  

       The name 'Rufus Stone' was chosen for the film and the character after months of ruminating. The author saw a sign for "Rufus Stone" in the New Forest and remarked: 'That sounds just like a character in a Thomas Hardy novel!'

 

      The name 'Flip' is short for 'Philippe'. In the back story, Flip's mother ,who married a farmer, was from the nearby town and put on 'airs'. She gave her boys French names, which bullying quickly shortened.

    Rufus' hands in the opening close-up are actually those of boom operator, Dan Rhodes, who stood in for the shot.

 

   

             The film was shot over five days in July with a cast and crew of more than 45 people in eight locations in rural Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.


It was director Haneke's comment about 'The White Ribbon' that partly inspired the story behind Rufus Stone: "‘It’s very simple to get a cross section of society within a village; you get a microcosm of the social macrocosm’.

        Rufus Stone was shot entirely on the Arri Alexa digital camera. "ARRI is to filmmaking, cameras and lenses, what the Mercedes is to the automobile".

The biggest thrill of the shoot for Exec Producer Kip Jones was watching the 'fire starter' at work. Jones had some problems with playing with matches as a child, he admits. 

       Discussions between Director Josh Appignanesi and Exec Producer/Writer Kip Jones began in 2006. It took more than two years to raise the funding and four years to complete the research, before the writing for the script of Rufus Stone began.

Watch the film here